Customers Are Psychic

In my garage, I have a stack of good old Ikea little wooden drawer box things, each drawer containing various different bits of ready made stock left over from when I was doing Craft Fairs with Pretty Things. Only the basic items – hair slides, some necklaces, fairies. Just the things I can always be sure of selling.

Of the millions and millions of beads I keep
 in stock, I never have the ones I need

In my work room I have various different storage systems, all over flowing with every kind of glass and resin bead you could possibly imagine, as well as endless findings and other necessary bits and bobs in my magic cupboard of many things.

Yet somehow, despite all of these things, whenever I get an order for a Pretty Things item, it is absolutely always, without fail, for something that I not only do not happen have already made, I also do not have the bits to make it.

Dressmaking and the Art of Dragon Taming

More than most, the dressmaker is privy to all sorts of little secrets learned during the naturally intimate setting of the fittings; what the underwear looks like, where the hidden tattoo is, what special good luck charm has been sewn into the lining, what the bride really thinks of the best man, what the bridesmaids really think of their dresses. Over the years, these confidential and sometimes bizarre bits of information underline the fact that the seamstress not only must be a person that the bride and her family trust and feel comfy with, she also needs to be a professional diplomat.

But all this counts for nothing when compared to the one aspect of the job that can on occasions reduce even the most experienced to a jumble of terrified nerves. Dealing with dangerous equipment on a daily basis – high powered industrial motored sewing machines, over lockers with sharp moving blades, red hot irons and not forgetting the most lethal of all, the ironing board – does nothing to prepare for the fear that can strike the heart like the call of the potentially dangerous and volatile animal that so many brides bring with them to their fittings.