WAHM Pride

Following Pivotal Expressions' first birthday last week, today Cravings Frocks/Mrs Beckinsale has a first anniversary of its own! On the 28th of March 2009 I visited Made 'N Thornbury, my first experience of a cozy not-for-profit market. I went along with the intention of checking it out for this crazy idea I had of making cushions that look like trams. I went, I saw, I liked. I applied for the next market in five weeks' time and swore off dressmaking for clients.


The W Class Cushion prototype, which I'm currently sitting on
To celebrate this anniversary I've phoned the Yellow Pages and asked them to remove my dressmaking ad. This month I've had two or three calls a week asking me to make evening dresses (and one to repair a pair of shorts - people do not know the difference between dressmaking and repairs & alterations!). I'm getting mighty sick of my "I'm not taking any new clients at the moment" line so I've finally got around to cutting off the source. I've just searched for myself and yep, all gone!

My business has come so far since I last made a dress for a non-family-member. I never would have predicted advancing from a $10 stall at a community market to being a rent-paying member of a shopfront co-operative in one short year. As an at-home mum in her first year out of paid work, running my business has done marvels for my self esteem.

Recently pro-blogger Uppercase Woman wrote about her personal journey of becoming proud of being a WAHM, and quotes author Brené Brown who says "We have to stop apologising to our children for working." If we're taking time away from our kids to run a business or work outside the home, we have to show them we are proud of what we are doing. It's not about trying to be the (hopefully close to debunked) wonderwoman who has it all. It's about doing what we can as well as we can.

So, Jack and New Baby, your mum is proud that she's created this business from nothing but her weird imagination. She's proud that she spends hours a day creating and thinking and deciding and trying her darndest. Coz if I wasn't doing that, I wouldn't be true to myself.

I'm even proud of how I dressed Jack a year ago:


And perhaps proud of the weight I've lost in the last twelve months...
And how far has my business advanced since swearing off dressmaking? I'm spending this week sewing the first Mrs Beckinsale skirts for Olive Grove. Maybe things don't change that much after all!