Background check

It's been requested that I give some info on myself and how I got into this mess. I'll tell what I can and still maintain some anonymity. As for making this blog private, I don't think that is necessary at this point. The main purpose of this blog is to share the crazy with as many people as would like to hear (read?) it as well as give anyone else a chance to vent their own stories while maintaining anonymity themselves.

So, about me. I started sewing at a very young age (maybe 9 or 10). One of my first projects was an amazingly bad quilt that consisted of plaid flannel and cartoon characters that didn't match up at all and earned laughter from my mother. Hey, it was the late 80's and I was totally gonna have a grunge/cartoon quilt! I think it was deemed good enough for the dogs to sleep on...in the basement. Undaunted, I kept at it and actually started getting decently good. A few years later I began sewing historical recreation dresses and taught myself how to make patterns and do alterations. Time went by and I decided to take a stab at a wedding dress. My sister was getting married and I made her dress. After I picked myself off the floor, I swore off sewing forever. Meh, I was still a teenager and I needed time for angst or something.
I would occasionally sew something, but I was earning steady money at a desk job that I absolutely loathed. I realized I was unhappy and figured I may as well be unhappy doing something I was good at and that not everyone did. I dove back into the crazy world of brides and realized a few things: I didn't have to like the brides, in fact, I could laugh about their idiosyncrasies now. I was better at budgeting my time and had a more advanced knowledge of what I was doing. Lastly, working my my pj's is worth dealing with occasional crazy brides. Now, most of my work is custom wedding gowns and specialty alterations on bridal gowns (changing a neckline or shape of the skirt, adding or removing sleeves/shoulders, or changing other design elements of the dress). I am almost entirely self-taught and continue to learn new techniques.

Because I am younger than most people in this particular line of work, I get a lot of odd looks and questions. In a typical day I get asked by about 90% of my brides how I got started doing this and 99.95% of their moms ask the same thing. It's their way of letting me know they don't trust me. Heaven knows that I can't possibly know what I am doing. I am too young and too English-speaking (Don't send me hate-mail about this. The fact is that most seamstresses and tailors in my area are Hispanic, Russian, or middle eastern and English is not their first language. The young kids today are just too lazy and spoiled to get off their butts and sew on a button! Now get off my lawn!). Some of the other questions I have gotten are:
"So do you know how to sew?"
"Now, who will be sewing my dress, cause it can't be you."
"Do you know what a *insert common sewing term* is?"
"Do you have a sewing machine?"

Idiots.

So there you go. I'm gonna start telling brides that I haven't actually sewed anything before, but I got a machine last week and figure I don't want to mess up any of my own things trying to learn.