Skirting The Issue

The busyness of this month has sort of cut into my blogging time, but hopefully I have a chance for a day or two to catch up.  Today and tomorrow we have carpet installers in the house installing new carpet upstairs and down our steps.  The main motivation for this has been our 12 year old Golden Retriever who was having difficulty going down the bare hardwood steps.  And just in case you think that we are going overboard carpeting for the dog, the steps were at a point where we needed to either refinish them or cover them and Seamus just made the decision easier.  Although, honestly, I WOULD carpet the steps just for the dog.

Anyway, I want to start my catch up by telling you about a project that caught my attention: Skirting the Issue.  This group makes skirts and other items for donation to foster children and other groups.  For the month of July there is a drive going that you can read about here.  Each week is dedicated to a particular type of item to make for donation.  You can either donate to a local group near you or you can mail your items to the organizers and they will do the donating.  There are suggestions on the web site for places that will take each type of item.  There is a flicker group here to upload photos of items you make and as an added incentive there are prizes that you can read about here including a new Singer sewing machine and fabric from several online stores.

So, the first week was skirts for young girls.  I haven't done any garment sewing in years, but this idea really appealed to me.  I found a great basic skirt pattern here.  And the results were:

It was fun to be doing something a bit different from my usual.  I also discovered the overcast stitch and foot on my new machine and I just love it.  It will really come in handy when I make curtains for son #1.  I was able to use some decorative stitching on the polka dot skirt and some elastic stitches for the waistband.

Week #2 was pillowcases.  They're a simple and satisfying little project that I've made before.  I used the "burrito" pattern.  There are a lot of tutorials on this pattern online and one can be found here. I like this pattern because it hides all the seams and it's pretty easy to add some special trim or stitching.  I thought I'd make a "boy" pillowcase and a "girl" pillowcase.

 

This week is blankets and once I read the particulars on that one I'll decide what my contribution will be.  I think the month finishes out with crayon holders and bereavement gowns.  I'm not sure what those are particularly for (well, besides bereaving), but the site in the link above promises to provide tutorials each week to help with construction. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Customer Service

We've all had "those" experiences.  The ones where we call an 800 number to find resolution to a product or service we've paid our good money for.  Most of them are a total frustration.  In fact the credit card commercials featuring "Peggy" are pretty much on the mark.  And even when the person on the other end of the line speaks English as their primary language (thus very understandable) you are often left with the feeling that you are interrupting them from something more important or that they have less knowledge than you do on how to solve a problem with your latest techno-toy. (Yes, I've rebooted about 100 times!)

Customer service really requires the right attitude and the right tools.  You have to make the person you are serving believe that you enjoy helping them and the company you work for has to provide the appropriate resources for you to find and fix their problem (a good data base, good software or just good training in using a technical item.)  I know that it's hard to instill trust and confidence in the first few seconds of a phone conversation, but believe me, it happens!  The initial 30 seconds can pretty much tell you if this will be a good experience or another "Peggy" experience.

I had an OUTSTANDING customer service experience yesterday that deserves reporting.  I ordered a pair of shoes from an English company, Hotter several weeks ago.  The shoes arrived and were well made and a good fit, but the style did not agree with my deformed, bunion plagued feet.  Exchanges are provided postage free so I wrapped them back up and sent them back with another style choice that seemed like it wouldn't hurt my sensitive bunion area.  Since they go to England the delivery time each way is much longer than we have come to expect here.  I wanted to see if indeed my shoes had arrived.  I called their 800 number and reached a representative apparently in England.  This woman was delightful.  Not only could she tell me that indeed my shoes had arrived but also that the others would be in the "post" shortly.  She was outstandingly pleasant, made me feel like a valued customer and put a smile on my face.  My take away is this:  either Hotter has a great customer service training program which they should market, or England has a great custom of politeness which we would do well to incorporate into our society here.  Hopefully the next pair of shoes will be a wonderful fit and I will have fun filling my closet with other styles while Hotter will have gained a very loyal, shoe loving, customer in me.

Searching for THE Dress

I finally found my "mother of the groom" dress for an upcoming wedding.  This is so tied in with my weight and self image issues that it's hard to separate the two.  We've already established that I live most of my life socially invisible, but for a wedding your fashion choices and looks become immortalized in photos that will live on even after you're long gone.  While I continue to try to get my weight down, the reality of the situation is that my appearance will be much the same as what it is now.  So that leaves me with choosing the most flattering choice I can.  My goal has been sort of classic and understated.  I found a nice dress this weekend with a matching jacket that fills those qualifications.  My only concern is the lack of sleeves in the dress, but for pictures at least I'll have the jacket on.  It's a sliver/grey color which I also like.  Sizing continues to be a mystery to me.  I had to go up two sizes in the dress to have the right fit at the hips but will have to have the shoulder area altered to fit properly.  I was starting to think that I was even bigger than I imagined when I tried on a pair of pants.  These, in a size smaller than the dress, fit fine at the hips and are way big at the waist.  My husband encouraged me to also have these altered to fit properly.  I'm not as sure about them as him, but I got one pair and will see what happens with the alterations.

So, now the search for shoes begins.  At least shoe sizes don't make me feel bad about my size!