Satin is Not my Friend!!!

So ive been a bit absent from my blog this last week or so,this is due to a few reasons, busyness, camera and weather conditions not co-operating to help me produce half decent pictures and also a very testing custom order!!

A few weeks ago a lovely customer contacted me asking if I could make some ballerina booties, one pair in pink and one in white satin. We discussed the details and off I went to my local fabric shop to look at the satin and get some ribbon samples etc etc. I had in my head how I was going to make them and thought it should be no problem at all. Off i went home ready to make a test pair, secretly hoping the test pair would turn out so perfect they would be able to be one of the pairs that she would have, how little did i know!!! A whole afternoon later and rapidly losing the light to take a photo with to show the customer I was getting a Little worried! I finally managed to make one shoe that was vaguely acceptable, took a quick snap and emailed the photo along with the various things I knew that I would have to change to the customer.

Still not 100% put off I started to make the real things ready to send. Well satin is not the easiest thing to sew, it frays, its slippery, it catches and you cannot unpick it without it leaving a lot of holes! The hole that needed to be in the side was yet another issue, in my head I instantly thought EASY, i will just pop a small button hole for the ribbon to thread through and it will be fantastic, how wrong I was again!! The button hole looked horrendous on the satin, it was impossible to get it in the right place and the same size on each shoe and the satin did not appreciate it at all!!

By this stage i was starting to worry, i did not want to disappoint my customer and i did not want to be beaten, but one very long afternoon and late night later and i was beginning to think about giving up, there seemed no way that i could make the ribbon thread the way the customer had asked it to thread without it looking terrible! But in a last ditch attempt and some strategically placed ribbon later and i finally did it!! I could not have been more relieved!!!

So here is the finished article:

I was so pleased I managed to do them and I hope my customer is pleased and maybe in a few weeks when I finally get over my hatred for satin I will use what i have left over to make some that I can sell in my shop!!

Just to give you an idea here is a sample of my tried and failed attempts:

So my lesson for the week is to think things through a bit more before I agree to them and to trial things properly without rushing!!