Mooloo's little tapestry of life, 2016

Morning.
I had a very busy day yesterday again. It's becoming the norm at the moment. I do two or three fittings at the start of the day, serve in the shop until 11am, sew if I can. Staff comes in, we have a look at the work load. Decide what jobs are the most urgent. Hang them by my work station and I get to it.
Staff then makes the tea, and starts the jobs that need unpicking etc. She then takes over serving in the shop and I sew. I take great pleasure in wiping them off the white board, and adding up the total work finished as we go. My daily target is £150. If I don't make it, I don't beat myself up about it, but when I do it feels great. Yesterday we had curtains to remake, and staff prepared them, I sewed the seams, and the tape, etc between us they took 4 hours. But as my part was minimal, it bumped up the finished total to £197! Yeah.
I stopped sewing just before 5pm.
Twin1 and family collected DGD from after school club and we all had dinner in the local pub. It was a good evening.
They are camping out in the garden, so I still had peace in the house, and didn't have to give up my bed.
I'm just having a cuppa in bed, before getting ready to go to work this morning. Twin1 has just come in to make tea.
So another day begins.
It's a shorter day today, we close at 2pm, so I don't expect to do much more than about £80 worth of work today. We will see.
Yesterday we had £270 cash in, and took £45 on the card machine. So people are starting to collect and today I expect to have about £100worth collected. Obviously I can't quite predict what work will come in, but we are going through an invoice book of 50 in around 9 days now.
We are tweeting the way we do things, and I'm starting to do a spread sheet of the jobs, and how long not only I work on them, but also how long staff is working on them, and what notions etc we use from stock etc.
It is helping us to realise which jobs are taking more time than others, and should therefore be charging more/or less if necessary.
I have been told I'm too cheap on my proms and wedding dresses, so perhaps I will move up the pricing a little, for next season.

Now I better shake a leg as my Dad would have said.

dktreesea wrote: »

Not sure what you charge for prom dresses. My cousin's daughter had one made to measure from Eliot Clare,(not sure of the exact spelling) down in London, so the price of the dress which was around £500 or so plus an extra £150 for the alterations.

Cricky! If I do anything made to measure then I don't add on for alterations as its supposed to be made to measure!
I charge £20 an hour usually. But prom dresses/bridesmaid dresses etc I usually charge between £25-£35 for the hems. More if there is body work to be done.
Although staff and I were discussing it on Saturday, and she thinks that I should be charging a good bit more, especially when I have last minute requests.


Today the family go back to Kent. It's been nice to see them, but I will be glad to get my home back again.
I had a relaxing day yesterday, later up, then I went to look at some cars with a friend, and a trip to Aldi. Followed by lunch in the garden, and a couple of hours lazing in the park listening to a free folk concert.
Although after 2 hours my back aches so we came back again.
I had yet another headache by the evening, so retired to my room early. Let twin1 do DGDs bedtime. Although DGD came in twice to me all upset that her mummy was going away again, and then with a nightmare.
Dreading the school run this morning.

Today was a better day. DGD was off to tea from after school club so I worked through until 6.40pm. So over £200 worth got done today, although some jobs took much longer then they should have. But staff left (also a bit late as she was measuring fabrics for curtains for me,) and I managed to take out a pair of trousers, turn the cuffs on a dress shirt, put a zip in a pair of jeans, shorten an evening dress, lined, and shorten a pair of trousers. I actually got into a flow in the last few hours but obviously had to come home.
We took £200 on the card machine and £140 in cash over the last two days. As I was on my own yesterday doing the accounts in the morning, I didn't get much done yesterday so didn't cash up.
We have found a Rat hole by the man hole in the garden and DGD saw a rat last night, so I will have to sort out that tomorrow.
The chap who sometimes does my garden has just text to say he can't make it tomorrow or the next week, so I need to put my trees in myself tomorrow as well.
The housing rang to say they were coming to do the mould on the walls in the kitchen behind the cupboards!!! Looks like my kitchen is still going to be ripped apart again!!!

So an hour home and what have I achieved?
Nothing. I sat down looking at my emails and went off on a tangent! Oops.
The gloomy day makes me feel like going back to bed. I need sun to function!
Better start something!