I've been pecking away at a list of kitchen redecorating tasks for a month now. I started out re-tiling the floor and over the last few days I painted the counter tops.
Remember back when we first moved in to our fixer-upper and I took drywall compound and did a faux-stucco finish on the living room walls? I told sister Erin about it and explained that the look was "faux-stucco," and she replied in her oh-so-casual tone, "Oh, you mean 'fucco.'"
She has a brilliant way with words, that one.
Anyway, for my counter tops, which were 70s pea-green, I decided to do another faux finish and paint them to look like black marble. If I use Erin's logic to name this procedure, it would be called 'farbling,' short for faux marbling.
I'm pleased with the results, and as soon as I have a few free minutes, I'll post some pictures of the finished product. Right now I have eventy suits of ruffs that need to ship by tomorrow.
I've got this fantastic new embroidery machine and a stack of black tee-shirts on which to embroider cool things. I've visited a dozen online shops that sell embroidery designs, yet I find myself searching for "ANYTHING THAT IS NOT LAME."
I'm not a 'cute, fluffy bunnies on-my-chest' kind of gal. Can anyone recommend some embroidery shops that sell designs a little more on the edge and punky?
I probably should have typed up one long post, but that would seem so organized. I rather enjoy shaking things up and shedding my OCD personality to be "Heather Chaos" once in a while, although, Brian will lie and tell you that he has never once met "Heather Chaos."
She exists. Even if only in my mind. With the rest of the us Heathers.
The reason for this post is to update you all on my school situation. I've been trying to figure out how to complete the last few classes I owe without having to commute two hours one way to my university. I've been taking online classes, but I'm down to the last available online class, which means I've had to either explore my options, or pay a couple hundred a week in fuel for the car, to brave the wintry elements in upstate NY snowbelt country.
I met with the fine folks at SUNY Geneseo a couple of weeks ago, and they offered me the very desirable option of attending classes at their facility, yet credit them to SUNY Oswego. I'd have 'visiting student' status, and could take the last few classes here in Geneseo, which is only 10 minutes driving distance from my home.
It's taken a while to track down the right people who could help me get it all worked out, but yesterday, after about 20 phone calls, it happened. My request has been accepted and all I need is my advisor's signature of approval. If it goes through, I'll be attending classes at Geneseo for the spring semester and will graduate within the year. Finally.
FINALLY.
When I shift that tassel to the other side of my cap, I'll have a BA in theater.
Sister Erin has been blowing me out of the water with her new designs! Just think: 5 years ago she was trying to convince herself that sewing is not a talent, it's a skill. And now the wee girl is DESIGNING. Rock on, Sistah. Rock on.
Anyhoo, she's got another new chemise design and the coolest garment I've ever seen. She calls them "Che-bloomers" and it's a one-piece combination of a chemise and bloomers! I'm stealing a pair to wear as pajamas. They are insanely comfortable.
Me? Well, I am a slacker. I've got several projects in the works. I'm STILL working on the Ever After. It's cut and almost finished, but I have to sew in the left sleeve. It's taking forever to do it and I have no excuse other than the nine million other projects I'm working on keep interfering with 'Ever After' time.
New detachable sleeve designs are in the works. Erin's cranking out some new belly dance designs. We've got the new fairy goodies (prices are actually going to come down a bit as soon as I have time to update them). We've got some more men's doublets coming your way, too. We've been really neglectful of men's attire, and we want to balance that out a bit for you guys.
We've had a few people email about kilts: We're not going to offer kilts ever again. Sorry. We can't afford to make them here in America at a price that can even remotely compete with the mass-produced kilt companies', so we'll have to recommend that you buy your kilts from them. We can order tartan for you, though. So if you need tartan to wrap a great kilt, just shout. We're happy to help.
Oh, and thanks to our delightful new-mommy customer Lyndsay, we've developed a nursing bodice. We're naming it the "Fortune Rose" bodice after her faire persona! Thanks so much for your help, Lyndsay! We'll have your new bodice in the mail this week, and it should be online available for purchase this week, too.
As always, if you have a special request, drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you!
Bagpipes turned up to full volume (this one goes to eleven), are the only sound on earth that can overpower the tantrumming screams of two toddlers in the back seat.
Must go for now. The boy has soiled himself and he smells worse than a rotting badger in a bucket of armpits.
NOTE: Kudos to Brian for being such a great sport ALWAYS. He takes a lot of crap from me and always smiles. He deserves cheesecake every day of the year for being so made of win.
Brian and I have a relationship like few others I've seen. We're frequently at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to just about everything, except our mutual love of avocados and Burmese Mountain Dogs. Except he won't let me get a Burmese Mountain dog, so that leave the avocados, which ain't much, but it's enough.
We like to split household chores evenly, and mowing the lawn is no exception.
I love to mow the lawn. I flick on iPod, jam to some Ryan Adams and play air bass (except when the neighbors are looking) while circling the yard, dodging Skye nuggets and pink bouncy balls. Sometimes I'm a little late for duty, and that's when the Briguy starts the chore for me so I can finish the job before sunset.
Now, imagine if we allowed Elizabeth to mow the lawn after feeding her a 6-liter of JOLT! and one of those three-foot long Pixie Stix. That's how Brian mows the lawn. He drives it at NUMBER 6, which is veryfast, and in no orderly fashion whatseover. So, when I go out there to mow, he has mowed paths in areas that SHOULD NOT BE MOWED UNTIL THE END OF THE MOWING SESSION. So I have to go back, re-mow, and straighten out the erratic lines Brian made.
Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining. I am grateful for the help. But I don't believe it's normal behavior to mow like Mr.Scribbles looks.
To illustrate, this is how Brian mows our lawn:
This is how I mow the lawn:
And because I'm a complete numpty when it comes to making cute little graphics like that, I had to beg Brian to do it for me.
"So, let me understand this. You want ME to draw up these little graphics so you can pick on me in your blog?"
"Yes, basically."
"Okay. I'll do it, but only on one condition. . . "
This is Brian's version of how I mow the lawn:
And that pretty much sums up our relationship. Yep.
Alright, folks. I'm shoving the 'Merry' under the bed for a few minutes and borrowing my sister's ass-kicking boots. If me standing on my soapbox is going to tarnish your image me, please hit the 'back' button and step away from your monitor. This could get ugly, but I'll try to keep it a little humorous. Hey, if you can't laugh at yourself, your sister will shove you down the stairs and laugh at you instead. Right?
It seems that a few misguided souls seem to think that it's okay to shed manners while playing on the 'net and that unkind behavior in online forums is not only acceptable, but encouraged.
I know what you're thinking. "Oh, kids these days."
Sorry, folks. These are grown-up, adult-type people with jobs and educations and the ability to KNOW BETTER.
Remember the bully who used to throw spitballs at the girl with one pigtails shorter than the other? Well, apparently he grew up and discovered the internet. And he has friends who are just like him.
"So, why do you care, Oh Merry One?" you ask. Well, because over the last three months, I've found this problem becoming more and more common and it bothers me that this is becoming an acceptable online behavior. In the last month, thanks to Google Alerts, I've found two online communities flaming yours truly in such a caustic fashion that I wouldn't dare fart in their direction for fear of incinerating myself. It would be one thing if they had legitimate complaints against me, but these are people who have never even worked with me. These are groups of people who enjoy reenacting and place historical accuracy at a high priority.
I don't have a problem with people who enjoy historical accuracy. In fact, I have many friends who strive for the highest level of historical accuracy possible. Even *I* love making historically accurate attire (when I have free time). But I would never, in a million years, try to force my preferences on the rest of the world. If I did, the rest of the world would be wearing pink bunny slippers and eating a gallon of Flavocol every year. I don't need (or want) the rest of the world to be exactly like me, and I can't figure out why these rudely-behaving people feel the need to pee on everyone else's petunias just because the rest of the world won't think like they do.
So, you ask:
Did you do something to offend them? Nope. I simply exist, and in their eyes, that's enough.
Did you screw up an order they placed with VMS? Never once. These are not my customers.
Do they know anything about you? Nothing more than the few seconds they took to look at one or two pages of my website.
Have they ever taken the time to get to know you as a fellow human being? Not even for one second.
Why do you care what they think? If they were picking on me for my ridiculously large feet or my bad haircuts, that would be one thing. I'm pretty thick-skinned when is comes to playful ridicule. But when someone attacks my business, my source of income, my reputation (that I work damn hard to keep positive) just for their own personal amusement, I'm going to get angry, and rightfully so. What these people seem to forget is once they type in my company's name, it is indexed in search engines. When a potential new customer performs a quick Google search for my business and pulls up that horribly negative discussion in their list of links, those comments are going to unfairly tarnish my name and I will lose business as a result.
THAT is why I care.
"So ,why do they behave this way?"
Well, friend. They are doing it for personal fun and entertainment.
Yes, that's right. There's this online trend where people are encouraged to throw kindness out the window and pick the hell out of people in online public forums, unconcerned if they destroy lives, businesses, reputations of fine, upstanding people and companies - all for their own personal pleasure. They are unconcerned about the consequences of their behavior, because what's important to them is that they have an opportunity to laugh at others at someone else's expense. Enjoyable, right?
I mean, isn't is rollicking fun to spend an afternoon on the computer making fun of and causing pain to others?
The reason these folks have targeted me is because the majority of my website contains garments that are not historically accurate.
You ask, "Par-dough-nay-mwahhhhh, but didn't they have manners back in the Renaissance?"
Yes, dear readers, manners DID exist during the Renaissance, which makes these turkeys not only historically INaccurate, it makes them hypocrites.
Let's see if we can cover the basics about what I do, just so there's no more confusion and we can avoid situations like this forever:
1) I am a professional seamstress and clothing designer. To boil it down: I sew in exchange for money. I make whatever my customers pay me to make. I am not a purist. I will not try to talk my clients into buying a fancy, hand-sewn, historically accurate garment unless that is what they want me to make for them. MY CLIENTS are the boss. I am their humble servant. I am pleased to make any garment they desire and I refuse to make anyone feel apologetic for being unconcerned with historical accuracy. If it makes my customer happy, then *I* am happy.
2) The majority of my clients are brides and their wedding parties. I love all of my clients equally, however, I do play favorites sometimes. As long as you know that you, yes, YOU are my favorite, that's all that matters.
3) Despite the fact that most of my clients are brides and their wedding parties, I do not discriminate against anyone. I will sew any garment for any customer. I have a loyal list of the most amazingly joyful and friendly clients including, but not limited to drag queens, cross-dressers, prom girls, sweet 16 birthday girls, actors and actresses of all shapes and sizes, children, senior citizens and people of every age in between, reenactors, movie stars, strippers, porn stars, furries, mascots, Halloween customers, movie companies, television producers, musicians, Vegas showgirls, psychics, Trekkies, Wookiees, and a guy named Ferb.
4) In the ten years I have been in business, I have had one, ONE customer who has ordered a truly historically accurate garment. I LOVED making it for her, and LOVED the research involved. However, if I limited my business to working exclusively with people who desire historical accuracy, my babies would starve and we'd be living in a cardboard box. One order in ten years ain't gonna put white cotton undies on my fat ass forever, folks, so I gotta do whatever I need to do to keep it covered. Trust me, life would be scary if I walked around naked, so really, I do this for you.
This means I must sew what my paying customers ask me to sew. AND I LOVE WHAT I DO. Do not expect me to apologize for making clothing that is not historically accurate. This is MY JOB, and since I don't question your ability to do YOUR job, don't questions mine.
Understand this: Unless you have ordered a historically accurate garment from me and I was incapable of fulfilling your order, You don't have the right to discuss my ability or inability to create historically accurate clothing.
5) That said, my training is theatrical, which means I love to incorporate artistic expression into my designs. I am diverse. I am educated. I understand how to research and am completely capable of doing it, but because my work often is theatrical and artistic, or because my clients do not desire it, it does not mean that I am incapable of doing research or making historically accurate clothing. I can offer clothing of ANY kind to my clients and not be a complete bastard about historical accuracy. So, why are YOU being a complete bastard about it? Is it so impossible to understand that a person who runs a custom clothing business is likely going to be capable of sewing anything their customers want?
Research is available to EVERYONE. It's not exclusive to purists. One does not have to be an intellectual, elitist snob to learn how to hand sew a garment or buy historically accurate patterns. I make what people pay me to make, and since the majority of my website is filled with garments that are not historically accurate, guess what that means: It means that the majority of my customers are unconcerned with historical accuracy.
Because my clients are unconcerned with historical accuracy does not mean that I am unworthy of kindness. It does not entitle you to behave this way, nor does it justify your behavior.
If you have a personal complaint with me, email me. I want happy customers, always. Don't cower behind an anonymous online identity and attempt to ruin my reputation as a businesswoman just because YOU desire historical accuracy. I care about the happiness of my clients, and just because your number one priority is to clothe yourself only in historically accurate attire, does not mean that my clients must do the same.
Shame on you for expecting it of them. And shame on you for your online behavior. I hope this is not how you behave offline. If it is, shame on you again.
To you, the few who think that this type of behavior is acceptable: If you took the amount of time you spend online spewing hatred and unkindness and instead spent it helping an at-risk teen, or reading a book to someone confined to a nursing home, or even spent those minutes with your own child or another family member, think of the positivity you'd be spreading in this world. Just think of the wonderful, exciting things you could accomplish.
Behaving like an asshole makes people pay attention to you for a couple of minutes, and when they look back at their time spent with you they'll think, "Oh yeah, he was an asshole." Being kind to others makes people pay attention to you forever, they'll remember you fondly, and sometimes, if you're really good at it, you'll get your picture in the paper with a caption that says, "This person is super-duper nice."
Be excellent to others, people. Not just for them, but for you, too. You'll feel so much better about yourself if you simply make that shift from hostility to kindness. For real and for true.
Oh, and "K," Mark, Joe, yes, I'm addressing you: Don't be surprised if sometime, somewhere, when you least expect it, karma comes up to you and says, "SMILE, FOLKS. THIS WON'T HURT A BIT."
Out.
*Takes off ass-kicking boots, locks them away forever. Pulls the 'Merry' out from under the bed and skips away*
Now, go play with Google Alerts. It's awesome fun.
We weren't sure what the the cost of the gown would be until we drafted the pattern, digitized the embroidery timed the embroidery designs to stitch and actually sewed it all together. It's a time-consuming gown, to say the least.
We're still finishing up the last of the hem embroidery designs, but we're hoping to have some pictures for you by the end of the week.
We're offering it with and without embroidery. Bear in mind that each one of those lions on the hem takes over 5 hours to embroider on our machine, but the end effect is breathtakingly lovely. Be sure to check out our new website page featuring our entire pre-raphaelite gown collection.
I met the walrus and a man named Colin Beavan introduced him to me.
On of my most favorite people in the world is a man named Colin Beavan. I'd even go so far to say that he's a hero of mine. For those not in the know, Colin is more commonly known as "No Impact Man," and while Colin is working hard to reduce his impact on earth, he is making an enormous impact on the lives of the people he has touched.
I first read Colin's blog after seeing him on one of the morning news shows. I checked in regularly to note the progress of his project and was always so pleased with the results. He offered videos and links to news stories about the damage we're doing to our planet. He talked about cows, and how likable they are (I agree). He told us to slow down and enjoy the fireflies. I posted links to some of his notes on my own blog, and from there my sister Erin was inspired to start her own eco-friendly blog, too.
Erin went on to make lots of new "green" friends and opened a newsgroup that allows like-minded individuals to work together as a collective effort to find ways to simplify their lives and work more cooperatively with mother nature.
After reading Colin's journal, especially the parts about being an unnecessary nation of consumerists, I decided to take a look at my own life and the practices of the Very Merry Seamstress as a company. After a bit of thought, I implemented a few changes in both areas.
Among the many changes we've made at home, two of the more significant ones include:
1) we no longer buy new things. We try to buy the things we need (and that list of NEEDFUL THINGS has shrunk dramatically since reading Colin's blog) second-hand. and avoid buying anything new.
2) We have drastically limited the amount of plastic in our lives.
3) We have switched to a mostly-vegetarian lifestyle, because like Colin, we really like cows. We lapse now and again, but we're really trying.
A few months ago I received an email from a customer who sent me an itemized list of complaints about his shopping experience at VMS. He gave me a C+ rating because even though he was pleased with the color and fit of his order, the reason for his low grade for VMS was due to the fact that he was very angry we did not include the following items with his order:
1) business cards
2) a plastic bag around the goods
3) a paper catalog
4) an invoice
I'd like to take a few minutes to explain my reasons for not including these things with each order in the hopes that we can avoid this type of anger from our customers in the future.
Plastic bags: We stopped sending goods in plastic bags even before I started reading Colin's blog, but before we stopped using them we purchased a roll of garment bags off eBay from an out-of-business company looking to unload them. If you request a bag, we'll put your order in one of those. By default, however, we prefer to avoid unnecessary packaging, especially plastic bags. For orders over $250, we purchase signature confirmation, which means the USPS isn't going to dump your package on your front porch in the rain. You have to sign for the package in person for it to be delivered.
Paper catalogs: We have an enormous catalog on our website. It's unnecessary and redundant to print one out on paper. We've never considered a paper catalog, and as long as people can access the internet to see our offerings, I see no reason to print one. We like trees as much as we like cows.
Paper invoices: When you place your order through our website, Paypal sends an invoice and a receipt of payment to your email address. If you would like a paper copy for your records, please print it out. We don't send another copy with your order, because, well, like I said, it's redundant and wastes paper. We like trees.
And finally, about six months ago I decided to stop including business cards with orders. Of all the changes I've made, this was most difficult. I knew I would lose potential customers by no longer offering business cards, but in the end, I decided that even though I may lose a customer from lack of business cards, I might just actually save a tree or two.
Did I mention that we really like trees?
So, there you have it. One person can make a difference. Colin's no-impact awesomeness has made a significant impact on the lives of so many people. And if you start reading his blog, you can tell your friends about it, who will, in turn, tell their friends about it. His poignant writings will hopefully inspire others to do Good Things in this world and the planet will heal because of it.
It's stunningly beautiful to understand what can be accomplished by working together, isn't it?
Maybe all those Barbie movies are getting to us, here at VMS, but we're overrun with fairies! We've added a new line of pretty tutus (we'll add more photos of the designer ones as we start to receive orders), fairy wands, up-and-coming fairy wings and all sorts of accessories.
For now the tutus are online and available today! If you're getting ready to get pictures for your Holiday greeting cards, these tutus are so adorable in portrait photos. Imagine your little elf in a cute-patootie Christmas tutu!
Or, for those who are just starting to come up with affordable options for Halloween costumes, our tutus work great! We offer a huge range of colors and themes, so be sure to check them out!
I've inherited a lot of things from my parents, some good, some bad, some downright foul. We'll skip the 'downright foul' today and cover that topic another time.
For the good, I believe I was blessed with two genetic kindnesses. My parents come from damn sturdy stock, which means I'm probably going to live forever. That's good for me, provided I take care of myself. It's bad for the kids, because it means I'll spend all of their inheritance before I cr
