Tag: santa

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The Yucky Horror Seamstress Show

It being Halloween and all, I thought I’d share with you GHOULISH TALES OF TERROR. Then I figured it’d be better if I downshifted it a bit, and instead just give you my top five “ickiest” moments as a professional seamstress. What makes them totally spinechilling is that they’re ALL REAL…!

[INSERT SPOOKY MUSIC HERE]

  1. HAMMER GYM OF HORROR – This particular smelly situation has happened to me more than once. Twice, in fact; which is twice more than it should have happened. I refer, of course, to the client who has somehow misjudged his or her timing and has opted to hit the gym before an appointment with me and equally opted to not shower beforehand. Now, you may have heard that I have previous extensive experience in community and professional theatre. And let me tell you that one person’s body odor can wreck an entire production. Same with those who come to my admittedly small studio to get measured or fitted. I beg of you, please take the as-little-as-two-minutes’-time it takes to freshen up the smelly bits. We’re working in close quarters, don’t you know.
  2. SWINGING FROM THE RAFTERS – As a seamstress, ,I have to maintain as much of a detachment to the bodies of my clients as much as a gynecologist. To me, a naked body is something needed to be clothed, preferably by something I’ve created. However, that does NOT mean I encourage you to go commando, whether you’re male or female… and I’ve had both. Please trust me when I say that no seamstress on the planet wants any extra surprises when measuring inseams. However, if you feel you MUST be ‘free and unfettered,’ please refer to Number 1 above and don’t add inappropriate smells to the inappropriate sigh
  3. WHAT, WILL THESE STAINS NE’ER COME OUT? – It’s part of my job to take garments that customers have found that are frequently secondhand and used (the garments, not the customers). I actually get much joy from repurposing or altering something that’s already been created into something new and personal and tailored to the new owner. That being said, there’s been at least one misguided Santa in my life who opted to bring me a full costume that needed re-rendering that hadn’t been washed, laundered, or drycleaned. Like, EVER. The stains and the smells jockeyed for position as to which was the most overt. I actually sort of felt for the kids who might be encountering this particular Jolly (and Smelly) Old Elf at the mall or parties. So much so that I dipped into my own pocket to have the thing professionally cleaned and practically deloused so that I could work on it without gagging. Do me a favor and have your costume, clothes, or gown drycleaned before bringing it to me. If you’re in a pinch, know that I have an entire drawer filled with coupons I’m willing to share.
  4. O HOLEY NIGHT – Believe it or not, there’s something worse than a client who has opted to go commando (see Number 2 above). And that’s wearing undergarments that are – how shall we phrase this? – ‘well worn.’ Yes, yes, I’ve heard the old joke, “Of COURSE I have holes in my underwear; how else would I put my legs through?” but there’s a limit, folks. And while we’re on the topic, skidmarks are something I wish to see ONLY on the road. Not in your unmentionables. Alas, I’ve had both bride and Santa greet me with this. So, I beg of you, when prepping for an appointment with me (or any other seamstress or tailor out there), remember what your mother told you: wear clean underwear!
  5. THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK SOUL – So, most of my above examples have been pretty olfactory centered. Yes, stains are bad and smells are worse. But what is truly horrifying is some of the horrendous attitudes I’ve encountered in my professional life. And not just directed toward me. Too often I’ve come across bridezillas and Santazillas alike. On occasions that are supposed to be all love and happiness, they bare the darkest parts of themselves that are best hidden, if not exorcized. I got into this business because I wanted to use my talents to bring happiness into people’s lives on their special days and to leave the world a little cleaner than I found it. I vastly prefer it when people make it easy for me to do so.

So, those are MY tales of terror! What are YOURS?

Have a safe Halloween… and don’t eat the candy while trying on your wedding gown!

Until next time!

Heather

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Where Do I Begin…?

I’m rapidly approaching my fourth ‘official’ anniversary of being The Singing Seamstress; the journey has been longer because the shift from amateur to professional took some time leading up to the official naming. Time flies when you’re having fun, right? While I’ve been fascinated by sewing and fabrics and design and creation pretty much my whole life, there was one particular moment when I decided to turn seamstressing from a hobby to a profession. Like any superhero, I have an origin story. Not that I’m saying I’m a superhero. I’m merely saying that Wonder Woman and I have never been in the same room together at the same time, and we’ll leave it at that.

The first Santa costume photo that I posted way back in 2016!

I was actually in the medical field a few years ago, and in honesty I’d had I had no designs on getting into bridal alterations. But the fates intervened and I received a frantic call from a theatre friend saying that one of her best friends was in a pickle. She begged me for my help, and who was I to turn down a friend’s friend in distress?

It turns out the aforementioned friend was the father of a bride, the wedding was two weeks away, and the person they had originally hired to do the alterations (a biddy from their church) didn’t do a good job on the gown and – furthermore – was not returning phone calls. Sight unseen, I offered my own assistance.

The dress turned out to be a strapless mermaid; one of the most difficult fashions to alter well. To this day… well, I can’t say I HATE a particular style to alter, but I CAN say this style is near the bottom of my list. Additionally, they’re specifically designed for a particular body type, and I’ve lost track of the times I’ve tried to convince a bride of the ‘not particular body type’ to go with another style and they refuse, only to wonder why they don’t look like they thought they would in it. But that’s another blog entry.

The original, disappeared seamstress had only taken the dress in at the very top. She had not extended her seams down the entire length of the dress, which is a vital component to any alterations to it. She also hadn’t bustled it, which, again, had to be done for this fashion. No wonder the bride and her dad were ready to have father/daughter matching heart attacks.

I will admit that my hands shook the entire time I was working on it. I was convinced I had bitten off more than I could chew, and I just KNEW I was going to only further disappoint the bride. But halfway through the project – and there’s no way to say this without sounding all Kung Fu – something happened, and my hands steadied and my nerves calmed. A sort of sereneness washed over me and with each stitch I grew more confident in my abilities. In the past, I can created and altered dozens – if not hundreds – of everyday clothes and theatrical costumes. In the end, this was no different, except for the pressure I had put on myself.

In any event, I finished the dress and promptly proceeded to drink an entire bottle of wine upon its completion. It was a sort of celebration, because I had survived the ordeal unscathed. Additionally, the realtered gown looked absolutely stunning on the beautiful bride, and I can still remember the tears in her dad’s eyes when he saw his ‘little girl’ all grown up and wearing white.

I figured – and rather naively so from today’s perspective – that this was probably as bad as it could get, so I decided to ditch my corporate position and try out professional seamstressing for a living. It took the largest leap of faith I ever had to take, and those early days were filled with hit-and-miss. But word of mouth spread, and my work began to speak for itself, and I realized the pros definitely outweighed the cons. So here I am to stay.

Now… tell me YOUR origin story!

Until next time!

Heather

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You Better Not Pout, You Better Not Cry… Santa’s Costuming is Nigh

Dateline: the middle of June in Houston.

Those of my readers who are reside in other more northern states or overseas might not fully appreciate this, but that means it’s summer in Texas. Which means bone-melting temperatures and soul-crushing humidity. I honestly can’t fathom how the West was won in the old days before the invention of air conditioning. If it had been me being directed to blaze that new frontier, all you would have seen of me was the cloud of dust my horse kicked up as we sped away to gentler climes in, say, Canada.

A certified, authentic, and genuine TEXAS SNOW GLOBE

As such, Christmas tends to be the last things on our minds in the Lone Star State in the summertime. However, if you’re planning on playing Santa or Mrs. Claus this year, believe it or not, NOW is the time to get your orders in for your costumes.

Even as a little girl, I could tell my true Santas apart from the wannabes every time I hit the malls. Fake beards aside, the sight of boot-tops camouflaging dress shoes or ill-fitting worn-thin polyester pants and jackets made my heart sink. Those were the times my parents would have to cover for the ersatz Santa with mumbled words about a too-busy Santa and his army of ‘helpers.’

On the other hand, nothing – and I mean NOTHING – put me in the Christmas spirit more than seeing a fully costumed and committed Kris Kringle, resplendent in beautiful costume from head to toe. It’s something that I’ve carried into my adulthood, and even was a driving force in deciding to specialize in custom Kringle costumes as a career.

Now, at the risk of gender generalization, I can’t think of a bride on the planet in her right mind who would first contact me or another dressmaker about designing and creating her wedding gown a month out from the ceremony. But men are masters of procrastination. It’s incredibly ingrained in their DNA to wait until the last minute. Don’t believe me? Next Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day, check out how many guys are at the temporary florist tent set up in the nearest Kroger parking lot.

I feel like a true Grinch when November rolls around and I have to turn down job offers from well-meaning men wanting to spread a little personalized Christmas cheer. Not only are they too late, they are WAY THE HECK too late. Unless you want to grab a cheapo getup from the local costume store, you’re going to need to leave months for a professional job to be done on your own outfit.

Like any self-respecting seamstress – singing or otherwise – I take pride in my work. From my days of working as a costumer in community theatre, there was a recurring joke/not joke when it came to providing custom clothing for the actors: Good, Fast, or Cheap. Pick any one. Crafting a worthy costume takes time; fittings take time, confirming the client’s vision and desires takes time, meticulously planning and creating with the proper materials takes time.

In short, gents, if you’re wanting to look like a worthy Santa this festive season, NOW is the time to get in touch with me, because I can guarantee you it will take the summer and autumn to provide you with a costume that you and I could both be proud of.

However, I can promise you; it’s worth the wait.

Until next time!

Heather

P.S. SPEAKING OF TEXAS…

I simply HAD to include this little story. There is an amazing Fort Worth, Texas artist named Jack Sorenson. Check out his website and be sure to ‘like’ his Facebook page! His paintings of Texas life – past and present – enthrall many an art lover, including Houston-area seasonal Santa David Applegate.

Original Artwork by Jack Sorenson

David contacted both me and Jack to see if we could craft a costume based on the above painting. If you know me, you know I never shirk from a challenge (in fact, have you ever encountered ANYONE who admits they DO shirt challenges? But I digress.) and once I was given the green light I was proud to use the paining as a template and provide David a real-life version of it, just like this:

If YOU have any special design needs, or even a vision of a special-made-to-order Santa costume, drop me a line! Just be sure to do it soon… and beat the holiday rush.

HTSS

Until next time Dear Readers, may all your bobbins be full and all your seams be straight.Heather

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Bad Santa (or, “Santa-Zilla, slip a sable under the tree…”)

Hello! Welcome to my new blog feature, “Tales from the Singing Seamstress” – a semi-regular peek into the wacky world of seamstressing. I thought I’d start off with a little holiday story.

We’ve all heard of the concept of the “Bridezilla” – heck, there was even a TV show about this special class of “lady” that goes all Jekyll/Hyde as the impending wedding day nears. Watching that television show was like watching a train wreck; however, there was a screen separating me from the horrors unfolding before me, and if it got too bad, I had a remote in my hand and 499 other channels to choose from.

Which left me a tad unprepared for my own version of every business owner’s nightmare of the enfant terrible client – my very own Santa-Zilla.

The tale goes a bit like this:

One fateful day, I received an order from a Santa for an embroidered velvet vest and matching knickers. He wanted zip fly and a back pocket, both of which additions I seem to have gotten lost in the translation. Which meant I mailed vest and knickers to him sans zipper and pocket, which in turn meant I received a very angry and nearly incomprehensible tirade via Facebook Messenger in the evening of the day he received them. (It’s important to remember the evening part of this, trust me.)

It took a while to sift through his hammered-out words and near-foreign syntax. Once I understood what he was on about, I immediately offered to – of course – fix the pants. The next morning, I received another Facebook Message from him – a more lucid message this time – pleasantly confirming he would return the knickers for their completion.

The moment Mr. Postman dropped them back off with me, you betcha I straightaway went about making the alterations. Whistling while I worked (or was it with visions of sugar plums dancing in my head? I forget), I put a patch pocket on the back and added a zipper closure in the front. Straining my own arm from patting myself on the back for my ability to placate a client, I shipped the pants back to my once-and-future Santa.

Imagine my surprice when, after he received them, I got “torn a new one” with yet another incomprehensible evening tirade. Apparently, upon reflection, he wanted a non-patch pocket; additionally, the zipper was supposedly puckering.

Le sigh.

Thus continued the messaged back-and-forth, whereupon your Singing Seamstress sweetly offered to emergency-create another pair of pants catered to his new specifications and overnight them to him. The back-and-forth continued, until it finally dawned on me that I was conversing with someone who was drunk off his Santa ass. Apparently, my client started each and every evening off with a stiff drink or twelve, which explained the tenor of my evening messages from him and the contrary daytime moods.

Well, gentle readers, the Singing Seamstress did her best with what she had. Unfortunately for me, the velvets of his original vest and new knickers didn’t match – as they say, “Close, but no cigar.” (Side note: did you know that phrase comes from old carnival days where winning one of the games would win you a cigar, and not quite making it meant you went away empty-handed. Anyway, back to the story.)

To retaliate, my own personal Bad Santa tore the waistband and the pockets, claimed it was my handiwork, and demanded his money back. How do I know that he tore them? I made him send me back the pants. As you can surmise, my check to him was most definitely NOT in the mail.

Now, here’s the punchline: two weeks later, I get a lucid daytime message from him; quite soberly (literally and figuratively), he wanted me to make him some shirts.

So, I did what any self-respecting business owner would do: I squared my shoulders, girded my loins (I don’t even know what that means, but I did it), proudly proclaimed that the customer is always right, and created for him a dozen awesome shirts and didn’t even charge him.

Not really.

After getting over my shock, I politely, professionally and firmly fired his drunk ass as a client.

It’s not nice to mess with MRS. Claus, you see…

Until next time!

Heather