Losing My Mind

Seriously, I'm going to scream. I already had a breakdown from this Sears nightmare, but I think now I'm going to start screaming again like a loon until someone comes to haul me away and put me in my padded cell.

I got a call last night saying I'm scheduled for a dryer hookup (of the stuff my stupid installer forgot). I called last night, canceled that and scheduled for these people to come out on Wednesday to take the washer and dryer and refund me for this dumb purchase. So this morning (at 7:30 mind you!) I get a call from the driver verifying he's coming by today to install the steam for the dryer. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!

So I call up to cancel the driver coming by today. The lady informs me there's nothing in her computer indicating any such appointment. I point out that I got TWO PHONE CALLS stating there WAS such an appointment. She says she can't do anything so I said fine, it's just a wasted trip for some poor guy. Whatever. Like I care at this point. Then she tells me that no one will be out today. How did we go from "Duh, I don't know." to "Sure, he won't be out."? Especially since it's not in her computer system.

This is why Sears is stupid and evil. All support goes through a central call system. So once you're out the store doors, you're on your own with the central processing center. Even if the store where you bought the item wants to help you, they can't. They're not allowed to do anything. The central center does it all.

I'm drafting a receipt up for the delivery guys to sign when they pick up my machines on Wednesday. I don't trust Sears not to pick up my items and then inform me that I can't get my refund because there's no record of the pickup in the system. I was told by two Sears employees I'm being paranoid. Then I remind them of the whole SNAFU Sears caused in the first place and they understand. I don't care how funny the delivery guys look at me, they're signing my receipt.

On the bright side, today I get my nice machines from Best Buy installed by my husband and father-in-law. Now here are two guys who are really smart and very meticulous about everything they do in life. Marry an engineer, you won't be disappointed. I'm spoiled because my husband does EVERYTHING around here. Our new house rule is he installs EVERTHING. Period.

I did manage to knock another sewing project out of the way. It's a crib sheet with matching blanket for my baby daughter. It's a super easy and quick project. The perfect shower gift for someone, in fact. It took me way too long to do it though since I was so stressed I wasn't thinking clearly and had to tear out a bunch of serging. I'll post my project later for you to see.

Next up on the agenda? Halloween costumes for the whole family, starting with my two oldest girls.

Sears = Satan

Ladies and gentlemen, Satan is alive and well and is CEO of Sears. Seriously. The Prince of Darkness is, at this very moment, denying returns left and right and sending out his minions to break your appliances. How do I know this? Funny you should ask...

I have had the WORST day today. In fact, I've had the worst couple of days. And it's all Sears's fault. Stupidly I decided to purchase a washer and dryer from Sears. Thursday rolls around and the machines I so anxiously anticipated are delivered. Delivered by the world's dumbest delivery guy. He dented, scratched, and chipped my brand new washing machine. He didn't install the dryer right at all, and he screwed up the wiring. Dryer doesn't work--big surpise. Couldn't ask him any questions, because he doesn't speak a word of English!! Who hires a delivery guy who can't even talk to the customers??! Sears! So now I have a dented banged up washer and a dryer that doesn't work. But it's under warranty, no problem right? WRONG!

I call up Sears and explain all of this. They set up an appointment for a qualified technician to come out and fix my dryer. Hey, no problem, I have a qualified repairman coming to my house. Joy, oh joy. However, the super cool repair guy can get here today on Saturday. Well, today is when we were supposed to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday. My house is buried in laundry all needing dried, so I agree to get my dryer repaired today, thus missing out on the birthday celebration. I was scheduled from 8 to 5. Isn't that just considerate? They might as well just say "Yeah, we'll come fix your stuff. Just hang out at your house all day and stare at your driveway. We'll get there whenever we feel like it." Now, if the guy comes out in the morning, I still have a shot at making it to the celebration. So of course, you've guessed it already, he comes out at 4:00. He walks in, dressed all nice, looking ever so knowledgeable. Hooks up his fancy cool computer to the machine. He turns and looks at us....oh boy, he's gonna tell us what's wrong! "I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I have no idea what's wrong with your machine." WHAT?! WHAT THE--

So here I am, on a Saturday, having wasted my whole day waiting for this guy and he tells me he has no freaking clue what's wrong with it. He prints off a receipt stating it's broken and to get a new one. Then he just leaves. That's it. He's gone, machine's still broken, and we've missed a birthday celebration for this crap. So I call Sears. Takes at least 6 tries since the phone system keeps hanging up. My next plan is to salvage my Saturday. I tell myself I can make this Saturday worthwhile still by getting a new machine here NOW. So I plan to deliver broken dryer myself to any Sears store or warehouse and pick up a new machine. After many agonizing phone calls later, a couple things are determined. First of all, our machine isn't available anywhere, it simply doesn't exist according to these people. Also, no one at Sears knows where the warehouses are or what their phone number is. So I guess the warehouse just uses their psychic powers to process orders. At this point I decide to refund washer and dryer and wash my hands of this whole mess. I'm told to go to store where I bought it to get my refund. Fine.

So now I'm at the store. Saleslady is helpful and gets on the phone to get the ok to refund me. Cue the screeching brakes sound. She hands me the phone and I talk to the world's biggest jerk. He tries to convince me to let another tech come out and fix it. I told him no. He insisted. Told him no. He insisted. I screamed at him to stop. He tries to tell me I can't have refund. I threaten to get police in store, he decides I can get a refund. Then he wants to charge a restocking fee for washer AND dryer. I told him dryer is broken. He says it's not verified it's broken because the repair guy didn't put it in the comment. I say I have a receipt he gave me that tells it's broken. I scream at him lots, he puts me on hold for 20 min. Then he transfers me to someone and it hangs up. (The irony of being ON HOLD on the phone while AT A SEARS STORE is just insane. I came to the store to avoid this!)

I go to saleslady and demand store manager. She comes out and calls up mean jerk and informs him that NO WAY are they charging me a restocking fee on a BROKEN dryer. So he puts her on hold for 20 min! What the heck?! So after being in Sears for over an hour and me screaming and scaring off customers, the store manager finally is able to get the stupid Sears processing center to start the refund process without restocking fees on either item. So they'll call tomorrow to arrange a pickup to take away their hateful machines. Then the amount will be refunded.

I HATE YOU, SEARS!

Now for the silver lining....

While dealing with this, we made a stop in Best Buy to see if maybe we could get machines from there after refunding the Sears machines. A very kind and knowledgeable employee named Chris helped us right away. We chatted and told him just a little of our story. He felt really bad for us, said he'd help any way he could. Then, he asked us if we would like some drinks: some water, sodas or something. HUH?! Kinda stunned I said sure and before I knew it, this kind man went to the front of the store and brought back drinks for the whole family. I insisted on paying for them, but he waved me off and said don't worry about it. He then proceeded to price match Sears exactly (we bought the machines at good sale prices) and make sure we get the machines ASAP. (We pick up on Monday). Folks, you won't find this often at all: someone who actually takes pride in their job and enjoys helping other people. Customer service is as extinct as the dinosaurs. This man was so sweet and kind. I'd love to do something nice for him. Now to think of something.

I can't stress enough the importance of avoiding Sears at all costs. The salespeople there are ok, but support is non-existent. What's the point of buying something with no support and guarantee behind it?

And did I mention...

I HATE SEARS! I HATE SEARS!

Creativity Slump

Well, after being on a long creativity fast due to health reasons, I finally started sewing again. I finished my oldest daughter's nightgown. She is very happy with the result which is great since I messed up her last dress and she cried. Since it was just a nightgown I let her pick her fabric and trim by herself. She wanted hot pink feathers, but since they wouldn't survive the washing I had her pick something else. I promised her she could have feathers on her Halloween costume if she wanted.

Feels good to be back in the sewing game again. I've got to do my 2nd daughter's nightgown and some other projects. I would like to finish up my garments currently in my queue and do a handbag to relax and unwind from all that fitting. My friend Janine has me wanting to sew handbags now.

My New Dressform!

Well, I finally got a dressform! I'm so excited. It just arrived today so I haven't had too much time to play with it. I still need to do some more adjustments to it. As you can see, my daughters wasted no time playing Project Runway with my dressform.

The dressform is a Dritz My Double Deluxe that I ordered from Joann.com. They shipped my dressform super fast! I ordered my dressform with standard shipping on Sunday and it got here today, Wednesday! They had a sale where all the Dritz dressforms were $129.99, so I jumped on the opportunity and got the nicest one they had. The dressform is also able to be set up off-center on the pole so that you can drape pants.

It will be so nice to just put the outfit on the dressform instead of having to try it on several million times while still sewing the outfit. Also, I won't have to bug my husband anymore to help with fittings. Not that he minds, but still, I'd like not to have to interrupt him constantly with fitting help. The dressform also makes a nice place to store the garment I'm currently working on. I'm also looking forward to being able to do some tissue-fitting. I have very limited sewing time, so I don't normally do muslins. Now if it's for a special outfit, then yeah, I'll do a muslin.

I tried the duct tape double thing, but really hated it. My husband wrapped me up in duct tape and I hated every minute of it. It smelled really weird and I hated the feeling of being trapped in tape. Cutting me out of the form was also nerve-wracking. My daughters, however, loved the process and thought it was the funniest thing they've seen. I figured I'd try it though, after all, if it fails (which it did) then at least I have a funny story to tell. Non-sewers especially find the story extremely weird. I didn't care much for the look of the form after it was done. The top especially was inaccurate. That could just be due to us not doing it right. Even so, I don't want to re-tape myself whenever my weight changes. I'm currently dropping weight, so I would have to redo the double every so often. Blech! No thanks!

I'm really anxious to use my dressform for the first time. Now I just gotta finish up my daughters' dresses so I can start tracing my pattern. I plan on doing this dress:
I'll be doing the sleeveless version with the long scarf. I'm doing it in a black/white/red fabric I got from G Street Fabrics. The scarf will be red. I really should post pictures of the fabric I suppose. It's getting chaotic here now with the girls, so perhaps later I'll post fabric pictures.

It's raining here. I love rain! Perfect sewing weather. Now to just find some sewing time....

Friend's Dress a Success!

Well, that pose says it all! My friend Janine's dress was a success! I still can't believe I sewed it. I'm actually kinda numb from shock. I should have been jumping up and down for joy, but I would just stare dumbly at the dress and ask myself "I made that?" A lot of praying was involved in making this dress, so I certainly won't steal the credit here. Thank you, God! This picture of Janine is just too cute! Such a cute sassy look! And she looks absolutely beautiful in her dress.

This project was intimidating, but I learned so much from it. I got some experience working with chiffon, which I had never used before. I also got the chance to sew for someone else who has entirely different fitting issues from myself. Since I was panicking so much the whole time, I'm also not nearly as nervous anymore sewing dresses for myself. I've gained so much confidence from this project. Possibly more than I need considering I'm planning a majorly challenging project for Christmas. It's so much scarier to sew for someone else because you don't want them to be upset if things go wrong. Which, let's face it, they often do! Especially if I'm the one sewing. I know the disappointment I feel when my outfit is ruined, so I wouldn't want to do that to someone else, especially a great friend. Also, this dress was for a wedding and not just any ole wedding, but her son's wedding! Yikes! So I'm extremely grateful that things turned out great and Janine was happy.

At the wedding someone saw Janine in her dress and asked "So, you decided not to go with the dress your friend made?" To which Janine told her that she was wearing the dress I made. Needless to say, the lady was truly shocked I sewed that. So it was a great feeling.

It meant a lot to me to do this for Janine. She's done so much for me and probably doesn't even realize it, so I wanted to give something back.

Chaos continues....

Well, I did finish my bathing suit to match my baby daughter's bathing suit. It turned out great and I was very happy with the results. I still need to take a picture of me in it and write a pattern review. I'll post a picture on my blog later when things aren't so insane.

Right now I'm working on an unexpected project: a top and skirt for a friend of mine to wear to her son's wedding. I think I'm insane because I really don't have time at all to work on this, but so far I'm getting it done. She is tall and was having such trouble finding a great dress for the occasion. As she's a really great friend of mine, I wanted to help out. So we went pattern and fabric shopping and I got to work. These are the patterns she chose:



For the shirt, we're doing the version with the short sleeves and narrow collar. The collar, sleeves, and peplum are all in a cocoa color chiffon to contrast the lighter color crepe fabric of the shirt. For the skirt, we're doing it in the cocoa crepe fabric and we're doing view A without the sash.

The deal was that if my friend Janine doesn't like this outfit, she has to tell me honestly and also not be mad that it didn't turn out the way she wants it. In turn, I have to promise not to be mad if she doesn't like it. Having said that, this is still really nerve-wracking and a lot of pressure. However, I'm happy to do this for a wonderful friend.

It's a whole other ballgame sewing for someone new. It took me quite a while just to figure out how to get clothes fit on me. So working with a new body and all new fitting issues is quite daunting. We tried the top on Janine yesterday and it looks like a good fit, which was a relief. My main concern with this project is getting a proper fit.

Also, I had never worked with chiffon before. While I love the feel of chiffon I absolutely hate sewing it. Really, really, really hate sewing it. Especially hemming it. I tried all the methods suggested out there: narrow hem (both with and without the special rolled hem foot), rolled hem on serger with and without fishline. No matter which I used, it took away the airiness and flow of the chiffon. This was especially the problem with the collar. The collar needs to stay light so it folds and ruffles nicely. So I hit PatternReview and Google some more for research and discovered a hot knife method. Since I'm working with polyester chiffon, I could melt the raw edges of the hems slightly to seal them off and keep them from unraveling. This worked perfectly to keep the fabric nice and light. Then my collar wasn't lining up right and I discovered this is due to chiffon being evil to work with. Also, a mystery spot appeared that I couldn't get off. No clue how it got there. ARGH! So I cut a new collar out and plan to get it put on today.

Once I get past the shirt it'll be smooth sailing. My goal for today is to finish the shirt by tonight. The shirt has more fitting issues and the chiffon is difficult to work with. I'm pretty mad at Vogue right now because when they say "semi-fitted" on the envelope, what they really mean is "not even remotely fitted". The shirt muslin was SO LOOSE on Janine. It made no sense whatsoever. Why pay good money for a pattern if it's wrong?

Ok, now I lost track. A Kim Possible commercial just showed up on tv and my IQ plummeted. So anyway, I'll keep you updated as to my progress for anyone interested in following my insane adventure.

My New Friend

This is my new friend. He's kinda creepy actually. He's pretty big and gave me a surprise the first time I saw him just chillin' on my front porch. I was trying to get a close-up picture of him, but failed due to me being a big baby. I'm not at all squeamish about bugs, but after seeing how fast this spider moves, I had visions of it latching onto my face after annoying it with a flashing camera. It didn't help that when I was trying to take his picture, I could see the glare from his eyes. Yikes! So my husband was kind enough to get closer and get a closer picture for me. As you can see in the photo, our spider is currently consuming a large moth.

I was concerned that the spider may be poisonous so I looked it up and discovered that it's not. You can never be too careful with kids around. Especially since it lives on the front porch. Turns out it's a species (of which there are 100) of fishing spider. So I'll just let him live on the porch rent free. He seems happy hunting.

Also, I discovered a deer tick on my leg yesterday. Not cool. My daughter got Lyme disease from a deer tick and it was awful. She's fine and recovered now thankfully. So now I gotta keep an eye on my leg for the telltale bullseye rash. My yard scares me.