Corked!

I DID IT! Not alone, mind you. A huge thanks you to Natalie, and Andrew and Delia’s sitter Melinda and her four friends. They are true Jr. Seamstresses of America – though I doubt they’ll ever want to pick up a needle and thread again. Together we made sure those winegrowers had buttons, their buttons, on time.

Let me back up - I rushed out yesterday without explaining exactly what the problem was - the customer wanted cork buttons! REAL cork. And get this – he sourced them himself! A small business in the valley creates buttons from used wine corks. When I went to meet with my customer yesterday he had a shopping bag filled with these buttons on his desk. He’d have helped with the sewing too, though he claimed not to know how (ha ha). That’s when I called Melinda for help. (Michael was relieved that he wouldn’t be recruited for a second night of sweatshop duty, especially now that the good wine was gone!) The girls enjoyed helping me assemble and deliver the gift bags at the hotel too. We added an orange and a croissant as a perfect, portable wine country breakfast.

The moral of this story is that the customer is right. I mean that too. After seeing how the shirts looked with the new buttons I agree that ours didn’t say “wine growers” quite so…literally. Ideally though, the request for new buttons would have been agreed on well before the event (!) Red House does custom work all the time – changing details, colors, thread, even adding a pocket now and then. But we out-source and carefully monitor the process. This takes time – which we did not have in this instance. I guess you could say I did this due to an adrenalin rush, temporary insanity or both. And believe me, once was quite enough. Live, learn and drink wine! Speaking of that, I’ve got to go – eyes are glazing over. I wish I had saved the Opus One for tonight – I want to celebrate!