The Great Work / Life Balance Challenge

Please accept these pictures as a counterpoint to the words that follow. In them, you will see Maia sauntering around Boston like a boss. Because she is the boss, of all of us...

Ladies and gentlemen, please tell me how it's possible to work with the children at home. Obviously, I was well-aware that I would need to shut up shop while we were physically away but expected that I'd be up and running (albeit at a slower pace) now that we have returned. Sporadic blog silence and my semi-closed shop suggest I'm finding it harder than I imagined.

Topically, this post on Design*Sponge popped up in my feed this week about how to work with / around your kids over the summer holidays.  Through a wily combination of bribes and clearly separating work and play the author purports it's possible to get stuff done.

This has loosely been my tactic: a fun non-work activity outside the house every day to buy me some good will and time for work inside the house.  Which should work in terms of bribery, but also in teaching the lesson that in order to do fun things I need to be able to pay for them by, you know, working.

So far, this is working beautifully on paper and in my own mind but unfortunately not in actual practise. Constant interruptions mean that everything is taking me at least double the amount of time to complete; one particularly bad day this week saw an order* that would normally take me two hours to complete take five.  Mostly because someone required half a dozen time outs**.

Pictured: someone

One of my children is from the school of thought that any attention is better than no attention.  If I'm working, she's constantly bothering her brother.  He in turn is constantly complaining to me.  The only way to end the cycle is to get out of the house, which was the ultimate plan anyway but I've accomplished nothing other than angina.  Normally I'd work in the wee small hours but I've had to do incredibly sexy things like tax credit renewals / income tax submissions / VAT returns at night as they're impossible to complete with constant interruptions.  And also without constant interruptions.

Dancing to the beat of her own drum. A vengeful drum.

So fellow work-at-homers, how do you manage it? Any tips to share? Commiserations? Also- twelve sleeps til school!

*Although my shop is technically closed to clothing orders I am accepting orders via email.  Makes me happier when I can confirm that an extra day or two longer than normal is okay with the customer.

** Time outs are only administered for extreeeeeemely bad behaviour.  And don't make an iota of difference.

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The Knit Flounce Skirt

From November until spring it's almost impossible for me to get modelled pics. Daylight only occurs during the hours the kids are away, and it's cold enough that coats should not be off for long. Plus the year-round grumbles about not wanting to model and deliberating gurning. One of these days I swear I'm going to click through a Pinterest link about getting kids to cooperate with picture-taking.

So I grabbed 45 seconds on the way home from school to get some pictures of her newest skirt: a full-circle made out of knit polkadot. See how the small girl twirls.

I'm going to be working a load of knit projects over the next couple of weeks (due in part to the imminent reveal of Top Secret Bizness), but my question is this: are some people still intimidated by working with stretch fabric? And what do you like or not like about sewing knits?

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'Keeping Them Safe' or 'Scaring the Bejesus Out of Them'?

Pictured: Everyday occurrences

As a class, the Primary Ones at Jamie's school are working themselves through an initiative centred around 'keeping yourself safe'. They have to learn their names, addresses, phone numbers, emergency contact details and a series of books have been sent home to read through and discuss. To this point the books have depicted Criminal Minds-type scenarios like strangers trying to entice you to into their car or help them find their dog. They end with a multiple choice: a) do want the stranger wants b) do something random c) scream 'I DON'T KNOW YOU' and run away. So far, so sensible (ish).

But then there was last night's book... The little girl is waiting for her mum to pick her up from school, the mum is late, the girl decides to walk home by herself, the girl gets frightened and cries, a man asks her if she is lost. And then the multiple choice. According to the 'Keeping Yourself Safe' rules, the girl is supposed to scream 'I DON'T KNOW YOU' and run away. I'm really uncomfortable with that answer.

The man is doing nothing sinister, he's asking a crying child if she's lost. As an adult if I saw a child crying and alone, I'd ask them if they were okay. But would I if I was worried that they were taught to scream at me and run away? Or is it different because I'm a woman? And similarly, if one of my children was scared and lost, I'd like to think that there would be people willing to help. I mean, how scared and lost would you feel if you were taught that everyone you didn't explicitly know was a threat?

I'm interested... What do you think about the message in this book? Am I the only one who's uncomfortable teaching my kids that there aren't people in the world who would genuinely want to help them?

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Does Child Protection actually endanger our children?

Strange and frustrating week, guys. As I've mentioned before, Maia has had recurrent Urinary Tract Infections and this week we had an ultrasound and a renal consultation to discuss the issue. Thankfully the ultrasound showed that there is no physiological reason for her infections, and neither was there damage from her previous infections. Good news. What they did say, however, that the lab results from her previous infections showed that they were caused by poor wiping technique, i.e. E Coli (!) bacteria from the back was making it's way into her urethra. Armed with a lot of information about how to prevent future infections (most importantly good hygiene), I spoke to her nursery and asked for their help in making sure she always wipes properly.

Apparently, Child Protection guidelines prevent the nursery staff from physically helping the children in the toilet to protect the staff from allegations of improper touching. They have agreed to encourage her to wipe properly, from a distance. Which is something. But does anyone else see the irony here? That a Child Protection policy that forces children to control their own hygiene (at three years old) might endanger them when they aren't able to do a good enough job? I've been taking advice from the council this morning, and have another meeting with the nursery manager next week. Maybe a compromise will be possible, I'm not giving up yet.

What do you think?

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You all want me to sew a chicken carcass. I won't.

Last week when I was fabric shopping for Halloween costume purposes, I noticed something completely new in my local Mandor's: a table full of leather pelts. I was drawn to the lovely colours and butter soft texture, but the thought of buying actual leather had me a bit flummoxed. Naturally, I brought my ethical quandry over to my Facebook Fan Page and Twitter and we had a really interesting debate. Most people said, 'If you eat meat, then using the by-products in the form of wearing / sewing leather makes sense.' I'm liking the sentiments, guys, but I don't actually eat beef. Can you get poultry skin for crafting purposes? Do not even send me links. Do Not Want.


I went back today, and unfortunately the petrol blue skin I had my heart set on had sold in the intervening week. There was still so much to choose from and in the end I chose cherry red. Speaking to the shop assistant, I found out a bit more about how they came into stock. The esteemed Liberty of London have recently ceased manufacturing handbags and accessories and sold off their remaining leather pieces. Mandor's got their hands of a fair amount, but they were selling very well and once gone, they're gone. And what does Amanda do when confronted by the terror of other people buying the last of something she wants? That's right. She panic-bulk-buys:


This piece verges right on the edge of very dark chocolate brown and grey black. I almost bought a turquoise suede. I almost bought an antiqued fuschia. But that would have been truly insane.

So, what would you do with two large leather skins?

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If this was my lunch bag I'd fill it with gratitude and sadness

Thank you very, very much for the dress advice yesterday. I'm so grateful that even if I don't have people to physically go shopping with, I have plenty of cyber-helpers! It's funny how much the panel was split, so I still haven't decided. I'm leaning towards picking a fight with Steven and not going.

So the first thing I would put in the new lunch bag is gratitude. Because this is a gift, I changed the design quite a bit from my half-a** late night version for Jamie. I used 99.8% of my brain cells figuring out the construction, and if you had given me an MRI when I got to dealing with the zipper and the two separate shell and lining bags it would have look like this:


I've concluded that you need a bigger brain than mine to figure out how to do this bit with more ease than I did. Obviously, I did manage to do it. But I'm sure there's a much easier way.

I know I said I might do a tute for this, but I don't think I will.

• Reason 1: It was a seriously time-consuming project with the Thinsulate, zipper, boxing out etc. For me, buying one in the shop makes more economic sense than sewing one over a day.
• Reason 2: I'm sure that there's an easier way to do this so I don't feel right having a tute explaining how to do something in a convoluted way.

I'm feeling pretty sad. It was a bad day to find out that there's a snarky thread on a sewing forum about one of my other tutes. When I first wanted to teach myself to sew just after Maia was born, I bought some proper sewing books and commercial patterns for baby clothes to get me started. It was so intimidating how technical everything was and I struggled through the commercial patterns to find that the garments were by and large, well, large. It was only through Craftster and the people I found on the sewing boards that I discovered that it was okay to construct things differently, that you could experiment with drafting your own patterns based on your own children, that there were thousands of other 'non-technical' sewers willing to share how they did things. That if you stopped obsessing about what you're 'supposed to do', you could find what worked for you and the sense of achievement you gained would give you the passion to continue trying, continue making, continue learning. I guess I'm in a tricky position. I've never pretended that I'm a technically-trained sewer or pattern drafter, but perhaps that's a mantle I've automatically adopted by sharing (and yes, selling) tutorials. What do you think, should you only share / sell things if they're technically correct? Or is the message that 'there are different ways to do things and this is one that's worked for me' valid enough to be shared?

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The Neurotic Military Duffel

Sewing for the boy got exponentially more tricky when he started school. Although I have seen girls in coats of many colours, boys seem to stick with the school colours green and black.

I would have liked a royal blue, or an orange, or a turquoise, or a red. But I played it safe.

Is it typical First-Child-in-School-Syndrome to want them to blend in, to be accepted? What of our platitudes of 'Be special, be unique, be yourself'...

Has it been trumped by oh dear god please don't let him be bullied?

Is it exacerbated by the more rigid parameters of socially acceptable clothes for boys of a certain age? Of course, this is strictly hypothetical. It's impossible to tease a boy in a school-colours coat.

Disclaimer: Neuroses courtesy of him starting full days at school yesterday and the resultant visions of six hours of hardcore bullying. If said neuroses are giving you secondary embarrassment, you're welcome to just say 'Nice coat, lol!'.

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God, school is so exhausting already. For me.

I totally tricked you guys! You thought I'd be posting the lunchbag tute, but due to yet another note requesting more school accouterments, I had to make a gym kit bag first. I hope I don't get a note telling me to sew something else tomorrow, I'm not sure I can keep up with this pace.

My sister in law said about The Lunchbag of Injustice yesterday, 'Its so cool that you can need something and just make it!' Of course it's cool. It's very satisfying to make things that people need one day after when they need them. But it's also a bit of an albatross: if somebody needs something and I can conceivably make it, I feel too guilty to buy it. Even when time is against me and my material costs are higher than a completed store-bought article.

Do other makers feel this way? Have you found that the ability to make things has influenced your ability to buy things without guilt? Or do you just let yourself off the hook?

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The Great Big Fabric Licensing Debate

The question of whether a crafter can sell products made with 'licensed' fabrics is one I see often. Anyone ever see a statement like this on a selvage?


This is a fairly common thing to see, particularly with regard to 'licensed' fabrics and particularly for fabrics more than a couple of years old. But is it actually true? Can a designer sell a fabric (or any supply) to an individual but then stipulate what it is used for? Companies like Disney, Warner Brothers, and professional sports teams all have a history of stipulating 'personal use only' on their fabrics. And, in a way, that is semi-logical as cartoon characters and team names / logos are copyright. I can't start printing my own Disney fabric. Technically speaking I can't even sell derivative works like Hello Kitty appliques I made out of felt or screenprinted t-shirts with movie names on them. But what happens if the companies themselves sell yardage of fabric featuring trademarked / copyrighted things? Can they restrict its use (which suggests that although you bought the fabric, they still have ownership) or by releasing it into the market do they forfeit their right to say how it's used?

I researched this quite a bit when I was starting out and it was even more contentious at that time. Beyond the big corporations mentioned above, even smaller fabric designers who didn't use trademarked characters or logos wanted to restrict usage. In late 2006, Amy Butler climbed down from her original limited use policy as did Heather Ross, after there was considerable uproar within the crafting community and it was pointed out that the law just did not support it. American case law says that businesses cannot restrict usage if they themselves are the ones that release it. From the First Sale Doctrine:

"The whole point of the first sale doctrine is that once the copyright owner places a copyrighted item in the stream of commerce by selling it, he has exhausted his exclusive statutory right to control its distribution."

Justice Stevens, delivering an opinion for a unanimous Supreme Court in the case QUALITY KING DISTRIBUTORS, INC. v. L'ANZA RESEARCH INT'L, INC. (96-1470), 98 F.3d 1109, reversed.

Added to several cases that have been brought to court and decided in favour of the person using licensed fabric, or settled out of court because the fabric supplier was most likely going to lose, it appears that it should be permissible to use licensed fabric to make items for sale. But that does not stop auctions being shut down on Ebay or Cease and Desist letters being issued. Corporations can rely on their relative wealth and size to intimidate people into thinking that they can't use their fabric for non-personal use.

But what about in the UK? I couldn't find a single court case to clarify what the position is here. I do know, however, of at least two people within the UK craft scene who have been told by a very well known British fabric brand that they cannot use their fabric for things they planned to sell. And they probably won't (as I wouldn't) because of the potential for Drama.

So what do you think about the licensed fabric debate? As far as I'm concerned, as long as you are clear that you are in no way affiliated or officially sanctioned by the company (e.g. by saying 'made with so-and-so fabric' instead of the more ambiguous 'so-and-so product') that you should be able to use fabric that you legally bought for whatever you'd like. I do feel more uncomfortable about re-purposed things, like if a designer screenprinted a tablecloth and you cut it up to make dresses. But that's just me. What does everyone else think?

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer so nothing I say here (or anywhere else) should be taken as legal fact. But my Dad is so I have his clever genes. I am also not incriminating myself for making the Care Bear hoodie if that was Bad Ass because Kirsty bought the fabric and hired me to sew it. Do not bother to sue me.

Further reading:
Pretty much the Bible about fabric licensing is here on Tabberone
Also, very handy 'Fabric and the Law' tag on True Up.

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