What a whirlwind few months this has been!
On March 6, I happened into Community Renaissance Market in South Austin for another adventure. It was an interesting place, an incubator for micro-businesses. Hm, that is what I have! The thought occurred to me that I could now have my own boutique. I returned on March 23 to speak to management and saw where I would be: in a good spot at the front of the Market. I continued to toss the idea around in my head and decided within a week that I'd found the place where I could create my boutique and workshop! I gave my deposit on March 30. And then the fun began...
First I'd have to completely redecorate my space. Out with the cream interior and white exterior. In with all-white interior and copper exterior--replete with arches on the three openings. It was a good month's work.
Thanks to my friends Raga and Marisa for helping me paint the interior, to Perry and Travis for installing my homemade arches, to my friends Salil and Prem for helping me move my furniture in, and to my friends Harshita and Raga for helping me transform all the furniture to white. Thanks especially to my mom for all kinds of support. Couldn't have done it without you!
This has not been without struggles. The most major struggle has been in finding a new seamstress. The two excellent tailors I'd been working with are busy with other projects. What took my time in March was my contacting every other tailor or seamstress within shouting distance; I had no luck. Friends put out the word while I focused on my shop--and on not panicking. Then one day in mid-April a woman serendipitously walked into CRM and she would become my new seamstress.
Next to tackle the apparel. I'd relied on my two previous tailors to create the patterns from my designs, but now that was my newest challenge. I've always had good spatial reasoning and math ability, so I put them to use. Not only do I have to make patterns from my ideas, I have to make each of them in 10 sizes! Perhaps this is where some training would have been useful. :) But my can-do attitude pushed me ahead and I discovered that, as I calculated my measurements and extrapolated out for more sizes, the measurements I was coming up with were an exact match for the sizes of real people. (I did try to use a standard system; however, if you've ever looked at "standard sizes," you'll know that they're all different!)
With all the shop work, I wasn't left with a lot of time to create new apparel before my opening date, so I pushed it out two weeks. And in that time I managed to finish several of the Florence blouses in different sizes.
May 14 was the grand opening of Tainteesa Boutique! What a thrill! (And what a lot of work!) That date was also my birthday, so Happy Birthday-plus-three-days to me and T. :)
Onward!
