Inadvertent Outsourcing

Hi everyone!  That's quite a blog post title, huh?  "Inadvertent outsourcing"....sounds so businesslike!  Perhaps I'm finally putting that MBA to good use??  Nah, nothing of the sort!!  This post just happens to be about deciding that doing it yourself isn't always the easiest best option.  Sometimes you just have to give up outsource!

Before we get to that, though, in case you missed last week's posts, I had been planning a trip to Virginia to visit with my mom and hopefully make some sewing progress on curtains for The Babe's room.  Well, I did end up going, but my grandmother became quite ill. She has had a rough time the past few months, but things got really scary last week.  I'm happy to report that she is doing a bit better now.  Because of her sickness, though, mom and I didn't get much time to work together on the curtains.

So, here's the progress update (since I promised to blog progress real-time) and the dirt on outsourcing.

We got mom's old sewing machine working.  I even helped figure something out with the bobbin, which made me feel even better about my ability to sew the curtains.  WOOHOO and welcome to the land of over confidence.

I started sewing a vertical seam between two pieces of fabric to create one big panel.

BUT...

The stupid seam was crooked.  We didn't get the fabric repeats lined up and pinned properly.  So, I had to start ripping the seam out.  Sign numero uno that I should have read this book before mashing the foot pedal on her machine.

And mom started thinking (and verbalizing) I had bitten off more than I can chew.  And she started suggesting I get some help from someone more experienced (she sewed lots years ago, but isn't very confident since she doesn't sew regularly).  Ummm, hello positive reinforcement?  Are you out there?  Anywhere?  Ahhhhh.

So mom called an older and very much wiser lady from our hometown and asked for her help.  Which means mom basically took it upon herself to outsource the curtain project.  At first I was upset, I wanted to try to do this myself.  But, I agreed to go with her to visit the "sewing lady".  So we hopped in mom's Thunderbird (no joke!) and drove a few miles, including a short trip up a dirt road, to visit my new friend.

When I started explaining to her what I wanted and showing her my drawing of what the finished panels should look like, she started asking some very good, pointed questions about my design.  Clearly this lady knew what she was talking about.  And clearly I was very much in over my head.  In fact, pretty much everyone I saw this past week thought I was a little overly ambitious about this project.

SOOO, the curtain project has been outsourced to a friendly, older lady in the mountains of Southwest Virginia.  In typical southern style, I wasn't impolite enough to ask how much she was going to charge, when they would actually be done, etc.  SOOOO, here's to hoping it isn't too expensive and they're done somewhat soon.  My hope is before mid-August.  Mr. Man thinks this is absolutely insane, by the way.  He is shocked I don't know the details on cost, timing, etc.  But this was a nice old lady, I couldn't pressure her with all those details!!  That would have been rude.  Please tell me you feel me on this one?!?

Anyway, that's the progress update.  I guess the good news is that now I can move on to working on updating the sideboard, hanging the red light fixture, and doing my DIY artwork.  The bad news is that I feel like I gave up on the curtain project.  BUT, now I can start on something a bit smaller (maybe pillows), build up my confidence, and hopefully make curtains someday down the road.  I still can't help feeling a bit defeated, though.  Bleh.

Want to make me feel better?  Tell me about a project you started, but ended up giving to someone else to finish?  Are you glad you gave it up or do you still regret not seeing it through?

So, that's all I've got for now.  Time to pull up my bootstraps, find my inner DIY confidence again and get busy on something else!!!  Thanks for reading and "talk" to you soon!