Are you like me, struggling to remember what day it is right now?  I have to think quite hard of a morning and sometimes count on my fingers!  So today is Thursday on week what? of the lock down?  At least supplies in the food shops are getting more regular and back to normal even if we can't just all pile in like we used to to get our daily bread.

Before I ramble on about what's going on at Sew Curvy HQ I just want to say a MASSIVE THANK YOU to all of you who have been purchasing from me and supporting my little shop!  Thank you from the bottom of my heart, it means that I don't have to worry for now about 'all the things' going on in our shared horror story of covid-19 and hopefully I'm keeping some of you sane with things to do at the same time.

So the shop has continued being uber busy while people decide that now is the perfect time to 'try that thing' they've always wanted to try, and to this end, I put my basic corset kits back on the website last week.  As predicted, they've been flying out the door (albeit, that part was quite slow!).

This week I received a pallet of steel - hurray! - ok it was a week late, but lets be forgiving in these times when delivery drivers around the UK are working twice as hard for not twice as much money.

So, steel boning of all sorts, and the ever popular synthetic whalebone is back in stock - I now order more whalebone than steel, that's how popular it is!

(for my opinions on plastic vs steel, please click HERE and HERE)

Going forward - as I said, volumes are high, and there is still only me packing, posting, admin'ing etc.,

Usually I have an assistant on Mondays - she helps with bits of orders, sets up kit supplies, fills standard packages of stuff (lingerie bits), and does the admin for me - refunds, invoices, the books ... that's quite alot of work I'm also picking up on top of the double/triple volume of orders.

Mr Sew Curvy is now coming in with me on Sunday afternoons to do the bulk of steel picking and winding - do you know that I am now the only supplier who sells boning and other corsetry supplies in units of less than 5 or 10 metres? 

Mr Sew Curvy sporting a mask I made for him

Anyway, for the past two weeks, I've had to disable the shopping basket from Tuesday to Friday, just so that I can cope - I've been getting two weeks of orders in 3 days on some weeks so you can imagine the frenzy in here!

I don't think i'm going to set that closure in stone, i'd rather see how it goes week by week, but if you definately want your supplies by a certain date because you've made promises to clients or similar, then you must must must order 2 weeks in advance.  I received a large order on Monday saying "I need this week" - not possible i'm afraid, not just because of me - and the fact that there may be 60 other orders to pack before your urgent one, but because of the postal and other delivery services etc., there simply are no guarantees right now.

In the meantime, I've been doing a few live's on Instagram and i've also made a little tutorial from one of the questions asked of me, which was about how to set eyelets.  You can see that and much more by following me on Instagram or Facebook on @sewcurvysupplies - it tends to be where I 'announce' things first so is always more 'up to the minute' and is automatically copied to Facebook, if you don't have Instagram.

All about Eyelets Soon to go on IGTV - stay tuned!

So that's it for this week.  KBO as Churchill used to say.  Keep Buggering On!

Hope you have great weekends!

I spoke too soon!  We have had to temporarily disable the shopping cart in order to work through the huge volume of orders received, update stock, and get back on top of the admin.  We will re-open the shop on Friday 24 April in the morning, so do have a browse, and don't fear, there will be more stock available by then as we are expecting a huge delivery of steel, s. whalebone and coutil this week but we need time and space to organise ourselves.

I have also decided to only do only ONE post office run per week.  This will be on a Wednesday morning until further notice.

In the meantime, I discovered how to make a mask (for keeping your droplets to yourself!) and that you can make it from one layer of coutil with a cotton lining.  This makes a sturdy, good quality mask with reasonable filtration due to the close weave of coutil.  The mask above is one layer of small weave herringbone lined with a quilting weight cotton.  Pattern is here.

Don't forget we have an instagram page @sewcurvysupplies and a Facebook group @learncorsetmaking  Pop in and say Hi!

On the plus side, orders have calmed down a bit, but on the minus side, there's still a bit of a backlog which is slowly being cleared.

The problem is getting supplies.  My wholesaler opened their website on Tuesday at 9am, saying that they would take orders till 5pm (bear in mind they had already been closed for 10 days).  I quickly filled my basket with tapes, eyelets, bindings etc., and at 10.59 reach to get my payment details.  By the time I looked back at the screen, the website was closed!  The wholesaler had got 10 days worth of sales in just 2 hours!!! I wrote to ask when they would be open again, and very VERY kindly because I've been with them for so long, they opened up for 5 mins that evening so that I could get my order in.  BUT - that wont be packed for at least a week.  In the meantime, I'm low on boning tapes and eyelets.  Not quite critical, but low enough to still not have kits live until i've assessed things a bit more - which I haven't had time to do because, packing/admin etc.,

Orders are going out regularly though and another thing  I have been doing is keeping more active on Instagram including doing the odd "Live" where I answer your questions on corset making.  These are the questions I answered this week.

I usually do lives at the start of the week while i'm cutting mountains of fabric.  It's a job where I can chat as I go as I don't need to concentrate too much on it!  So, if you're on Instagram and you have a burning corset making question, look me up @sewcurvysupplies, and send the question!

In the meantime, I'm sorry again for the slowness of getting things out - a mixture of overwhelm and supply chain shortage but things do seem to be easing up now as we reach a sort of 'normality' in this strange situation we are all finding ourselves in the middle of!  Stay safe and happy weekend!

Cor! what a busy week it's been!  I think I have sent out more corset kits in the last two weeks than I have in the last 10 years! 

Unfortunately that's taken it's toll on my supplies - not least because of the aforementioned supply chain 'problems' (namely - it's slowing down).  So I've had to take the Kits off the website while I catch up and re-evaluate my stock situation.  I want to make sure there are enough supplies for everyone and the kits.  If you've had your eye on Instagram you'll know that my pile of 'roll ends' and remenents is as high as the empire state building so I expect some special kits will be coming from there!

The supply chain situation means that unfortunately I will have to juggle some stock items (no more whole rolls available) and restrict some others - there's no point ordering 50m of something just because the whole rolls aren't available.

Bulk orders are not out of the question but it may be some time before I can get the supplies.  For instance, i'll be trying to get hold of the 2000m of tailors tape that someone has ordered, but with Covid and Easter combined, it could be 3 weeks till I'm able to fulfill that particular order!

In the meantime, I've been keeping everyone entertained via Instagram Live by giving daily updates and answering your corset making questions.  So if you'd like to join in, hop over to @sewcurvysupplies on Instagram and see what we're up to!

Orders received up to last night will be posted today but they may not make the postal deadline of 1pm.  You may therefore not receive your goods until after Easter unfortunately - this is because obviously the postal service has also slowed down considerably - because of workers isolating while the postal burden has increased with mail order shopping.

I'll be packing again after Easter, and hope that you all have a wonderful break!