On the 17th of this month, I start back to school. Not that I really wanted to do this, but this will allow me to branch out into an entirely new field of work. I'm going to be studying Health Information Technology. This intensive course is six months, 35 hours a week, and will teach me to use the software that doctors, hospitals, and clinics use to do their coding, billing, and information transmission. This course is for the technical side - software and support. After that, if I choose, I'll be able to take the remainder of the course which will be the "human" side of it...coding, billing, and understanding the "backroom" of a medical office.
This course is completely paid for by a Federal Grant, which responded to the screaming being done by doctors, hospitals, software companies, and insurers that there were few people trained to handle the technological side of Health Care. I chose this because, frankly, I'm bored. I have gone as far as I can go with managing an office. I'm finding myself thoroughly frustrated by the lack of ethics I've run into lately. I'm tired of having to repeat myself constantly because my co-workers deliberately fail to do things they would rather I did for them. Do I sound like I've had it with people looking for a free ride? I am. My parents taught me that you reap what you sow....that means, the harder I work, the better the rewards. Unfortunately, I can honestly say that the people I've met lately are rarely looking that far forward. So, I'm going to switch careers....and hopefully give myself the time to work on my pattern-making and sewing, which I truly love but haven't been able to concentrate on.
I DID finish a pattern commission last week. The oddest thing about it was that I didn't know this woman. She was a friend of a friend, of a friend. She wanted a "mother of the bride" dress, but wanted something stunning. She's quite an accomplished seamstress, but when she'd tried to build this pattern, she just couldn't quite put it together. Think that famous Demi Moore dress with the criss-cross straps, with a turtleneck front. I thought that the design idea was strange until I realized that she has a surgical scar on her neck that is quite prominent..hence the turtleneck. Add to that, she wanted a matching cape because it is a fall wedding, in Vermont, at a mountain inn. Vermont weather is always unpredictable...add in the autumn and the mountain, and she's right in thinking she might need a cover of some type.
This took me almost two weeks to complete. We had to do two fittings with this pattern, as she (like me) is not perfectly proportioned and those straps were teeth-grinders.
When we got it done, I made it up in muslin for her, just as a test run. I was amazed that it fit so beautifully, and she's promised me a picture when she completes the dress (hopefully this week). She's doing it in a gorgeous, rich-looking Navy Blue stretch velvet, and the cape is going to be the same fabric, lined in this beautiful patterned silk. I was very pleased with this, but I don't expect to become rich doing this. A pattern in a store (Vogue, Butterick, etc) would run about $13 for a long dress and it might even have the cape pattern with it, or at least some sort of shawl. I charged her $35 for this pattern, as it was custom fit, and included the muslin. Keep in mind, I had NO idea what to charge for this work, as the pattern software does the really hard work....making the pattern.
I'll be tickled to death if she gets me a picture of this dress.....
