The Sewing Place

How is your hard work treated?

Lollipop

How is your hard work treated?
« on: January 02, 2020, 19:58:35 PM »
I make dance costumes and classical ballet tutus in my local area and have been a bit dismayed to see how some of the kids, and their parents, treat the costumes. I see hooped tutus bent in half inside carry bags and children eating chips and greasy sandwiches wearing a new costume or tutu !!  :o
I recently delivered a "tear off" dress over a doggy leotard for a 4 year old's debut song and dance competition. The Mum gushed over the outfit, tried it on the child and left it dumped on the changing room floor as she chatted. Someone pointed out that it was there and she promptly grabbed it, screwed it up and shoved it in her bag whilst carrying on chatting. I hope my face didn't betray the annoyance that I was feeling.   ><

My husband tells me that they can do whatever they want after they have paid for it, but I think it shows a lack of respect, not just for me but for the beautiful costume.
Most are not like this thankfully.
Was Sewnanny

snoozi soozi

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2020, 20:02:18 PM »
@Lollipop I presume you get paid for all these outfits and costumes you make?!  So look on the bright side, the quicker they are ruined due to a lack of respect the more work you get from it  :)

Edit: read it again and seen your last paragraph - you do get paid. Good  :)
« Last Edit: January 02, 2020, 20:04:26 PM by snoozi soozi »
Let it sew, let it sew, let it sew

Vezelay

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2020, 20:52:26 PM »
I sympathise but I think your husband is right. Whether you sell something or give it as a gift, once it belongs to someone else what they do with it (treasure it, charity shop, bin it, pass it on) is really not your concern.

A friend of mine who recently moved house regularly drives past her old one and worries about what the new occupants are doing to their carefully laid out garden. DH made a beautiful obelisk on his forge for friends and is afraid they won't look after it. It's lovely when people appreciate your skills and efforts but best not to rely on it or take it personally when they don't.

MitchOfTheNorth

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2020, 00:52:49 AM »
Lollipop, I get it - you've put in your best work to make a dancer look her best on stage and someone ruins it by treating your carefully made costume like a rag.  They don't store it properly, and then, it looks poorly made by the time it reaches performance day.  When other parents or teachers ask who made it, they assume that it's quality is your fault - not that someone didn't care for it properly.  Usually, the parents and kids appreciated & treated the costumes properly.  Once, I made dresses for little girls out of this beautiful emerald green bridal satin.  At dress rehearsal, the parents let their girls run around, roll on the floor and crawl over gym mats with velcro strips.  I got to hear the satin being shredded down the front  :S.  The teacher lost her cool at photo day.  Maybe you could include the cost of a proper garment/tutu bag with the costume and a written set of instructions for care. 

I used to be head dressing room monitor during our annual recital - it was easier to train the kids than the parents.  I had parents complain to me that their kid had stubbornly refused to bring anything other than soda crackers & water as a snack.  I had explained that anything else could ruin their costumes or worse, someone else's.  The parents had wanted to send fruit juice and chocolate covered granola bars ><.  I was asked not to be a monitor because apparently some of the other moms cried after I laid down the law with them.
Stashbusting 2022
Goal:  50 meters
Total:  32.5 meters

Kwaaked

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2020, 00:57:09 AM »
Anything to do with kids is pretty much going to give you a headache.  Kids not treating their clothing well is usually learned from a parent not doing so.  Huge pet peeve of mine is people talking about just leaving clothing in baskets/hampers instead of in dressers or closets (brain malfunction for the UK term, sorry) since they just have to wash them again/use minimalist living as the reason.  So we're not dealing with some people that clothing is an item that they take care of anyway.

Mostly, when I am in my alteration shop I take care of the dresses far better then they do even picking it up.  I have a hook and hangers for them to hang their clothing...most leave it on the floor, maybe pile it on a table I have in the corner (of which I had to take the decoration off because it was being piled on), the throw the dress into one of the chairs and I have had to get a sign made stating "do not hang clothing on dressing screen" (it's an antique and folds...not exactly the most stable and I don't want it scratched).  Not day dresses, but wedding gowns.  So taking care of a costume, well, at least they pick them off the floor.

This afternoon I went into the shop to pick up some stuff to work on at home.  While I was there, I had a young 20s girl come in to ask if I could do some alterations by next week.  Nothing major or even time consuming, but after seeing them I replied that I had a $5 charge for ironing the garments to begin to work on them (yes, they were this bad).  This was work uniforms, not even nice clothing.  Items she HAS to wear to get paid.  After talking to her, she hadn't ever seen an iron in use in her life and didn't know how to deal with the wrinkles since they came out of the dryer wrinkled and she didn't fold anything so they stayed balled up in her laundry basket.

Long story cutting short: no, I don't get upset when my work is not treated as I would treat them.  Few do, for one, and people just don't care how they look for the most part or don't know things are supposed to be treated in a different way.  They pay me to provide a service, which I do to standards *I* have.  If their standards are lower, well, I got a charge for that.


wrenkins

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2020, 06:56:02 AM »
Not clothing but a similar story...with a twist.  :S
Him indoors made me a beautiful, thick, chunky, smooooth wooden chopping board. He hated my nasty little plastic ones and so did I.
I won't use it to chop anything wet or sticky because I'm keeping it 'good'.  0_0
He's going nuts! (keeps waving big knives at it...!!!!!!) 
I've always tried to keep my things like new for as long as possible.  :[ I simply can't/won't buy into this everything's disposable nonsense.
Harbouring resentment is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other person to die!

Ploshkin

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #6 on: January 03, 2020, 10:21:55 AM »
I don't think many people are actually aware of the the time and skill that goes into making a garment because they don't see the process.   Because you have the ability to do it, the assumption is that it's easy for you and you can knock them out quickly.  How many times have I heard 'oh, you should make those and sell them'. 
My DH doesn't give a **** about clothes which mainly live in a heap on a chair.  However he has seen, and been amazed by, the amount of time and patience I put into making things and he treats the shirts and jacket that I have made for him with respect. 
Do you charge enough for making costumes?  My guess would be no because I know that if you were to put a realistic price on your time most people wouldn't want to pay it.  Some people wouldn't care any more for things even if they were more expensive but it might make a few more thoughtful.

Life's too short for ironing.

Puzzler

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #7 on: January 03, 2020, 10:25:22 AM »
Anything to do with kids is pretty much going to give you a headache.  Kids not treating their clothing well is usually learned from a parent not doing so. 

I have a *child* of 33 who drops newly washed clothes on the floor and tramples over them. I cannot ever remember an incidence where she watched me do the same to my clothes.

SkoutSews

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2020, 10:32:36 AM »
Although it's true that once the customer has paid for the garment and taken delivery, it's theirs to do as they wish with, it would drive me mad to see my work being treated so poorly.  I don't understand why people don't look after their belongings and encourage their children to do the same.

I sympathise, @Lollipop !  I'd find it very hard not to say something to the offenders.

Gernella

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #9 on: January 03, 2020, 11:37:01 AM »
I've never moved, we moved in  from our respective parents's houses into a bungalow build by dad (with labour provided by us).  I do think about this a lot and I suspect if we did move I would never want to see it again, worrying what they were doing to it, or rather not doing to it.  Maybe it is better to move regularly so you don't too attached to bricks and mortar.

Going back to garments made/repaired, I  think it would upset me if I had put a lot of work in and the owners just treated them like something from Primark.  There are some people who just ruin anything they touch, they can't help it, just built into their genes.   
Stash extension 2024- 6.1 meters
Left at the end of 2023 - 66 meters now (includes fabric found hidden out of sight)  Lining fabric not included

Lollipop

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #10 on: January 03, 2020, 16:37:13 PM »
@Ploshkin you are probably right although it isn't really about the cost. Some people would do the same with Chanel!!
Was Sewnanny

MitchOfTheNorth

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2020, 18:59:05 PM »
Ah, wrenkins, Mr. Mitch makes wooden cutting boards and it drives him crazy that people don't use them.  If only he got a dollar for every time someone told him that they were too pretty to use.  I use mine all the time.  Just use one side if you want to keep one side for display - also, he can also sand it again if it looks worn.  Just don't put it in the fridge - the wood dries out and it will split.  One of my bil ruined it that way.
Stashbusting 2022
Goal:  50 meters
Total:  32.5 meters

Kwaaked

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #12 on: January 03, 2020, 19:13:02 PM »
I have a *child* of 33 who drops newly washed clothes on the floor and tramples over them. I cannot ever remember an incidence where she watched me do the same to my clothes.

It's why I said usually.  I am aware it's not always the case, but I have seen the parents treat their own clothing horribly then don't know why little Peggy doesn't pick hers up, or loses them and it's not a big deal.  Nor was it meant to offend anyone here.

Generational?  I don't know.  I do know that I have a friend and her mom that just left my house where they showed up unannounced and I was in the middle of laundry.  We're both in our 40s, mom is in her late 60s...and I got two hours of being told what a waste of time it was to fold and iron the clothing and how I was abusing my child by making her live to these weird standards and force her to put her clothes up and expect perfection from a little kid.  How silly, you name it.  Mom was like, "I do that and you grew up with it." (I was like, "I'm not having wrinkled clothes, thanks, and I'm not rewashing everything because my kid doesn't believe her dresser is for her clothes.")  And yes, I probably should have stopped ironing when they came, but on the same token, it's also not like most people don't see me with an iron in any given day either and I didn't get one for Christmas that I asked for to make it easier.

My friend has a 14 year old who tosses his clothes willy nilly, all over the floor and she complains how they're so expensive and he doesn't appreciate them, while she moves her clean laundry off the couch so you can sit to one of the chairs already covered in laundry.  Her mother is certainly not like this.

Marniesews

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #13 on: January 04, 2020, 00:00:09 AM »
Yes, my heart sinks when I see this but just try to think, ah well, more money than sense. I do occasionally get the opportunity when they come back for repair as a result to respond with, "I do try to make them relatively easy care but they do require some care." I liked Kwaaked's comment, well, I got a charge for that.  0_0

Partially in jest...if it helps @Lollipop, don't let it upset you, be judgemental instead - just keep it in your thoughts!  :o  Seems to help quite a few of us.  ;)
Hopefully back more regularly! Ballroom sewing may be permanently paused but bag making is the current focus.

wrenkins

Re: How is your hard work treated?
« Reply #14 on: January 04, 2020, 10:55:28 AM »
@MitchOfTheNorth he turned up yesterday with a ruler rack for my quilting rulers. It's already in use! (No sticky things!).  0_0
Harbouring resentment is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other person to die!