Thursday is Margerita night

Day: 5
Hours: 9
Total Hours: 42
Department: Production
Supervisor: Sandi

Thursday was the busiest day yet that I've spent at Annie's.

In the morning I met Christina, the currently longest-standing staff member at 1.5 years. She's a very skilled seamstress and alteration specialist, and also cute & funny to boot. I spent my first hour finishing off the last two white t-shirts that I had started prior, and got away from the sewing machines for Christina to work her magic on all the items hanging on the alteration/repair rack.

I helped Luis carry some bolts of new fabric over to Annie's studio (where she was not yet in), and we chatted a bit on the way. Luis reminds me very much of my friend Lawrence from Pacific Design Academy - he's a great guy.

I then went with Sandi to pick up items around the city. First, we visited one of the sewing contractors in Kensington market to pick up a sample garment and find our construction costs. I was overwhelemed by the piles of garments and fabric all around the tiny production house. Gayle, who runs the place, was delightful and funny, and also very direct about her costs. The Kimono sweater that we sampled and had hoped to produce at $35 each would cost $45 with her. It was really intereseting to hear the banter on the subject. I hope I can remember where the place is...

Then we popped by Sandi's bank, and then hit Canadian Industrial Sewing Machines Co. to pick up two of the shop's old irons... which were apparently so mangled that it would cost $450 to fix, while he had a new italian model for $475.... I will definetely be returning to that shop with money someday.

Once we returned to the shop, we went for lunch (it was already 1!) Dinesh must think I don't eat enough or something, because he's always offering me food. His wife is clearly a fantastic cook, though... the nam & curry-like dish that he shared with me was really great. I tried to help him find a cheap flight to Europe online, but with minimal success.

Then I headed over to Annie's studio (still vacant), to pick up a list that Annie wanted Haley to type up for her. It's a list of suppliers... and I was really interested in it, and Haley looked really busy reorganizing the store, so I offered to type it up (as I'm a real quick type-er) for her.

A short while into my typing, Sandi asked me to stitch buttons to the Kimono sweater sample we picke dup from Gayle earlier so that she could have a fitting with Annie later in the afternoon. While sewing the buttons on, I asked if I could tag along for the meeting, to which she happily obliged.

We headed over to Annie's studio a while a later with patterns, samples, and a new selectiopn of nylon fabric swatches to show her. Annie tried on the samples (the Kimono Sweater, what's been referred to as the Gemini Jacket, and the Lyla top in green and blak stretch lace), giving multiple changes for each item, which I took down in notes while they talked. I tried to give an idea for an alteration to the Kimono sweater, but I bumbled up my speech a bit and came off as a bit too much of the overly-pushy-intern for my liking. Luckily that was quickly forgotten. Then Sandi and Annie got to discussing the colour choices and fabric quantities to order for this year's production of the Coacoa coat, and Annie mentioned aneed for caffeine so I offered to grab drinks. I ran over to the second cup to grab Annie her requested Chillate and a Hot chocolate for myself (Sandi declined anything).

Annie started talking about newer ideas she was working with, and asked me to bring back a roll of bias tape for her when I got back to the boutique/studio. There was a great deal more talking, a bit of negativity towards samples that weren't perfet... in total, the meeting was a couple hours, much longer than either Sandi or I expected.

When I got back to the boutique, it was already 1/4 to 6. I went right back to typing the Sources list.... forgetting the bias tape. It was 1/4 after 6 when an irritated Annie called to ask for it. I ran it over immediately, but annie was not terribly impressed.... I wasn't very impressed with myself, either.

For the last 40 minutes of my day, I typed the rest of the sources list.

Although I was a bit down, I realized it was Thursday... Margarita night at Tortilla Flats! After having mentioned this in Haley's prescence, she sounded interested too, so we went out for Margaritas together. Good times.

I think there's a lot of good to come from this internship, not just with the studio, but it's fantastic to meet everyone involved. Everyone has so much info, and are so free with it... I feel like I've gotten more out of this than the majority of classes I've taken!