Tag: special order

Special Order

Be careful of what you ask for, or what you agree to.

I had most of my bookmarks on a board for display at the craft show a few weeks ago.  A lady looked them over and requested two of the same pattern, one in Oklahoma State colors and one in Bethel College colors.  She wasn’t in a big rush but would like them before Christmas.  I said “sure, no problem!”

Bethel College is a local college whose colors are maroon and grey.  I’m thinking that shouldn’t be much of a problem.  I didn’t have a clue what the colors are for Oklahoma State University until the buyer told me but I didn’t think it should be that hard to find them.  For Bethel I planned on going to the school store and checking out the colors; for OSU I thought I’d check on-line or maybe a sports store.

On-line I found that OSU’s colors are orange, light orange, silver and black.  No, that’s OSU orange, OSU light orange, OSU silver and black.  On their website they tell you specifically the colors and how to achieve them when printing. Oh. My. 

Surprisingly, Lizbeth #695 Bright Orange comes pretty close to OSU orange – at least as far as my uneducated eye can see.  So I made one bookmark in Black and Bright Orange.  We’ll find out if the buyer thinks it is close or not.

Bookmark in Fall Colors © Wanda Salmans 1999, 2014
The bookmark pattern is mine.  I originally called it “Bookmark in Fall Colors” because it was made in – wait for it – fall colors.  I didn’t have anyone to share it with back then so the name was an identifier just for me.  I posted about it here and included a written out version of the pattern.  Someday I hope to diagram it and post it a little more formally.
Update – pattern added to My Patterns tab 1/6/15
I thought the maroon and grey of Bethel College would be easier to match but I was wrong.  I didn’t have anything that really worked for maroon in my thread stash and I couldn’t find any thread locally that would work, either.  I did find sewing thread in maroon – actually labeled ‘maroon’ – that was a match to the school colors but I did not want to work in thread that small!  
So I made an order to Handy Hands for several shades of thread that I didn’t have that I thought might come close.  Such hardship to have to order thread but I forced myself ☺.  I bought three new balls of thread, #672 Burgundy, #673 Terra Cotta and #674 Garnet Dk, all in size 20.

The Burgundy turned out to be the closest of the colors.  The hat is from the school store so it must be the accepted color, right?  The spool of thread is the maroon I found at the store, regular sewing thread, and the ball is the Burgundy.  It is still a little bright but as close as I’m going to find any time soon I think.  I have started the bookmark in Burgundy and silver – okay, it should be grey but I think it will work.

I took a special order without asking enough questions and agreed without knowing enough!  And now I’m worried that I should have done the bookmarks in one color instead of two – the one at the show was one color.  I guess I should call the buyer and ask.  Or maybe make one of each in two colors and one of each in a single color and let the buyer choose????

I sure hope they like them!


“The most successful people are those who are good at Plan B.”
James Yorke




I am not affiliated with either OSU or Bethel, I was given no compensation for mentioning them or linking to them.