Monday, June 29, 2015

I am no longer taking CLOAK commissions.

As many of you know, "Red's Cloak" has been one of my more popular commissions. However, after making so many of them, I reached my burnout point and realized that I simply could not sew any more cloaks. Partially mental burnout, but also they are very physically demanding, which has been more and more difficult with my fibromyalgia, and my tiny apartment just does not have adequate floor space to cut out the huge panels required.

This was not an easy decision for me, as I felt I was letting my clients down. So my idea was to create a system of contractors that would complete different aspects of the cloaks. Late last year I set up a queue of 6 cloaks to be completed via this method, with three contractors.

While the clients that were a part of that queue ARE getting their cloaks, various problems with the contractors have resulted in a greatly delayed delivery schedule. The whole process has been so frustrating for me, that it has become very clear that this method is not going to work.

I am hoping to expand my masterpost with more notes and pattern suggestions, so that those who still want a version of Red's cloak from "Once Upon a Time" (or Belle's, same pattern) can see what I did and replicate my steps (or pass the instructions on to the seamstress of their choice). I don't feel there would be enough interest to warrant me creating a full pattern to sell, especially since cloaks are so large that selling them as a "print and tape" e-pattern would be more trouble than it's worth for both me and the customers.

Now... need some good news to balance out your day? Check out what I posted on my new sewing instagram account today - click the photo with the thimble and thread! (Full blog post on the subject coming Wednesday!)

No comments: