Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Jealous Friend... need advice?

8 replies

Vix1980 · 08/06/2011 18:21

I have been doing professional dressmaking at college and uni since i was 17 and working since i was 24, im now 31 so feel i have quite a bit experience, last year i took up a course refreshing in pattern cutting, 1 of my old friends tagged along to get out of the house really nothing more. we met this lovely girl ill call lou, she told us she was a dressmaker at first, a few months later she admitted she couldnt sew to save her life but had paid dressmakers over the years to make her designs up so she could sell them, to be honest they were the cheap kind you would see in markets which is were she sold them.

last year in feb i was made redundant and after searching for a job i decided to set up on my own through a princes trust course, I met up with her and showed her my busines card all excitedly and she was quite quiet in ehr response, even my other friend noticed and said to me later how weird she had gone. Recently i have been tagged in constant pictures of items she has made on facebook,things like headbands, chains etc she keeps promising to make certain items of clothing but the truth is she cannot sew, its not a problem but she keeps asking me to make the stuff for her to sell, ive told her i make them and sell them myself so she offeres me £4 to make each dress and cant understand why.

Today though she has noticed someone else who was on our course has her own facebook page and boutique, because of this she has become like a woman possessed trying to organise a photoshoot asking me to help and even offering me pictures for my portfolio.... i have my own i keep telling her, everything else about her is ok its just the fashion things she cant take it that she cannot sew, it takes years to train as a professional dressmaker and she believes she can do it, shes brilliant at making chains etc and ive tried to encourage her but now its like i dont want to tell her anything for fear of her copying me and being pushy about it all, sorry this is long just really needed a rant about her!

OP posts:
ScarletOHaHa · 08/06/2011 19:27

You are starting a business and need to concentrate on that. You can be supportive without doing favours. £4 to make a dress? Quite entitled of her to expect you to help her as a subcontractor AND for such a pittance.

It is hard; you shouldn't feel guilty for saying no to such massive favours.

I am recently self employed after redundancy. Good luck with your business.

Jellykat · 08/06/2011 20:43

Huh? £4 a dress, you are kidding... i'm sure she could find an outworker to sew her stuff up, failing that, maybe she should learn herself !!!

Apologies if i sound like a cow, but it's a competitive industry, if her designs are 'cheap' and you are setting up for yourself, you don't want to be associated with her market, or the lack of quality in her goods.

Seriously, keep your designs and ideas close to your chest.. A 'friend' of mine once bought a kids' hat off me, she then wanted to buy one of each design and alarm bells rang very loud.. I refused, it was pretty obvious she wanted to copy each pattern for herself, there was no other explanation.. Funny, 6 months later she was running courses in hat making, and making her own. Huh, she never worked out my secrets though, and hers were crap..

This is an example of how careful you have to be, you need to build up a client base based on quality, word of mouth etc.. Don't let her bully you into anything. Concentrate on your own business, and Good luck Smile

Vix1980 · 09/06/2011 16:54

Hi, thanks so much i was afraid i was going to get tons of messages saying how much of a cow i was not helping her, but i basically responded to her email last night saying how good she was at the jewellery making side of things (trying to still be a good friend an all) and letting her know i had a few peple who could help her with her own pictures who i plan to use for myself as they are old uni friends, she also asked about models so i told her i have 2 myself my boyfriends cousins ( i know theyre not perfect for her as she described the type of girl she wanted) i told her this they are both blonde and youngish so not the style she wants. instead of getting a reply back which i was expecting i get a "Hiya, can you drop my steamer off at my house please im going to do my bedroom over the weekend".

firstly she knows i have no car and she lives 25 mins away but secondly i just think she is being very very childish over this whole thing.If your not good at a certain thing you just accept it, move on and figure out what you are good at but she has her heart set on making clothes that in all honesty she cannot make, keeps promising people and will probably end up paying a dressmaker a fortune to make for her.

She actually slipped up by telling me she had previously used a dressmaker who charged her £25 per dress - then she goes and says to me would i do it for £4, think she has totally forgot this conversation we had! I really feel she is going to become 1 of those friends who i see less and less of as they begin to grate on me, before this though i'd never had a problem with her, just a bit upsetting to see her true colours and competiveness come out in such a nasty way really x

OP posts:
Ryma · 09/06/2011 17:50

I am dressmaker, I mean I use to be)) I have to say, some people just talanted and some not, so they just pretend they can sew, because it 's cool.

Jellykat · 09/06/2011 19:51

Vix, You're not being a cow, that's for sure! She's taking the P, and you're being completely reasonable.. if she can't see that and gets stroppy, she wasn't/isn't that good a friend..It is upsetting, i had a similar thing happen in November with a pushy friend, having said no - i haven't seen or heard from her since (i have tried to arrange a few 'coffee' meet ups), but hey ho, she lost a good mate, as it turns out, i didn't..

DontGoCurly · 09/06/2011 21:12

How can she not be able to sew?

Do you mean she can't use a sewing machine?

She sounds like a right cabbage. Just say no to her. No, no, no. Adopt a broken record approach. She'll get bored eventually!

ExpatMummyInOz · 10/06/2011 00:01

Not much of a friend really, is she? Sometimes people befriend people who have the talents they themselves wish they had.....like it will rub off on them too. (Does that make sense? Hope so!)

You need to stay focused on building your business - I'd end the friendship, such that it is.

Vix1980 · 10/06/2011 08:56

Thank you ladies for making me see im not the selfish jealous monster here! I think her little outburst this week may be pmt related but still am keeping my distance for a while, your all so right though, she ended up on a pattern making course not being able to sew at all then lied to everyone about how she was an amazing dressmaker, then only told me and my other friend the truth a few weeks before we fnished the course (like we hadnt figured it out already!).
i was talking to my boyfriend about it last night just trying to vent really and i got the oh but why wont you help a friend out when she needs it line - he sees the wrong in nobody so is totally useless when i need a bitching session!
Ryma - i think your right, no doubt the next new cool thing will be in soon and she will be an expert at that!

Dontgocurly - No she cant do either by hand or machine, she literally couldnt even thread up the machine when we 1st started the course - 1 of the biggest giveaways actualy that she was a bit of a blagger!

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread