Erin Clark with KSBW in a LaLa Original Scarf

Spell check & other grammatical errors

I should really read the blogs before I post.  The scarf has nothing to do with spell checking but I think it's cute.  Do you?

Busy, Busy, Busy!!

  It’s been awhile but I’m back.  Who knew getting a business started would be so time consuming?  Just kidding.  I love being busy especially with something I love doing.

Now back to the Evolution of LaLa Originals .  As I’ve stated in prior entries, I’m creative in thought & design but I have no ability to sew.  This being said, I needed someone to put my designs together. First came the sewing machine with no one to operate it. In comes Jenny Jen. The woman with a wealth of knowledge & know how.  She read about sewing & had done some in the past. Between the two of us, the first 10 or so LaLa Originals Scarves were made, not that I sewed any.  Jen would work her little perfectionist fingers to the bone after her job & on weekends.  All she wanted was to help me succeed.  So sweet!!   After the first batch was completed, it was time to ramp up & I knew I had to outsource the sewing. Poor thing was exhausted.

I put an ad in Craigslist & asked everyone I knew if they knew any good seamstress’s.  One day I was at a second hand store looking for treasures and like all things that have happened on this journey, I was at the register checking out & a woman’s card was in a basket at the counter.  I gave her a call & she came over the next day for the interview.

 

Day 1 - We’ll call her “Lady X” as protect the innocent or guilty. Really depends on how you look at it.  Just to embarrassing to reveal her real name. “Lady X” took one look at the brand new state of the art sewing machine & trembled. She explained that her sewing machine was at least 30 plus years old & had no idea how to work the one in front of her.  At that moment I should have thanked her & ran, but I didn’t.  I put on my “happy face” & proceeded to explain to her our needs.  I could tell the instructions were not registering, as she looked like a deer in the headlights.  Thinking she may learn better by doing, we carefully approached the machine. She tried threading the bobbin to no avail.  This is where I was thanking GOD; Jenny Jen had showed me how to thread the bobbin & needle. I stepped in & got the machine set up & “Lady X” to the helm again.  Her requirements were to sew a hem with a straight line. This is where the comedy of error began, but did not end.  “Lady X” sat behind the New Computerized sewing machine & jammed the thread immediately.  In trying to cut the tangled thread, she kept going to the back of the needle looking for the old cutter (which is no longer there) swiping over & over again with no luck.  The thread was still attached.  Handing her the scissors she cut the balled up thread.  After several more attempts, I suggested she take the two pieces home & I’d stop by tomorrow & we’d attach them there.  Wellllllll!!!!

Day 2 – “Lady X’s house.  She left my house with two pieces in which she had to sew straight hems.  She said she had been sewing for over 40 years, so I thought, “how hard can this be “ Well apparently pretty hard.  I explained again the process of how to attach the two pieces & right there in front of me on her own machine the train wreck happened.  “Lady X” was clearly frustrated, ripped the stitches out & said “ I need to iron the hem down”  As she is the profession, her iron & ironing board were right there. In frenzy, she makes sure the steam on the iron is billowing  & starts to iron the difficult hem.  I look at her, sweat dripping from her brow & hammering that iron back & forth on the hem.  As I’m looking at the steam towering off the material, I notice brown flakes all over the material.  I scream (gently of course) “STOP there’s Iron deposits all over the material” She looked up & kept ironing. More forceful this time & with hand signals, I said” Please stop. Do not iron the rust into the material” With a sigh of relief, “Lady X” stepped away from the ironing board & made her way back to her turn of the century sewing machine. On her way there, dragging the dreaded scarf material behind her, stepping on it as if she could somehow maim it before she & it reached her machine.  Again I had to intervene & save that scarf from a tragic ending.  “Lady X’ sat at the helm again of her instrument of death & sewed the two pieces together as if she were in the sewing Olympics.  So much speed, so little precision.  Finally she & it were done. The scarf & I couldn’t wait to get out of there.  What should have been a 15 minute appointment, took close to one & a half hours, all of my patience, & as much compassion as I could muster.  My tears were being held back by the smile I had glued on my face earlier. I paid her & said I’d call her later.  Later never came.  I knew this was not a match.

Back to Craigslist...And then there's Natalie.

Newscaster Erin Clark in LaLa Original Scarf

About us

About us

The Early Days otherwise know as "Basket Weaving 101"

I left a corporate job after 13 years. I was worn out physically,spiritually, and mentally. I was long overdue for down time.  My stress level was off the charts, so much so I started getting migraines. Debilitating migraines. Migraines at my age apparently are not normal.  For months on end, I'd wake up throwing up,blinded by the pain. Multiple ER & urgent care visits. The migraines were starting to periodically be managed by various different means, however not gone.  I started to come up for air. At times feeling normal.  One "normal" day, I woke up with a head(no pun intended) full of ideas to make headbands. Velvet, cloth, felt, big flowers, bling, sparkles,jewels.  However, I am not crafty, but I had to make the headbands that are twirling around in my brain.  So I set the plan in motion. Craft store, fabric store, cutting out patterns, glue, lots of glue. I was a women possessed or obsessed. Tomato, tomato.  Temporary excitement came over me. For a brief period of time, my hands had become the wands that sprinkled fairy dust over my head & mental state, so the world and all of it's issues disappeared.
I set up my office, my living room. With all of the new "manufacturing goods" spread out on my work bench aka card table, I rolled up my sleeves, pulled in my artisan seat otherwise known as folding chair, and created. Create I did. These headbands gave me a reprieve from the noise between my ears.  A bit manic in the creation. It felt like "basket weaving 101" While I was focused on creating, I was not focused on me. In Corporate life I was creative in the solutions I designed, however it never  allowed me to tap into certain aspects of the creative. Never fully flowed or developed. Stifled in thoughts and words. I felt alive for the first time in years.I was going to make this happen. I had to make this happen.

Back at the office aka living room I sat, cutting, fitting, creating, and gluing. Ah, glue!!! Glue in the dictionary says: To stick things together.  But what the dictionary doesn't tell you is that there are 40 million types of glue, most of which I purchased. Fabric glue, crazy glue, glue sticks, glue for metal,glue to stick metal to fabric, gorilla glue, and the list goes on ad infintinum. To date I still haven't found a "all in one glue" Within 48 hours I had spent a few hundred dollars & six headbands were born. Friends loved them, people on the street asked me where I got them.  The next indicated step was to come up with a company name and LaLa was born. Now let's see if they will sell.

It was days before Christmas and a friend offered to put them in her store. Timing is really everything. Not a one sold. The holiday ship had sailed. Most people were not going to buy a last minute headband as a gift. I still have those head bands, they are still adorable, and more will be created. The reality was that those headbands gave me hope. Hope that there was a direction for me to go in other than the one I had been living for years, but I needed more time to heal.  I got so much more out of that experience than could have ever begin to fully articulate. All good things come to those that wait. And wait I did. 

How it all began.

It all started with the name.  I used to be a brunette. Serious, thoughtful, logical, but something was missing.  First there were the blonde tips, which turned into strips, which quickly morphed into a head full of blonde hair.  Something happened that day, both magical & frightening all at once.  The magic began when my face softened, but tragedy also occurred. My brain softened along with it.  My responses & my response time to questions changed, turned, & twisted as the answers came out of my mouth.  When asked a question, my voice would change. It went up an octave. Then my head would tilt. Sometimes to the right, sometimes left.  However, the birth of LaLa did not start with the higher octave or the tilt of the head.  La La’s birth came with the constant response of  “Whatttttt”? to almost every question. 

One day on a bus ride from Monterey to Los Angeles(more about that later) with a friend & her daughter. My friend’s daughter asked me a question. I didn’t hear her the first time as I was starring out into space thinking about something else. Probably fixated on another shinny object. So she asked her question again.  Still engrossed in my own thoughts & the shinny object, I looked at her,  tilted my head and  said in a much higher octave than my normal voice, “Whattttttt”?   She looked at me, forgetting that she had ever asked me a question and said mockingly while tilting her head from side to side, “LaLa”.  I briefly looked at her, then at her mother and we all starting laughing so hard that tears rolled down everyone’s face.  We all knew in that moment that this 14 year old teenager was spot on in her analogy of me. Hence the birth of LaLa.