And why I have been AWOL for a while... Larissa will confirm the Wombat Alert status!
Nowt serious, just lots of STUFF getting in the way! No quiltilng, alas, but there are several projects on the go:
Wedding dress based on McCalls costume pattern 155
Issey Myaki skirt out of silk dupion, to go with all the bitter chocolate stuff I made for the same client before Christmas...
Older New Look 'garden dresses (3) to make for elderly granny to flop round house and garden in our horrid heat threatened this summer.
Toile for Simplicity frock the same as the burgundy beaded one on my site to see if new client wanted that one or...
Vogue 2799 multi-layered and multicoloured frock in silk chiffon: MoG project for August. Lots of alterations to the style of this one, but the basic shape was right...
Friday: A fairly typical day this week - and for a couple others recently!
I got up at seven and got James ready for his bus at eight...
I was about to start on my pile of sewing stuff stuff when Alan piped up: Aren't you supposed to be at the hospital for a pain management appointment at 9:15?
Err... Yes! PAAAANIC!
Rapidly flung on some clothes and sewed up one of the two remaining layers of Vogue frock toile! Gathered up skirt, needles, thread and scissors and shoved then in bag... Ping off walls for 10 minutes while Alan deals with call from work, where HIS collection of wombats are doing headless chicken impressions... Went off to pain management clinic, which was useful and informative, and has given me the name of a new (to me) drug that might help with the present fibro grumbles. Need to make appointment with nice Dutch quack on Monday. Got home and finished off skirt. Friend has date after work, so no swimming... Made lunch. Finished off layered toile: looks a bit bridal at this stage, being made out of white curtain voile! Press skirt. Take photos of finished skirt and frock toile. Skirt customer arrives for cuppa, natter, try-on, and pick-up. We like a good gossip! :) Customer delighted with yummy skirt! Frock customer arrives. I don't usually do such close appointments, but I knew the first one would love the skirt, and it would give the frock customer a chance to see what I can really do. :) More tea and natter! Skirt customer goes. Frock customer, her partner and I go through frock colours again, and we ring Henry Bertrand about prices as I have a feeling that for one of the colours it might be cheaper to get a 10m length at the next price band than buy 9.5m... This opens whole new bag of wombat stuff!
It turns out that:
1: I have been quoted a wrong price. The stuff we want is £15.59 for cuts UNDER 3m, £11.99 for cuts from 3-10m, and £8.99 for cuts OVER 10m. The only price I had been given was 11.99, but I remembered getting silk from them cheaper for a 10m length last year, so...2: One colour that we wanted only came in a wider width, so was more expensive...
3: one colour was no longer available, and hadn't been for a while, so why had they sent me the swatch for it???4: Two colours were miss-labelled, so when I first asked about yardage availability, they were talking about a different colour from the one WE were talking about! Luckily the customer's partner spotted this when we looked back at the shade cards...
I'd spent HOURS with Alan, laying out the pattern pieces and working out the yardage for each colour, and then working out the prices, and it was all for nothing! At least the customer was nice and knew it wasn't MY error, but it does mean they are spending more on fabric than anticipated! GRR! ARGH!
As they had made a balls-up and were anxious to put it right, I persuaded HB to hold enough of the colours we DO want from them for 3 weeks, as the customer is off to parts foreign for a fortnight, so won't be here when the new swatches for alternate colours arrive! They will usually only hold for 2 weeks, so I won that point!
I did find some replacement colours from another supplier, but their price was £21.67 or something for anything less than 25m! This is the difference between buying from a manufacturer and dyer and buying retail! Mind you, all these prices are ex VAT, and there will be postage: add postage for each parcel and then 17.5% and you get a true picture of the amount being spent on fabric! This ain't no cheap frock!
In the middle of all this, friend rings up: date has gone pear-shaped, she'd like to rescue the swimming! OK... Now I'm swimming again (goody!), but have to think up dinner for 4 not 3, and we haven't done the grocery shopping...
Finally manage to fit frock on customer and sketch in style changes and pin in fitting changes (very minor! Yay!). Next fitting appointment fixed for 14th May.
This will give me time next week to do the changes, plus the rest of next week's sewing work, prepare for guests next weekend (means clearing sewing room! ERK!!), and clear the landing and hall of sewing machines, books, and other tat ready for the decorators to come and redo the hall after October's inundation by rain. This is good, as the hall will all be done by the time the frock customer gets here again. I can't cut wedding stuff or have customers here, OR do any sewing while two large chaps and a pile of scaffolding fill the stairwell!
The good thing at the end of the day: I did manage 50 lengths of the pool, and dinner (flung together out of what we had!) was both tasty and Weight Watcher friendly! And this morning I managed a lie-in until 8 am! :D
I've had to reschedule appointments due to customer ceilings falling on them, work hitting them with grievance procedure (colleagues, not the customer, but she had to field the mess!), fit in brides and grannies and mother of groom, and get some personal stuff done for our summer celebration. I'm trying to fit washing, hoovering and cooking in round the edges, and next weekend I have guests... The following week the decorators are in to do the hall and stairs after a minor flood wreaked the wallpaper (it gone streaky and is falling off!), so there will be no possibility of sewing then...
Just breathe... ;)