I am a huge fan of Malcom Gladwell. I think I’ve read every one of his books at least twice – fascinating stuff! In the book ‘Outliers’ he talks about the 10,000 hour rule – how mastering something takes around 10,000 hours. I’m not going to even attempt to figure out how many hours I’ve been making dolls these past 8 years but I’m guessing it’s pretty close. I’m sort of the same way when it comes to training my sewing ladies – I keep them on the same sort of thing for a LONG time before teaching them something new – it’s the mastery of craft that I see with repetitive work, an incredible thing when your hands sort of take over what you are doing and the stitches flow … it’s all quite zen in a way. This is why I’ve kept most of my patterns the same and don’t change up what we do too much – I like what we do and more importantly I like doing it well. The hair and outfits change up but the basics of construction stay the same.
So, on to the Little Buddies. Crystal was my Little Buddy Lady – she could make a bunch a week – she is amazing at the LB’s! Crystal however has had some pretty serious family health issues come up and has had to temporarily relocate to Vancouver to be with her husband. So, my LB lady is temporarily out of commission for a bit and this is why the Little Buddy nursery has been quiet empty as of late.. All of us at Bamboletta are praying for this very special lady and her family.
Right now I am sort of getting into a new groove with our sewing ladies – adjusting the workload to reach our Fall goals (I wrote about these in the last post). I have 2 ladies that will be taking on the LB’s but it will be a few weeks yet before I can have everything ready. Things like working the extra heads into John’s head making ‘schedule’ (he works full time at his ‘real’ job too) and making sure there’s enough clothing, bodies sewn and stuffed and those tiny little underpants made. Then the admin side of it – extra time to make the listings, shipping and packing, etc. So, it may seem like it should be an easy thing to just add in 10 extra dolls but there’s quite a bit of work that goes on ‘behind the seams’.
Okay, boring-est blog post ever! But since so many of you ask about Little Buddies I thought it would be good to let you know about them.
Lots of sneaky peaks coming up tomorrow!
Christina
PS. Music peeps – I’m also loving ‘Wait and See’ by Holy Ghost! – it’s got a great 80’s vibe that I love so much.
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