Yep. It's the main reason I don't do dress making anymore. Woman are nasty when it comes to clothes! If it doesn't look on them like it looks in the magazine or on the pattern picture, they blame you!
I don't have the same problem with jewellery because I don't make work according to the customer's designs, they buy what I make or not. I don't do repairs or alterations for the same reason. I'm not arrogant, I just prefer a peaceful life! Marisa (AU/NZ)
Good! This is one message that women in general frequently need to unlearn. As the song says,
"It's all right now, I've learned my lesson well. You know, you can't please everyone, So you've got to please yourself."
Celine
Take a class. Realistically, one good class and some reading and practice will get you up to speed in no time. It's not all that hard. Once you learn how to cut glass, operate a soldering iron and work lead and/or copper foil, you basically have it. Everything else is just details. I've done it since '85 and it has gotten to the point where by the time I have a pattern drawn and the glass picked out, I know what it will look like. Then it just the drudgery of cutting and assembling.
The song you quoted was written by a man [Rick(y) Nelson]. This is not a gender-specific issue. Deciding where to draw the line between the expectations of others and our own desires is a struggle each individual must make.
That's true, and I'm sorry if I made it sound as though this only applied to women. It is also true, however, that women are subject to *much* more social pressure to put their own wants and needs last than men are.
Celine
That's where I got to feeling this way the most too--dressmaking. I did weddings and special costume type stuff for a while, thinking it less filled with angst than theater costuming...HAW!!!, as Sooz would say. There's not enough money to make me deal with brides and their moms ever again.
Obligatory Bead Note-- adding pearls to the puffy short sleeves of a pouffy dress specially made for a woman who is 5ft. tall and 300lbs. WILL NOT MAKE HER LOOK THIN!!!!!! Don't even try.... Sarajane
Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery
ROFL - you got that right!!! I did some custom sewing and beading work for the bridal department of the fabric store I used to work in several years back. Not fun. Not even remotely fun. Brides are usually okay, but the moms are a nightmare!! Anyone who's the mother of a bride who is reading this post - please go easy on those service people. Puhleeeeeze! :)
I don't do custom painting at all. If a customer asks me if I will paint "fill in the blank" I say that I don't do requests. Most ask if I am a "real" artist. My answer is "yes I am a real artist and I have that temperament. I don't do anything that I don't like."
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "mkahogan" :
]I don't like having that censor sitting on my ]shoulder asking me if the client will like it. The only thing I want to ]think about is whether I like it. ] ]can any of you relate to this?
i sure can - - but it's still most of the work i get, for now. "oh, i like those, but do you have any in [fitb] color?"
i agonize over them, but it keeps the work coming in. and really, i like to try to get the dreamcatchers fit the person they are made for.
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from snipped-for-privacy@mindCHEMISEspring.com (Lee S. Billings) :
]"It's all right now, ] I've learned my lesson well. ] You know, you can't please everyone, ] So you've got to please yourself."
and the circumstances that caused him to write it!
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from snipped-for-privacy@aol.combuybeads (BeckiBead) :
]Actually, this is why I don't repeat my designs. I like making it once. ]Making the same thing more than once is WORK. Not fun.
BINGO!
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
So I do a book or a how to, get it all out of the way, and I don't have to do those again.
The absolute worst for me was making cute christmas ornaments for years---before PC, I made them out of bread dough dipped in polyurethane. REALLY cute. ( I don't DO cute, usually) They always sold very well. Affordable materials even on food stamps... And I made then every year for many years---it was the only Christmas money some years. I got to where I was getting hypoglycemic just looking at them and swearing under my breath "%^# eye won't stick, %&^* string!!!!" as I worked, and it had to stop. So, I don't make those any more. No kitties, no bears, no elephinks....I did put them in latest book, because they are cute and easy, and people like 'em. But I don't make them in bulk every year and never will again!!!! bwahahahahahah! Sarajane
Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery
I am reminded of a story about a man who went to a tropical island and found a carved Tiki he admired very much. His desire was to have 50 of them carved to put in his resturant. He approached the carver and asked his price. The carver said, $5.00 for the first one, the other will be $25.00 each. The man was stunned. He asked, why so much for the others ... the carver replied, the first one is fun, the rest are work. I have asked a friend to do some custom work for me. She has the focal bead, provided by me, and the knowledge that the recipient of this peice loves all hues of blue.. and has metal allergys. Any more directions and I would feel like I was telling Leonardo how to paint the mona lisa! Diana
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from snipped-for-privacy@aol.comeatspam (Sjpolyclay) :
]The absolute worst for me was making cute christmas ornaments for ]years---before PC, I made them out of bread dough dipped in polyurethane. ]REALLY cute. ( I don't DO cute, usually) They always sold very well. Affordable ]materials even on food stamps...
yep - that's how i got started on the dreamcatchers and my beaded Christmas ornaments.
]And I made then every year for many years---it was the only Christmas money ]some years. I got to where I was getting hypoglycemic just looking at them and ]swearing under my breath "%^# eye won't stick, %&^* string!!!!" as I worked, ]and it had to stop. So, I don't make those any more. No kitties, no bears, no ]elephinks....I did put them in latest book, because they are cute and easy, and ]people like 'em. But I don't make them in bulk every year and never will ]again!!!! bwahahahahahah!
well, see, [hanging head] i do still do them - i just don't market them much anymore. especially the Christmas Angels. because now i want to make them out of glass, not plastic. i just have to find all the right glass beads. i quit, because i couldn't keep up and do anything ELSE. and there's so much ELSE i want to do. like PMC. and soldering. and more wire. and. and. and.
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Diana Curtis" :
]the carver replied, ]the first one is fun, the rest are work.
EXACTLY!
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
I can see that, and mostly it's the way I feel. Once I've done a design, I want to move on to the next thing.
There are some exceptions, though. I have a bunch of "sitting cat" pressed glass beads in different colors, which I use to make quick-and-easy bracelets and earrings with 8mm stone beads. They take a few minutes apiece and they sell about as fast as I make them (I try to keep 2 or 3 color combinations on hand), so I consider them worth the effort. I suspect that my "rainbow wave" bracelet with fiber-optic beads will also fall into that category, but I haven't had it in the line long enough to be sure.
Celine
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from snipped-for-privacy@mindCHEMISEspring.com (Lee S. Billings) :
]Once I've done a design, I want ]to move on to the next thing. ] ]There are some exceptions, though.
i keep coming up with new color combinations/variations for my "Jamie designed" bracelet, to keep it fresh. and because i sell so many of them. and, the dreamcatchers are infinitely variable. trying to convince people that "no, it won't be exactly like that - i don't do it that way" is sometimes harder than others, tho.
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
Actually, I really like to do custom orders.
It makes me feel good to think of the person I am making it for. Even if they are someone I don't know, they pick the size and color or whatever that they want. I know I am making something that someone will really like. Usually they have been gifts for other people... I know that I personally like to give something "just right" as a gift, and it makes me happy to think that I am (hopefully) creating something "just right" for them to give to someone. The people I have made them for have almost always been happy with the gifts. I bunch of custom pieces I did for my mom to give as gifts for the Morton Arboretum Botanical Artists Guild went over very well, and lead to the arangement I have with a nature-inspired-only art gallery. I am pretty sure that most of the higher-end pieces I sold there were to members of the Artist Guild. So, this was a great advertisement for me... probably even more so because each piece was made to be in the taste of the reciever.
Of course, since I don't sell much in general, custom pieces also give me a guarenteed sale, which is nice. People are often willing to pay more for them and it allows me to get nicer materials (I still get to keep the pictures !). Best of all, I get more of a feel for what people would really like. Since I don't wear jewelry myself, it is hard for me to only make what I would wear myself. (I still don't make things I think are ugly, or with materials I wouldn't otherwise use, since I try to buy in bulk).
marisa2
On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 11:28:04 -0600, "Diana Curtis" wrote: Very nice story and I will be back to put in an order. LOL JUST KIDDING! Harry
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