A Dress for Hannah

A friend contacted me about making a dress for a young lady she knows.  The young lady wanted a  dress made from a fabric with lavender and green circles or dots.  Hmmm, now this request was quite a challenge.

I was quite surprised when I found these 2 fabrics:

Next came the pattern selection.  She decided on a cute summery dress with a full skirt trimmed with a ruffle, short sleeves and a round neckline with a high yoke.  All of this is accented by a raised waist.



The final product came out really cute.

The dress is made using the fabric with circles and the bottom ruffle is made using the floral fabric.

The waist panel and side ties add definition to an otherwise plain dress.  I love the eyelet on the sleeves.

The ruffle softens the look of the dress and makes it more feminine.
I was very pleased with the finished product and I hope Hannah loves her new dress.

Sunday Phunnies

Quirks About Life ...
that you notice by the time you are fifty

Most people deserve each other.

All the good ones, no matter what it is, are taken.

The one who snores will fall asleep first.

The length of a marriage is inversely proportional to the amount of money spent on the wedding.

If you help a relative in need, he or she will remember you the next time they are in need.

The probability of meeting someone you know increases greatly when you are out with someone you do not want to be seen with.

Toothaches always start on Friday night when the dentist's office will be closed for the weekend.

Summer Fashions for the Grandkids

My youngest grandson and granddaughter had asked me to make them some shorts for the summer.  They actually asked me a few months ago and I completely forgot.  Last week they reminded me that they were still waiting for their shorts.  What an embarrassed Grandmother!!

Needless to say, my first priority this week was to get their shorts finished.  I made 2 pairs for Caleb and 1 pair for Lauren.

The boy's shorts are made like long boxer shorts with an elastic waist.

I made him 2 pairs-one black and one khaki.

Lauren's shorts are capri length with elastic around the calves.

Her shorts also have a flat waistband in the front and elastic in the back.

The package is on the way to South Carolina where these 2 young ones are anxiously waiting for them.  I hope this has redeemed me as a grandmother!!

Pricing Questions

I have been asked by customers, friends and competitors how I determine prices for the items I sell.  Sometimes customers ask for a discount if they buy multiple items and they are often confused by my answer.  With these things in mind I thought I would try to explain my pricing structure. . .

The first item in determining the price is the cost for the fabric.  If I get the fabric on sale, I can pass that savings on to my customers.  However, it is also true that if a customer selects a high price fabric, I must pass that on to them as well.

The other item necessary to determine the item's price is my time.  There are a few items I make that don't require a lot of time and I can offer these at a very low price to my customers.  Examples of these are culottes and long bloomers.  Then there are things that take several days to create like the pioneer outfits.

I try to use my timer to determine the amount of time I actually spend working on an outfit.  I set my timer for 15 minutes and every time it beeps I record what I was working on.  When a project is completed I add up all the 15 minutes to come up with the total amount of time it took to create.   I multiply the number of hours it takes to create an item by $10 to figure the desired labor charge.

I add the cost of fabric plus the desired labor charge to determine the cost of the item.  My goal is $10 per hour but sometimes the market will not bear that and I must take a cut in pay.  Pioneer outfits are a good example of this-it takes about 10 hours to create this outfit plus the cost of fabric $25-35.  These outfit sell for $65.  That makes the amount per hour I make $2.50-$3.50.  Now most people would not want a job that paid that low but I love my job!

Customers requesting a discount for multiple purchases do not understand that I must pay the same for fabric whether they buy 1 or 3 items and it takes me just about the same amount of time to create each additional item.  I do not have much savings on multiple item sales, therefore, I can't pass much on to my customers.

Prices for everything seem to be going through the roof and profits are soaring for oil companies, farmers, grocers and everyone in between.  However, I try very hard not to increase my costs and to pass all savings on to my customers.  Hope this helps to explain how custom made creations are priced at Patti's Originals.

My Business Motto

When we first opened Patti's Originals, 6 years ago, we knew that if it was going to succeed, it would have to be the Lord blessing us.  We also knew that in order to bring honor to our Lord we would have to offer a quality product and excellent service, as well as, pray over it constantly.

Keeping all these things in mind we selected this as our store verse.

1 Cor 10: 31  "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."

We try to live this verse in our business by working closely with customers to carefully create and ship each item.  With each package we send blessings and thanks.

Coram Deo literally means "before the face of God". It carries the notion of our living in the presence of God, under the authority of God and to the honor and glory of God.  This saying captures the heart of our store verse and it describes the way we try to run our business each and every day.

Sunday Phunnies

ONE LINE FUNNIES
"99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name".

"A day without sunshine is like, night."

"Honk if you love Peace and Quiet"

"Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine."

"As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools"

"Sometimes I wake up grumpy; Other times I let her sleep"

"The gene pool could use a little chlorine."

"I didn't fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian."

"When there's a will, I want to be in it!"

"Warning: Dates in Calendar are closer than they appear."

"Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math."

"Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes."

"Why is 'abbreviation' such a long word?"

"Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?"

Spring Skirt Completed

Earlier this week I wrote about a skirt I was trying to create for spring. The skirt was a six gore with 2 decorative bands on the bottom. I had finished the skirt and was searching for trim to accent the bands.



I visited every fabric store in our area and was about to give up when the idea occurred to me to use ribbon. I brought the skirt with me and went up and down the ribbon aisles. . .