I wish I could make more for Halloween

Just a quick note! I know that we're sort of.....not that easy to order from around Halloween. I'm very VERY sorry for that, and I and promising that next year it will be better! It's my fault for thinking that somehow I could simotaneously do 3 huge festivals (which means a lot of freaking corsets have to be made and sold in order to pay for the traveling, hotels, booth space, gas, and all the other little millions of things!) and create inventory as well as taking custom orders. I have great and lofty dreams, and a prodigious amount of ambition (or rather....love of money.......then again, if I loved money that much, I would have become more of a sellout corporation by now, and I would be having these things manufactured in china and distributed all over. Believe me, I've had A LOT of offers and I've turned them all down instantly.) but sometimes I get ahead of myself and figure that I can sew corsets and not do anything else (like showering. I've haven't showered this morning....and all I've eaten is some brownie dough out of a tub that I purchased for $5 from my lovely little neighbor girl that was doing a fund raiser. And...holy face! it's 11:55! almost noon o-clock! Oh, I'm so ashamed. It's just that I've spent the entire morning yelling at my camera set up, trying to list awesome Queen of Hearts corsets on etsy, and finishing up my custom orders!).

So, back to the main point of this! When I was at the Portland Pirate Festival, I saw an alarming amount of the $#@%$#@ knock-off guy's bodices walking around. The best part was when a lovely girl walked in wearing one of his coats and said, "I know that you didn't make this, but I've only worn it once and the boning has poked through the fabric." And sure enough, his shoddy piece of plastic boning (he lies and says it's all metal on his ebay auctions. I think he just figures people are too stupid to know.) Anyway, being the kind and forgiving person that I am, I took her bodice and fixed it. Now, granted, I've had the occasional piece of boning slide it's way out of the casing on a corset, but in the last 2 years of making bodices (now that I've done more trouble-shooting and revising than you can possibly imagine!) I've NEVER had the boning just pierce it's way through the fabric. That only happens when the fabric is complete crap, and HOLY NIGHT! I'm not just being a B-, but that guy's china-made upholstery wannabe fabric is sooo hideous. He lines his corsets with cheap satin (You know, the kind that you would find at JoAnn around Halloween. It's "costume" satin, and it's $1.99 a yard. *shudder*) and just as I suspected, the stitching is beautiful, but the actual stuff that goes into the garment is the very lowest of low qualities! OH, friends!!!!!! Please don't buy from this man! The girl that purchased the coat didn't know that the guy had his crap cheaply made in China. He says his location is Portland, but then in the longest "save my own rear" policy I've ever seen on any auction, he says in little letters that he designs everything and has it made in China. Guys, I know I sound like a bitter person that just can't get over it, but I just wanted you to know that I saw and examined the garments, and they're worse than the pictures. I saw one girl wearing one of this corsets and it made her belly look like it was positively protruding because of the big bend in the belly area of the boning. It bent outward, forming an odd 'O' right at the waist, and made her look like she had a serious pooch. It's just so sad that people don't know how wretched this stuff is! I figure I'm doing a serious public service her.

Well, I'll stop being angry and go and eat some brownie dough for lunch, then continue sewing corsets. *sigh*
Oh, one last quick thought! If I have promised you a corset by Halloween, you'll have it by Halloween! Make sure your communicating with me and informing me if you need anything else. Thanks!!!

me on video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QKiVJDEB2k

All right, there I am! I'm at the last half of this interview. Please understand that I'm not really this mouthy and egotistical in real life. OH, and I swear my chin is not that big in real life! I know I look like Jay Leno...but it must be the camera angle. Bleh.

Holy Face!!!!!

What a great weekend I had at the pirate festival! I'll be posting some pictures soon! Thanks for everyone who was awesome enough to get a corset!
We're in the long process of traveling home and will be home this weekend, and right back to work. I have to magically pull 100 corsets out of my sewing machine within the next 2 weeks along with finishing up the custom orders for Halloween. Guys, I'm going die. I'm just going to die. *sigh*
Michelle

On a happier note, HELLO to Nathan (ooooh, and his mom and sister!!!), Jill, Ryan, and Nicole , since I know you guys are reading this. I dearly appreciate you coming to visit me at the festival!

just about to leave!

Okay, so I got distracted from my packing for my festival, and it occurred to me that perhaps I should let people know that I might be a slight bit of a slacker for the next week while I'm doing my big pirate festival. I'll be trying to answer your emails, but usually after I've worn a corset for 16 hours and been on my feet for a constant 14 hours or so, I'm so tired at the end of the day at a festival that I go back to my hotel room and completely pass out. Plus, it's sooo tiring looking that fabulous. Seriously. ;)
Anyway, I believe I've updated you on most of your custom orders, but if you need to get a hold of me or are wondering about your order, just shoot me an email and I'll get back to you in at least 3 days. Phew.
Back to packing. I've still got the mannequins, the blouses and the little knick-knacky things to pack, as well as finishing sewing my new tent top. (It's fantastic, by the way! Nothing like running 25 feet of fabric through a sewing machine!)

okay, I'm not angry anymore

all right, as you can see in the blog I wrote two seconds ago, I was really angry, but then I went in and read some of the compliments you guys gave me on recent blogs, and my heart was softened, and I wasn't in a hideous mood anymore. Thank you! I love you guys! *tear*

The Golden Rule

I never meant to be one of those people that bottle up all sorts of unhealthy aggression and stress and then write an angry blog to "cleanse" themselves, but I have found that when I'm more pissed off, I want to be more vocal as well. It's just that I have a special thought for the day-When you're trying to do business with someone, if you want a good quality product promptly and efficiently, OR want a professional service performed, you're NOT going to help anything by being a jerk. I worked as a waitress, and it always surprised me how willing people were to rake me over the coals when I was the one HANDLING THEIR FOOD! Now, I didn't ever stoop to spitting in their entree (or goodness knows what else!), but the problem is that you can ruin someone's whole day by being difficult and demanding, and you, yourself are no better off for behaving so.
I run a business, but I'm not really that great under a lot of stress. In fact, I suck at dealing with stressful situations. I'm passionate about my product, and I've spent years working my rear off to make it a good one, so any criticism or complaint seems to go straight to my very core! Further more, I honestly do care about my customers' happiness and satisfaction, because, HELLO, that's the reason I even have a business. I WANT you guys to look beautiful and feel happy, just like I do when I put a good corset on! However, it's prodigiously difficult for me to scrape an ounce of apathy up for you if you're rude and full of self-entitlement. (Now, all of you cool blog readers know that I'm not talking about you. ;) Thank the heavens, we hardly ever have problems, because any second of free time I may have is instead used to answer emails and make sure I'm running a good company. Maybe the fact that we have so few customer service problems makes it harrowing when I actually DO encounter one. Perhaps if I dealt with extremely irate people on a constant basis, it wouldn't even phase me.
I may sound like sort of a hippie, but I think that if you put out a lot of positive energy, then positive things will generate back to you. I think that the better you treat everyone around you, the less confrontations and problems you have. It seems really obvious. So, if you're a crazy, demanding, selfish, yelling lunatic- I have news for you. Everyone hates you behind your back. They makes fun of you and have verbs and nouns named after you. Get a grip and start treating people with benevolence. It will do you a world of good.
Back to the spitting in the food thing-you never know...it's totally possible that I know the exact right way to construct a corset so that the boning ruptures and a jagged edge skewers your cold heart after you put it on. *evil laugh*
I hope you guys know I'm joking on that one.. I'll go finish my frantic packing for the pirate festival this weekend. *sigh*
Michelle

Collaborative

Hey everyone! If you want to check out what happens when two brilliant and lovely women (me and my friend, Ariel) work together, you can see her lovely empire waist renaissance dresses at
www.sewbeitcreations.etsy.com
or, here's a direct link to the item
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30396426
Yay!

A few notes for festival goers!

Hey guys! I just have a few quick notes! So, we are going to be at the Portland Pirate Festival Sep. 19th and 20th ( www.portlandpiratefestival.com ) the Age of Chivalry Renaissance Festival in Las Vegas Oct. 9-11 ( www.lvrenfair.com ) the Folsom Renaissance Festival in Folsom, CA Oct. 17-18th (www.folsomfaire.com ) and FINALLY, the DAAC Renaissance Arts Faire in Las Cruces, NM November 7-8th ( www.daarts.org ) That last one is a new one that we just got accepted into. Holla, New Mexico!!!

Anyway, the main thing that I'm trying to say is that our company has been so overwhelmed with custom orders (thank you, thank you) that we honestly just don't have huge inventories for these shows. I was planning on 400 corsets, and it's going to be closer to 200, if we're lucky....which sounds like a lot, but then you have to consider that we have 7 main styles that we carry at the festival, 8 different sizes, and about 40 different fabric options....and you spread all those apart between 200 and it's not that impressive of a selection.
We love our custom orders, but they do take a considerable amount of excess time because we're just cutting and sewing one thing at a time, rather than doing massive piles of assembly line style work. They have just really limited our inventory for the shows this year. If you are coming and expecting to have a broad range of things to try on...I think you're out of luck. However, if there's something...or even a few things in particular that REALLY want to see, you HAVE to tell me. Email me at seamstress@damseldress.com and let me know what corsets you want and what your size is, and I will try to sew my inventory accordingly. I'm doing my very best to make sure that we have amazing things for you guys, which is why I'm still working at 9:15, having started work at 5:00 this morning. I'm dedicated, and we need to keep making money so we can put a down payment on a house.....so, uh....work=good.
Michelle