Thursday, February 2, 2012

Yikes

What a day I had. Right after I finished writing here I went to exercise as is my way. Only at some point I stretched wrong and my lower back screamed in agony. It remained pretty annoyed with me all day long hampering many of my daily tasks. Of course this morning is seems to be almost all better, so whatever I did wasn't all that bad.

But wait, that's just the beginning of my odd day. Then I received an email meant for someone else, another tatter based on the pattern requested, which was weird enough by itself, but the request in the email was to use tatting designs as machine embroidery patterns. Honestly, I'm glad it wasn't for me, I would have said no quite quickly. I went over to intatters to share and discuss because I was curious about the prevailing opinion on this sort of thing. I was also directed to a conversation that had already taken place when these machine embroidery "tatting" patterns were discovered by others. I just think it would be silly to give someone permission to easily recreate your designs with a machine, even if we, as tatters, can tell the difference, the public may not. But I don't need to get all into this again, it was weird, that is all.

I also got the new mask all photographed and listed. The stiffening worked just as I hoped. It is comfortable on the face and holds it's shape well enough to put it on over glasses. I even used the last listing photo to demonstrate. Of course I was wearing my glasses and my contacts at the same time so I can't see a thing, but I swear it worked. I just looped the ribbon around the arms before tying it on as usual and the mask hugged my glasses.

Next up was the other weird moment. I received an email with an offer for a possible major magazine photo shoot that requested the use of my fancy Masquerade mask, the one that I have on hand. I had to say no though. I know, I know, why would I do that? Well the request had conditions attached to it. I needed to be able to say I could reproduce the item in multiples and ensure its availability after a certain date. With the length of time it takes to create those masks, there was no way I could honestly claim that. They also needed the mask today on the other coast which would have meant some seriously quick overnight shipping. I know my husband is disappointed that I didn't do it, but it just wasn't feasible. The person I talked to was quite understanding and said that they'd keep me in mind for future projects. I certainly hope that's true and I haven't just blown a once in a lifetime sort of thing. Sometimes we just have to say no even when we really, really want to say yes.

Well, I think that was all the weird for the day. Well that and my shop has just broke 300 items listed. I'm not sure that's a good thing at all, but slow sales or not I have to keep making things, it's what keeps me sane. I don't have any specific tasks in queue for today, but I'm sure I get the bug to make or remake something. Man, how can it only be Thursday?

3 comments:

Marilee Rockley said...

Sounds like you made the right decisions all the way around (including taking it easy with your back). I also was contacted by the machine embroidery person several months ago. She was very polite, but I agree it just doesn't seem right at all to refer to it as "tatting", it's just machine embroidery. Which leads to the misconception many people have that handmade items don't require much time or skill to produce. Probably what that magazine editor was thinking; obviously not familiar with the handcrafting process, otherwise she wouldn't make an outrageous request like that. No, you didn't lose out on anything at all, just saved yourself a lot of grief. Life is too short to put up with that "sweatshop" mentality.

rsmre said...

I had started the post about the machine embroidered tatting at InTatters. I had never seen anything like it. From a distance it truly looked like it was "hand" tatted. Funny thing though, I was selling my needle tatted Christmas ornaments at my church's Christmas Bazaar in December. A woman asked me if they had been machine embroidered. I was shocked. Apparently machine embroidered tatting is more well known than I thought.

rsmre said...

Everything moves at lightening speed nowadays. I am glad to hear that the person that contacted you "understood" that your masks are handmade and that they take a great amount of time to complete. An opportunity that is right for you will present itself at just the right time.