About Me

My photo
MS Gulf Coast, United States
I am a Christian wife, mother and grandmother. I love to sew and create new and innovative items to share with my customers. The most popular area of my store is my Walnut Grove section which features clothing reminiscent of "Little House on the Prairie". Please take a moment to visit my store and see my latest creations. www.pattisoriginals.etsy.com
Showing posts with label Pattis Originals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pattis Originals. Show all posts

Saturday, March 10, 2012

A Week's Reprieve

Last week I mentioned that I was offered a job at my husband's place of employment.  My start date has been delayed by one week.

I am hoping to use this week's reprieve to get a few items completed for inventory.  So far I have managed to complete a few doll outfits...





mop cap included in 4 piece outfit


and a pioneer outfit for a size 4-5 child.  I just love this purple calico print.


Here is hoping I have the time to complete several additional outfits this week and then my life changes drastically!

Update-What a great week I had.  I was able to complete 3 pioneer outfits.
Size 6-8
Size 6-8

Size 8-10


Completed all these projects and got the housework all done.  I am as ready as I can be to start working on Monday.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Sewing Issues

Since we have been living in hotels for over 2 months I have had to let sewing fall by the wayside.  Recently, I received an email from a previous customer telling me her girls had outgrown their pioneer outfits and asking if I could create new ones for them.

I had to explain that my hubby had taken a job out of town and we would be living in a hotel with limited room for a few months.  I told her if she did not need the outfits right away I would be happy to make them, but it would take a bit longer than normal.

I have been very blessed by the Pastor's wife of the church we are visiting in North Dakota.  She, very graciously, allowed me to set up my machines in her home.  She picks me up several times a week and takes me to her home so I can sew.  What a blessing!

My customer ordered 2 pioneer outfits and 2 doll outfits for her girls.  I have finished 1 complete outfit and hope to finish the remaining items this week. 

It feels so good to get back to sewing and I am very thankful for a customer who sought me out with this special request.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Tatting

For many years I was interested in learning how to tat. Tatting is a form of lace making that dates back to the early 19th century. It is done using a tool called a shuttle.

I had no idea how to do it, so I bought a book and followed the instructions and occasionally I would get it right but for the most part all I succeeded in doing was getting the thread knotted. Tatting is not difficult but there is one step that kept giving me trouble-dropping your fingers...

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Swedish Style

Annette, a customer from Sweden, contacted me about creating an outfit in the style worn in her country in the early 1900s.

She has introduced me to a Swedish artist, Carl Larsson, who painted this picture of his daughter.
According to Annette, Carl's wife Karin, made these dresses for the women in their family. Her intention was to create clothing for daily use, that was easy to wash and as comfortable as possible, instead of those black, unpractical silk dresses that most women wore at that time. They were inspired by artist's coats, like a roomy apron, ruffles on the shoulders and usually closed with two or three buttons at the upper back of the dress. It was used with a separate, different colored under-dress, quite long, that shows through at the back. The aprons were often white, but they could also be in another color, with tiny ticking stripes or a hand-woven structure, and made of a cotton fabric for summer use.

Annette wanted an outfit for herself made in this same style.  She wanted the dress made of mattress ticking and a solid white pinafore.  Since this is similar to the pioneer outfit I offer for girl's she asked if I could create something like this for her.  What an exciting time we had designing the outfit and I think she will be very pleased.
The dress is made exactly like my pioneer outfit except no ruffles on the sleeve.  The pinafore features a raised yoke, ruffles over the arms, full skirt and bottom ruffle. 

The back of the pinafore closes with 2 buttons on the top and the bottom is free flowing.

Annette also wanted bloomers and a sun bonnet to complete the 1900's look. 

The package is in the mail and I am anxiously waiting to hear how she likes it.

Monday, May 30, 2011

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.

Friday, May 27, 2011

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!!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

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.

Monday, May 23, 2011

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.

Friday, May 20, 2011

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. . .

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

A Spring Skirt

I saw a skirt last week that I really liked. It was a multi-tiered skirt but the tiers were not gathered. Similar to this:



Monday, May 9, 2011

A Little Repair Job

A friend from church had bought her daughter a skirt online. When the skirt arrived it was too short!! She called to ask if I could add another layer to the skirt. Of course, I was more than willing to try.

This is the original skirt. It is for a 14 year old girl and was about 6 inches too short.



Wednesday, April 20, 2011

More About Little House

little_house_cast.jpgI have spent this week making more items for my Walnut Grove Collection. I finished 4 pinafores, 3 bonnets, 3 dresses, and a camisole so I definitely had Little House and Laura Ingalls on my mind.

I decided to do a Google search of fun sites relating to this pioneer family. I found some really neat items. . .


First I went to Wikipedia and they give a brief synopsis of Laura, her family and their travels.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Aprons Again

A friend sent this to me and I thought it was so good I just had to share.

A trip down memory lane…

Remember making an apron in Home Ec? 



The History of  'APRONS'


I don't think our kids know what an apron is.
The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons used less material.  But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.



From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids..

And when the weather was cold Grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, spent over the hot wood stove.

Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.



From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables.  After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls. 

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.

People would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.
 
I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron - but love...

                                                                             
 

 

 

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Ready for Easter

Our little ladies certainly love to dress up and be prissy. Easter and spring are perfect times for them to shine in all their finery-and the finery starts with their unmentionables.

I can remember, as a child, every Easter and Christmas getting a completely new outfit from the inside out, everything was new.

It seems this tradition is being carried on today because I sell more 'unmentionables' for little ladies at this time of year than any other time. . .

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Everything Amigurumi

Amigurumi pronounced (ah-mee-guh-roo-mee) is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and imaginative creatures. A few months ago a group I belong to had a sale's promotion called 'Kawaii'. Kawaii means cute in Japanese and since these little amigurumi creations are very cute, they were included in the promotion.

I have been getting many inquiries about amigurumi ever since I first posted about it. So I decided to try my hand at creating some of these little guys. . .

Monday, April 4, 2011

Our Jewelry

Most of my blog entries are about my sewing adventures and I seldom take the time to mention the other member of Patti's Originals. So today I want to share a bit about my jewelry designer, my husband. . .

Larry decided a few years ago that he would like to learn to make jewelry for our granddaughters and they were certainly glad he did. As he got better at creating he branched out and started making gifts for me!

In the last few months he has started creating women's jewelry for my store. His designs lend themselves to a classic style and he avoids the flashy look that is so prevalent today.

I thought I would share a few of his creations.

This first set is made from Russian jade and he calls it From Russia With Love. The deep green of this jade is absolutely beautiful.  This was the first of his jewelry pieces to sell and it was a real encouragement to him.

ga.jpg

This one is a unakite and silver bracelet and earring set.  The natural look of these stones is so pretty.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Our Newest Collection

We have recently added a new collection to our Etsy Store, The Bonnets and Bottoms Collection.  This collection will include sun bonnets and/or mop caps and short bloomers for babies. 

I have really enjoyed shopping for fabric for these little outfits and designing the trims to make them so special.

The first outfit I created used Hello Kitty fabric in pastel colors.



When I saw this next fabric I got a bit adventurous.  I could not resist the bright green fabric covered with lady bugs, it is so cute!


Then I really let my imagination get away

Monday, March 28, 2011

3 Outfits-1 Classic Look

Take some terrific material with red, white and lavender hearts. Add to this a classic styled jumper.

Photobucket

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

A Very Satisfied Customer

A few weeks ago I posted about a customer who wanted a Little House on the Prairie dress for her daughter and a matching outfit for her daughter's doll. Julie was kind enough to share photos with me of her daughter enjoying the surprise gift.

It is Christmas morning and this little lady looks very happy.



Getting the baby dressed. . .

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Tees and Twirls

I received a request for some warm clothes for a couple of little ladies. These little ones have to catch the schoolbus very early in the morning when it is still very cold. Their mother wanted outfits that would be warm in the morning and still comfortable when the sun warmed up in the middle of the day. . .