What if You Threw a Party and No One Came?

Well okay, that didn't hurt... much...

AKA, what if you ran a contest and no one entered??

Yes, that's essentially what happened.

What can I say? It seemed like a good idea at the time, but maybe for a number of reasons, it turned out not to be the case. Lesson learned; okay, I'm good with it. Should have known not to try to kill two birds with one stone. ('Cause I tell my hubby that all the time!)

So what am I babbling about? A few weeks ago, I thought it would be neat to give away a couple of my Hot Hues Convertible Crossbody Fooler Bag patterns to a couple of crafters who could best capture the essence of the design. That is, they would submit a photo of what fabric they would use to make the bag with its different flaps. Today was supposed to be the day that the winners would be announced. In hindsight, I probably should have realized that it was an overly ambitious undertaking for a little contest, particularly within the timeframe that I set. (Could I have extended the deadline? Yes, but that outcome had the potential of being even more crushing, if you know what I mean.) Someone actually said that she would have entered but did not have enough time to consider what fabrics she would use to craft the bag, given the deadline.

Oops. Or, in the vernacular of Homer Simpson, d'oh! (Why is that spelled with an apostrophe? Is it in fact "de oh"? Now I'm really babbling...)

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Obviously, my misguided intention was to combine a giveaway with a takeaway, so to speak. It was self-serving to expect that others would have the time to think of all this before entering a simple contest; the prize for which is not a car, a holiday, or even a ten dollar bill. But no harm, no foul. Just one of those proverbial curve balls that fate sometimes throws to keep me honest, level-headed and not expecting more than I deserve.

Right. Got it.

But life is pretty much an equal opportunity employer. Things tend to even themselves out in the long run and sometimes, even in the short run. So while one part of life was knocking a few notches off my ego with this party where no one showed up, another part gave me a significant boost via an invite from one of the editors at AllFreeSewing.com. Would I be interested in having my profile included in their list of Sewing Designers?

Really? Way cool.

The first day my profile went up, I was #7 on the Designer Hot List. The lofty positioning did not last, of course, but it went a long way in taking the sting out of the original debacle... ;-)