Sunday, June 11, 2006

Chapter 2 Prototype Kills Sewing Thrills

I started sewing when I was 12 years old. Not because I thought it was a handy skill to have. No. I was flunking sewing in junior high school. And I had something to prove.

I was an honour student. Scoring A’s & B’s. And here I was, flunking of all things, SEWING!

I come from a family of innate talent. My mother was a couture dressmaker in New York City. My father was a very talented pencil artist and in great demand as a freelance commercial artist. My grandmother sang at the Metropolitan Opera. My maternal grandfather was a barber. His shop was on Broadway and he was a barber to the Broadway stars. Next door was my paternal grandfather, a shoemaker. He made shoes for the likes of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks! Even my older sister showed early talent as a gifted artist in charcoals.

I assumed I also inherited this mass of unbridled talent that knew no bounds.

But I didn’t.

My school sewing project, a simple blouse, had me stumped. I remember the blouse well. It was pale blue cotton with a simple collar, short baby doll sleeves, front and back darts that fitted at the waist and buttons down the front.

The semester was 12 weeks long. By the end of the 12 weeks, we were supposed to have finished our blouse and wear it to school on the last day. Most of my classmates not only finished their blouse, but were making skirts and dresses to fill in the gap until the end of the semester.

Five days before the end of the semester, I still hadn’t sewn two seams together correctly. My darts were not only pathetically crooked, but were barely holding together. Because I had to rip the stitching out so many times, the fabric was so perforated it resembled tatting more than a solid piece of cotton.

In desperation, I took my blouse home for my mother to finish so I could wear it to class on the last day. And as all mothers do for the children they love, she rescued me and made my blouse wearable.

But she couldn’t do much on the presentable front, what with all the holes I made from ripping stitches out. The uneven collar length, a result of my seam ripping, followed by the trimming I did to even things up, was too much of a challenge.

My sewing teacher rewarded me by giving me a ‘D’ rather than an ‘F’. She personally thought me inept and deserving an ‘F’. I thought she was cold and unhelpful.

Why was she so gracious? Deep within her beat a slightly warm heart.

As an honour student, an ‘F’ would keep me off the honour roll that semester. But I was liked by my school principal, who told her I had scored enough A’s during the semester to make up for a ‘D’ and could, therefore, stay on the honour roll.

With a ‘D’, my sewing teacher achieved her objective of marking me low. I was genuinely grateful for such a merciful decision!!

Infuriated that I couldn’t get the hang of sewing, I decided to teach myself, with the help of my very talented mother. Never one to turn my back on a challenge, I immersed myself in all the technicalities of sewing and discovered I absolutely loved the creative thrill it gave me. To wear something to school that was admired by my classmates was flattering.

My ‘bespoke’ clothes transformed me from 'inept' into 'expert'. I became a fountain of knowledge about sewing and was the girl everyone turned to for tips and information.

From the age of 12 until 1994, I made everything. All my clothes of every description, including tailored suits, overcoats and lingerie. Home furnishings, bedspreads, slipcovers, blinds, lampshades. There was nothing I hadn’t tackled.

So when my partner, Victor Pleshev, asked if I would make the ironing board cover he wanted to design for his mother, I said yes in the blink of an eye. What’s to an ironing board cover? It has a fabric top and elastic around the edge. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

That’s the last time I’ve said yes without asking what he has in mind.

When Victor showed me his design, I realised he was going to use his 25 years of architectural design and structural knowledge to develop an ironing board cover the world had never seen before.

What I didn’t know, is that I would sew virtually non stop for 6 weeks.

Victor also had his own eye-opening discoveries.

His first was not knowing the size of his mother’s board. As this was a surprise gift for her, he couldn’t ask her. And a quick walk through any hardware store showed him there were a few sizes to choose from.

Not to be deterred, he rang Hills Industries in Sydney, who make ironing boards, and developed a friendship with their technical director. He gave Victor all the information he needed to be able to develop a cover that would fit every board made within the last 60 years.

Hills Industries was more than a bit amused that an architect was trying to design a cover for his mother.

With that out of the way, we had to assemble all the components before we could sew the first stitch.

First was choice of fabric. And this was our initial indication that maybe his mother, Rita, wasn’t the only one who had a problem with poorly fitting ironing board covers.

A search through Material Matters in Mudgee NSW showed a large choice of synthetic fabrics, but a more limited choice of heavy duty, 100% cottons. When the sales person asked why it had to be pure cotton and not a synthetic, I told her it was for an ironing board cover, so it had to be durable and resistant to burning. “Ah,” she said, “so you’ve had enough of those cheap covers, too?”

One light bulb goes on!!

Second component. What was he going to use for the tension cord? This is the secret ingredient that gives the perfect fit and stops the cover from moving on the board. It has to be stretchable, but much firmer than ordinary elastic.

As an architect, Victor is used to ringing suppliers to find the unusual to fill design criteria, so this was nothing different. Calls showed, however, that there was only one company in Australia who made what he wanted. It was cotton covered shock cord. And he could buy a small quantity of 100 metres. We needed 1.8 metres, but 100 metres we had to buy if he wanted to make this for his mother.

Third component. The clips to secure the crisscross tension cord. We looked at - to me – thousands of options, but came back to one type that we knew would last forever. Curtain track glides. Think about it. You pull your drapes and curtains back and forth a squillion times and they rarely ever break.

Fourth was the interior elastic that threads through the hem that ensures the cover always has a tailored, sculpted look. As a sewer I only used braided elastic. But we were presented with a cheaper option of knitted elastic. One quick yank and the knitted elastic broke. We were never able to break the more expensive braided elastic. So braided elastic it was. It was our easiest decision.

All up, there are 11 components to this cover. I felt like Sherlock Holmes, hunting for and then celebrating the discovery of each elusive item we wanted.

Assembling them seemed to me the hard part, and once completed, we were ready to sew. I thought we’d knock this over before dinner!

6 weeks later the cover was finished.

This wasn’t a spare time project. Victor dedicated every day, often several hours a day, to complete this gift. This was a harder challenge than he anticipated and he was going to see it to completion. And completion day was March 20th. His mother’s birthday.

Because Victor wanted to make sure this cover would fit his mother’s board without any hiccups, he insisted it had to be a one size cover that fits all boards. So we borrowed ironing boards in every size from our new country neighbours, for our fittings.

They thought we were raving lunatics from the city.

As did farming friends from nearby Mudgee NSW who rang to invite us out several times during those 6 weeks, only to be told we couldn’t go. Denis finally asked what we were doing that made us so anti-social. We reluctantly told him we were designing an ironing board cover. He hung up, speechless!

The design and sewing was done in 3 segments. The nose first, the heel next and the middle last. Doesn’t sound hard, does it?

But we were novices at this. Driving on ‘L’ plates without an instructor. So every segment was cut out, sewn and fitted an interminable number of times. The slightest crease or bulge meant an adjustment had to be made. A new piece cut out, sewn and refitted. Again. And again. And again.

One day I was sitting at my sewing machine watching Victor do a ‘fitting’ and realised I could no longer stand the sound of the ironing board creaking. Every time he touched it to adjust his prototype, it creaked. And it seemed to me it creaked non stop, hour after hour.

There was personal conflict as well. Victor at times assumed the mantle of commander-in-chief and insisted on telling me how to construct his prototype. Him telling me how to sew! That’s like me leaning over his shoulder and telling him how a roof should be pitched.

We got through that with stony silences from me.

Victor simply thought I was the wicked witch from Oz –and best avoided at every sighting!

As with all things, the day came when it was finished. Finally, once and for all. Never to be made again.

It was tucked into its little pouch, complete with fitting instructions, and mailed to his mother, Rita, as a surprise birthday present.

I blew it a kiss as it went down the chute of the post office.

I desperately wanted her to like it – to make the 6 weeks worthwhile - but deep down, I never wanted to see that cover again!

But as with some things, they don’t happen as you’d like. She loved it. She told her friends. We made 20 more. Then made the next 500.

And I grew to hate the sight of my sewing machine.

This accidental business is growing. There are now more than 75,000 covers in use around the world and increasing every day. But now all our covers are made with love and care in rural Australia by men and women who have a disability.

To learn more about The Fitz Like A Glove™ Ironing Board Cover, visit our website at http://www.interfaceaustralia.com.

And there are more stories to come! The leading hand who forbids us to return. Divorcing couples fighting over their ironing board cover. The bikies who storm our front gate to buy a cover. A news article in the Sydney Morning Herald blows up our fax machine.

It’s always a pleasure to hear from you and I hope you’ll share your ironing stories with me.

Take care,

CAROL

View CAROL JONES's profile on LinkedIn

Friday, June 09, 2006

Chapter 1 An Accidental Business Is Born



We had a different life before I became The Ironing Board Cover Lady.

I was a market research consultant and on the Board of Directors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Sydney.

My partner, Victor Pleshev, was an architect with his own practice.

We shared offices and clerical staff on the top floor of an old soap factory on the waterfront at Mort Bay in East Balmain NSW. In the same space where a few years earlier, Ben Lexcen was busy developing the ground breaking designs for Australia II. And stunned the yachting world when Australia II was the first challenger in 132 years to win the Americas Cup.

The 'recession we had to have' in Australia, starting in 1989, decimated the building industry and architects in particular. Victor's main clients were developers and they were the first to fall.

By early 1992 the writing was well and truly on the wall. We had to close our business, say goodbye to our 16 devoted staff, sell our house of 19 years to pay our debts and make a new beginning.

The new beginning wasn't a hard decision. We've always wanted to live in the Australian bush. But on different terms. Have a country house and keep our city terrace house in Balmain, where we lived. The city terrace house had to go, but the country property was a definite possibility.

There was an extended drought in 1992 and our purchase was an over cleared, over grazed, small sheep property of 54 hectares (about 130 acres) selling for the right price.

What attracted us was WATER! It had a drought proof bore. Why is that exciting? It meant we could have the large country garden we’ve always dreamed of.

I'm an expat American. Born in New York City. I've mainly lived in apartments, townhouses or terrace houses with small gardens. I've always yearned for the solitude and freedom of the wide open spaces. But you can't have a garden without water. Our climate here is hot and dry in summer and cold and frosty in winter. We have abundant winter rains but sluggish summer rains. So a drought proof bore means part of our dream could come true.

The location is perfect. The village of Ilford is 970 metres high and tucked between the scenic hills of Bathurst and the burgeoning vineyards of Mudgee. And only a few hours from Sydney.

But alas, we still had to earn a living. Selling our terrace house in Balmain to avoid bankruptcy means we weren't independently wealthy. Victor came with some architectural projects in tow, but I came with no work prospects at all. And the architectural work would dry up quickly.

Victor has always designed products for his clients, so we decided we'd try our hand at product design.

Our first successful product was an accident. An ironing board cover. Designed as a gift for his mother.

His mother, Rita, was recovering from a stroke. Her major side effect was the loss of feeling in her right hand. Not noticeable to you and me, but a problem for her. Holding a teacup, struggling with an ironing board cover that constantly moved, holding an iron, weren't easy tasks for Rita.

While visiting her in Sydney in 1994 and watching her iron, she burst into tears because she couldn't control both her iron and the moving cover on her board.

The next day we went out to buy her a decent cover. One that wouldn’t move on her board.

We came back with a few. None of them did the job for her. The drawstring covers were too difficult for her to pull tight and the good quality elastic covers looked like giant mushrooms on her board because they didn't fit tight.

On our drive back to Ilford, Victor mused that if he could get a multistorey building to stay up, he could get an ironing board cover to stay on his mother's board.

And he did. Over a period of 6 weeks, he designed and perfected The Fitz Like A Glove™ Ironing Board Cover. And gave it to his mother as a gift. And promptly forgot about it.

A few days later his mother rang. She had orders for 20 covers!

Victor reminded her he was an architect, not a maker of ironing board covers!

She explained to him that she loved her cover so much, she rang all her friends in the Russian community (yes, they're Russian) and they all wanted one. And we couldn't let her down by not making them.

So there we were, at our dining room table, cutting out and making ironing board covers at night. Victor was chief of layout and cutting and I was head seamstress. All we had was a small pair of battery operated scissors that cut only two pieces of fabric at a time, and a 20 year old domestic sewing machine and overlocker.

And so an accidental business is born.

There are now more than 75,000 covers in use around the world. And they're now made with love and care in rural Australia by men and women who have a disability.

To learn more about The Fitz Like A Glove™ Ironing Board Cover, visit our website at http://www.interfaceaustralia.com.

And there are more stories to come! The leading hand who forbids us to return. Divorcing couples fighting over their ironing board cover. The bikies who storm our front gate to buy a cover!

It’s always a pleasure to hear from you and I hope you’ll share your ironing stories with me.

Take care,

CAROL

View CAROL JONES's profile on LinkedIn