On to the Next Disaster!

Okay! I have been through the "hell week" of bodybuilding suit designer business initiation. I have made and remade enough bikinis and one-piece suits to qualify for the lycra hall of fame this week. I've glued on enough Swarovski Crystals to require the boiling of a herd of hooves (do they still make glue from horses?). I have missed hours and hours of quality sleep, stuck myself in all kinds of interesting places with various instruments of sewing torture, and managed to grow spiritually along the way.

I now know that I have more things to clarify with clients BEFORE the job starts...hopefully there WILL be more clients! I don't think I totally scared off the women I was working for, but we certainly had some educational moments!

1) do not EVER EVER EVER use pepto-bismol pink wet-look spandex for ANYTHING, especially not a swimsuit. It sucks. I remade the suit about 5 times before we tried it out of a different fabric and hit it on the first try. I was sure her butt was changing shape on a daily basis. I even tried boning in the suit (the stuff used to stiffen corsets).

2) boning doesn't help swimsuits.

3) Go for the thicker elastic...1/4 inch elastic is too wussy to hold a suit on to the buttock area appropriately

4) Poor Phyllis needs a brazillian butt lift. I have to stuff the bottoms of my suits with socks and stuff to fill them out for putting on stones.

but I finished and delivered six suits this week--four of them with 48 hours to spare before the show! Here is the biggest thing I learned:

5) It takes more than six weeks to make a good suit, even though I can make a suit in a day...sometimes it takes five or six fittings to get it right.

although hopefully I'll be better at this and not need QUITE so many fittings next time.

creative bodybuilding

Here is an interesting sidetrack that my life has taken...I am actually making money, making posing suits for female bodybuilders...I have made a few for a friend at work, and someone admired my work and she gave her my number...and I have a new client! I am very excited and very nervous. Making stretchy garments that have to cover just the right parts and nothing more is very fussy work! Here are pictures of Abbie in two of the suits that I made, and they cover too much!
Almost as interesting was the reaction of the lady waiting in line for the bathroom at Baba Budan's coffee shop in Clifton this afternoon while Maja and I were taking measurements! She's a beautiful young woman, and I can't wait to work on her suits. I'm also going to be making more suits for Abbie. Now I have to try to build a dressmaker's dummy out of batting and two by fours. What a life I have!