Getting Established in Seattle

In the last while I have been reworking things for my business. The first hurdle was to get an employment card in the US so I could legimitely earn money there. It has been a bit of a learning curve sorting out immigration status,fillling out it seems scads of paperwork, filing for a business licence, getting a US social etc. Something the average person doesn't really concern themselves with, though in today's culture is becoming more common. 

A nice view of Seattle from Kerry Park outlook

For the last while I have been continuing with my some of my established clientele in Ontario but customs often throws a hurdle in my way there. When shipping items across country and into a different country, customs and other shipping costs throw a whole new expense into your world. So keeping those relationships viable is sometimes a challenge. I do greatly appreciate my Ontario clientele but we all have to admit I am no longer residing in Canada. Made In Canada has long been one of my selling points and it is no longer true presently. Also Made Locally does not work in that sense anymore. I am a strong supporter of Made Locally so thus while in Seattle, well Seattle is my Made Locally :).

Another focus of my business is ethical/eco fashion and I have very mixed opinions on shipping when I consider this. Are you really maintaining a small carbon footprint when you include all the shipping that is often part of creating and supplying ethical/eco fashion?

MMMay 16 Personal end results

One of the things I challenged myself to accomplish over May during the MMMay 16 was to tackle the basement storage. This is a picture of the room that then leads to furnace room. As you can see it's kinda full and well you could get to the furnace room as long as you watched where you were going.

Before

After

After digging through every bin I managed to eliminate 7 of them. My daughter acquired some new to her tops (she is very pleased with my talent for thrift store shopping - her words). I also gave numerous bags of clothing to the Goodwill. Decided I should pass on some of my previous finds as it looks like my production of recreated clothing has drastically reduced since moving to Seattle. (That's what happens when you have limbo status in a country) 

Another wonderful thing was I found the bin that had my denim :0). Of course it was in one of the last ones I went through. But it is now all washed and sitting with the three options of patterns(all independent designers). Next step is self measuring to see which pattern to attempt first and how much modification I am sure all will need. 

My daughter's introduction to sewing with a machine is moving along slowly. She has practised threading the machine, filling and loading a bobbin, how to do basic cleaning and how to change a needle. But no actual sewing as of yet. She keeps saying she's going to sew her fingers instead of the fabric. Not an irrational or rational fear, but something which I will have to work on overcoming. Definitely need to set the machine at it's slowest speed for her. I will probably have to show her the difference in speeds the machine is capable of. She is accustomed to me using my machines at the highest speed they are capable of - which is probably why I am guilty of burning out a couple of motors :0).

MMMay 16 challenge of wearing something Made By Me every day was achieved. There was only a couple of days over the month that I had to change what I first put on to something else to achieve it. Being conscious of only wearing Made By Me clothing for a month helped me realize what types of clothing I don't make as readily. The main area being activewear so I will have to remedy that and try out a few yoga pant styles in the near future. 

MMMay16 Challenge

It's the first day of May and a big month for a large part of the sewing community. The start of the MeMadeMay Challenge. 
I realize that I haven't participated since 2012 which actually kinda surprised me, or I should say I haven't participated formally. This is something I have strongly believed in for quite a large chunk of my life.

So this year my challenge to myself is to wear something made by me every day of the month. This will not be very hard to accomplish so I am adding a few of my own twists. The first being to introduce my daughter to the art of sewing and have her start making some of her own clothing. This will be instead of her hoarding scraps of fabric(she definitely takes after me here) or picking out lengths of fabric at stores going "Mom can you make me ......." The start of this process was picking out a pattern, having her trace her size and then proceed to cut out her project.

So her first project and hopefully not her last is to make herself a pair of capris out of this colourful knit. It has pockets but she insists she only needs one, and "you know that will be easier then putting in two, right" ;0
My next challenge is to make myself the perfect pair of jeans that actually fit well. Something I have been meaning to do for a while. And the last and probably the hardest is to get all the bins of fabric sorted(have been hiding them in the basement - outta sight, out of mind lol).