A chair from the factory floor

This is the chair I sit on nearly every day and it has a story. It's not fancy, in fact it is rather ugly and uncomfortable. It has a few paint splatters from being used to repaint rooms in my house. The seat and paint is worn. What makes this chair so special?

This chair came from a local sewing factory as it was closing its manufacturing operations - the factory where I was first employed out of college. I don't know what possessed me to buy it other than it was cheap. It was after I brought it home that I noticed the date on the bottom of the chair. The same year I was born. A foreshadowing of destiny? More like life coming around full circle.

This particular factory produced little girls' dresses. My mother bought dresses from their factory outlet store - and yes I wore them. No one ever thought that I would be working in that same factory.

Sitting on this chair every day reminds me of where I came from, where I got my start. It is also give me tremendous sympathy for the poor women (literally) who sat on this chair and sewed little girls dresses day after day. Dresses that literally thousands have worn. All in an effort to earn meager wages. Even though the chair is uncomfortable, it keeps me from getting too cocky.

CAD 101 published at Fashion Incubator

I am being a lazy cross-poster today. Part One of my co-written articles on CAD can be found at Fashion-Incubator (part two should be published January 19th). My co-writer is Angela from Eve and Ellie. Check out Angela's website - it is beautiful! Kathleen did a great job pairing us up. Not only was Angela great to work with, but we both work with girl's special occasion clothing. My current special occasion work can be seen at One Small Child. Most of my work is technical design, but you can see some of my designs in the mix.

If there is interest, I can expand on some of my CAD drafting, grading techniques, pattern naming, organization, etc. In the mean time I am working on the back-end of my store, which is taking a lot of my time. I have been reading up on CSS, PHP web design and database management (for coding geeks only!). I decided that to truly get the website I want, I need to switch my store manager to something new. This is all behind the scenes and is in the building and testing stages. My current store continues to work and is secure. The new store will be 100% more powerful!

So my grading projects and boys' shirt pattern revision is still in the works, just slowed down. I have my base pattern graded up to my needed size 24M. And guess what! The neck measures a little over 12"! Now it is only a matter of applying that neck to the shirt pattern.

In other news, the consumer product safety commission has issued recalls on more children's jewelry, rattles, teethers, and magnetic toys. Be sure to read this page!

Recall : Drawstrings and snaps

The consumer product safety commission issued another product recall for sweatshirts sized 8-12 with drawstrings in the hoods. These sweatshirts were sold in Ross and Gordman stores. Customers who have purchased them should remove the drawstrings immediately. In all, there were 12 recalls for drawstrings in 2006.

At this point, I am just plain annoyed. The drawstring guideline (links to a pdf) has been around since 1996! We have had 11 years to learn not to put drawstrings in children's clothing. The recalls are occurring in the same types of products and even in the same stores repeatedly. I blame the designers. I blame the manufacturers. I blame the buyers. Shame on them. They should all know better.

In another recall, Samara is recalling two-piece overall sets because the snaps contain lead. The CPSC is working on creating a rule about metal jewelry for children that contain lead. The proposed rule will ban "children’s metal jewelry that has more than 0.06 percent of total lead" Once adopted this rule will certainly apply to any metal components found on clothing, including snaps and zipper pulls. There were four additional recalls for lead in December alone. The CPSC is aggressively enforcing this rule now, even though it has not been officially adopted.

Macy's is recalling outfits because of snaps that detach and pose a choking hazard. See Kai Run, of Woodinville, Wash, is recalling children's boots for the same reason.

Just as an observation, much of the above recalled product was manufacted in China. Manufactured Chinese product may be more or less safe than product made in the USA. Certainly, there are some shady manufacturers (US and Chinese) who send approval samples and test results that pass, and then turn around and use different components. Manufacturing overseas is no excuse for ignoring safety guidelines.

Let's make 2007 a safer year for children's clothing products.