Not an Alterations Shop

I had an amazingly productive day yesterday. I’d love to have a week of days where I can buckle down and work for six or eight hours straight.

After the husband left for work—he was pouring concrete at 8 am so he was out of here fairly early—I headed to my sewing room to clean and organize. Everything related to the sale had to be put away. I took advantage of some newly-emptied tubs to sort and store my knit fabrics. I earmarked a stack of fabrics to become either long-sleeved LDTs or possible Linda twist tops if I like that pattern. A muslin for the Linda top has been traced and cut out, but I haven’t had time to assemble it yet.

The next order of business was hemming a bridesmaid’s dress for a young woman at church. I have no desire to do alterations, but I will do small jobs here and there. She brought the dress and shoes to church on Sunday, and I pinned and marked a new hem. The dress is made from a gorgeous dark green stretch velvet. The skirt overlaps in front and is open to the hem. I hung it up in my sewing room and looked at it a couple of times to make sure I understood the construction before I started taking it apart. In the end, it was easier than I expected. The dress and the lining were sewn in a continuous circle with a coverstitch hem. I worked around and pinned up the entire circumference, then hung the dress from a hook on the wall over my coverstitch machine. I put the seam guide on the bed of the machine and very carefully stitched a new hem. Once I was sure that the new line of stitching looked good and was correct, I pressed the hem (on a towel), then went back with a pair of duckbill (appliqué) scissors and carefully cut off the excess fabric just above the new stitching line. That is not my preferred way of making coverstitch hems, but it’s a legitimate method. In this case, it was much easier and more accurate than first cutting the excess fabric, then folding up and stitching a hem.

I am happy with how it turned out. I’ll deliver the dress on Sunday.

After lunch and a phone visit with DD#1, I tackled the Jalie Éléonore pants.

I traced the pattern, then located the stretch poplin I bought on clearance at Joann Fabrics and cut them out. I went up a size from the Renee pants because those were ponte and these are poplin. This pair is being made straight from the pattern without alteration. I didn’t have to alter the Renee pants, so I want to check the fit on these before I start messing with them. Also, these are going to be a store display/class sample.

By then, it was time to start working on dinner. I changed the needles in the sewing machine and serger and rethreaded both with black thread so they would be ready to go today.

****************

From the “Where has common sense gone?” department, I logged into QuickBooks Online yesterday morning to write some checks and was met with a message that an update was available. I agreed to download and install the update. (I always wonder if something will break after the update and turn a two-minute task into a three-hour ordeal.) After the update, I was met with a splash screen letting me know that, Hey!—this update is intended to restore the appearance and function of QBO back to the Desktop version familiar to users!

Gee, maybe you should have left it that way from the get-go. 🤦‍♀️

Back in the olden days—get off my lawn—it seemed that companies were actually concerned with meeting customers’ needs. Build a better mousetrap, etc. More and more, it seems that companies are completely tone-deaf to what people want. Instead, companies bring the items to market that THEY want to sell (or are being incentivized to sell) and try to jam them down consumers’ throats. No one really wants to buy a car loaded with useless options that add 10K to the price tag. Joann Fabrics customers would like to buy fabric, not cheap Dollar Store crap from China. Everyone I know hates the software-as-a-service model that Adobe and Intuit have espoused, which is intended to bleed users slowly and continuously. (I did switch to Affinity, but I miss some things about Adobe Creative Suite.) And while I am sure that it kept a whole office building of software engineers busy, the QBO redesign slowed my workflow to a crawl because everything that used to require one mouse click now requires five.

I’m getting tired of being held hostage.

I was considering a Volvo station wagon as a replacement for The Diva when she finally wears out. The husband and I watched a video review of the Volvo the other night. The reviewer is a very sharp guy who owns a repair shop, and he went over that car with a fine-toothed comb. His recommendation? You don’t want this car in your life if you’re ever going to have to work on it. I thought the Germans were bad. The Swedes make the Germans look like kindergarteners when it comes to over-engineering. Halfway through the video, I looked at the husband and said, “I’m not getting this car, am I?” and he shook his head.

Honestly, I am about ready to go back to a Ram pickup, except that I don’t want to have to drive one in Seattle. I’ll keep looking.