Hey there,

I have had three glorious sleeps, cleaned my entire house tip to toe, sorted my storage area and started pecking at a huge pile of paper on my desk since Scott and I closed up my booth Sunday at The Signatures Gift show.  It was an amazing success for me, though the days were long to be on my feet for over 12 hours at a time.. but nothing a hot bath could not sooth. What I did not expect, was to sell out of recycled wool sweater leggings and to receive so much positive attention for my new bag collection. I sold 10 of them. Very happy about that.  AND I am overjoyed to have met with some fabulous retail women who have asked to carry my bags in their fabulous stores. Workshop Boutique / Flock (Byward Market and Westboro, Ottawa) and Sacsou (Gatineau, Quebec).  Workshop recently opened a new location in Westboro called Flock. I have always wanted to be featured in Workshop. They carry Canadian designers and the most creative collection of clothing and fashion accessories for all those super stylish fahionistas in Ottawa. Wohoo.  And Sacsou is a brand new boutique in Gatineau on boul. St Joseph that carries fabulous shoe brands including El Naturalista & Fly London, plus a selection of Canadian designed handbags and totes. I have yet to visit their new digs, but by the way the owners were dressed, I can tell it is going to be a fashion mecca in this city.

There is so much choice in gift shows to attend at this time of year for small companies such as mine. It can be tough to decide where to get the greatest return for the effort that goes into attending. Often times you might have heard about a show that is a must attend because the traffic is high and the quality of craft is edgy, but sometimes you will attend simply because your BFF is already signed up. I prefer to get into the good shows (big and small) if they will have me, and bonus, if my friends are there too, we can share runs for coffee and watch each other’s tables when in need of a bathroom break. As I have said, I love craft shows.. but I don’t really want to be just a warm body with cool stuff, “filling an empty table” for certain upstarts.  Quite a few people have approached me to take a table at their “Holiday sale”. While this is flattering, not only am I trying to limit the number of shows I attend to something manageable, but I try to filter out some smaller shows that are not well organised and have little or no advertising.  Some gift shows are held in church basements and legion halls, you know the kind.  But do not be deceived. I have attended some amazing craft shows held in such venues that are overflowing with happy consumers buying crazy-unique product made by super stylish designers. I have also visited craft sales in similar places that include one too many wildly colourful slippers with pom-poms, afghans with too many frilly bits and crochet Santas made in 100% acrylic Phentex.  Not my thing really (I know, I know, I am a yarn snob, what can I say…)  you know these types of sales.. we have all been there.  But I am happy to have visited and read about hip shows in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver.  The trend is clear. More and more gift shows and craft sales are catering to a demand for superior, hand-crafted objects and locally made designs. They are providing well advertised outlets for a new breed of hipster designers out there. From glass, silver, wood, photography to textile, plus, plus.  I hope this movement continues to grow and that buying high-quality, locally-made wares becomes more mainstream in this North American, brand-conscious culture.

I am now heading into a week of administrative catch up and to sew more leggings for the show I am attending at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, that runs during the first two weekends of December (2-5 and 9-11 Dec).  It is the second year for this Christmas Craft sale and my first attendance. From what I have heard through friends who sold there last year, the quality of product was high and visitor traffic was super. Sometimes the smaller shows can generate great sales because the atmosphere is more intimate and the selection of vendors limits you to being the only one selling in your product category. The Museum grand foyer where the sale is to be held is a spectacular venue.  I am looking forward to my last show for the season and onto exciting plans for the year ahead.

I am also sending a very special thank-you to my lovely friend Fiona, who happily returned to the show for a second visit on Saturday, this time to help me with sales. What a natural saleswomen. I loved how she kept referring to “we” when describing to visitors how things were made.  I am going to keep her number for when I will be in need of  a VP Customer Service and Sales!   (Free bags for life! Just keep that in the back of your mind Fiona!)

Thank you to my sweetie Scott for delivering sushi on his way home from a business trip after suffering through an overnight flight and for helping me pack up on closing day.  My handsome knight keeps shining and pulling through for me. (Love you.)

Happy sewing and showing everyone!

Anne

Hi there!

Today is the first day of the Signatures Gift show 2011 at the Ottawa Convention Centre. I am all set to go.. well almost..

It never fails that as much as I think things are tight and ready for presentation, I always manage to find a little something that needs tweaking to enhance the booth layout in some way. Last night, after I returned home from setting up, I was not quite satisfied that my new leggings were merchandised in a basket..It will just cause people to pull them out, one at a time, to see all the colours.. But how to hang them up in a tidy manner at such a late hour in the game?

Despite all my efforts to set up my booth in my living room and to sort out my merchandising design, this issues simply did not come to mind.

I found myself fumbling through the studio looking for some clips that I could use to hang the leggings from, and found some vintage wooden clothes pegs. I attached some wire that I shaped into hooks, and voila, instant hanging devices.. Where to hang them from?  My chrome floor stand for hand bags. Perfect.

Next issue – photographs. Since my fingerless gloves will remain merchandised in baskets, I thought it best to at least showcase them in a photo. This I hope will create an obvious visual on what these colourful woollen bundles are.

And finally, I have a basket of kooky and colourful woollen creations that are not so self explanatory. I am hanging another photo for my “Jester” dog collars.

It is all coming together after months and months of mad sewing and production in my studio. Thank goodness I had the help of Annamarie who did her magic to pull together the majority of my recycled sweater products, including some pretty swanky woollen shawls that are so soft and delicious to wrap around your neck in these cold months of ours.  I have also single handedly produced over twenty new shoulder bags and some fifteen large totes in recycled wool blankets and felt. I am super excited about these latest bag designs.

And so it goes, another gift show coming on, another milestone achieved. I worked so hard these last few months to prepare for this day that I find myself wondering if the effort is worth the benefits yet to be reaped.  Is the gift show circuit the best route for me to travel while growing my company?   It is one of the least expensive ways for a small company such as mine to have direct interaction with consumers which makes it such an ideal sales opportunity. But for me, it is absolutely impossible to find time to present new product to my much valued retail clients while being so intensely focused on the shows.  I ask myself if I want to sell to the retail world, how on earth can I extract myself from the production side of my business? My marketing efforts these last few months have also been painfully minimal which is simply a cause for serious concern in my view.  If my potential clientele does not know what I am doing or where to find Just B product, is there any serious point in sewing away all these hours in my little hideaway studio? It doesn’t quite add up to a good practice..

After the holidays, I plan to spend some much needed time reevaluating my production approach. It might include expanding my production space here in my home, outsourcing some international production and perhaps hiring Annamarie to produce my entire show collection for Spring.

These are some pretty big questions to be answered and it all has my brain working overtime.

Meanwhile, I am off to the Signatures show strutting my new recylced sweater leggings and looking forward to seeing my regular customers or meeting some new ones. I do get seriously energized by these shows. There is nothing better for my ego and to encourage me to keep doing what I am doing than in seeing real people in real time genuinely excited about Just B designs. Could these shows be a form of therapy? a drug? hmmmm…

Be sure to stop by my booth (216) if you are in Ottawa this evening and until 20 November. I would love to receive you and get your feedback on my latest collection.

Happy sewing my friends! And an extra special, heart-felt thank-you to my darling friend Joanne for helping me set up yesterday!

Anne

Hi everyone,

Just finished our fabulous gift show at Lavender Ridge Farm this past weekend. (see photos under the tab Art on the Ridge) It was blustery with a bitter wind Saturday and cold Sunday, but the rain stayed away and I was so happy with the number of visitors who came out for a look-see.  My friend Joanne Labadie (Lavender Ridge) and I organised the event, our first, and it went off rather well I must say.  It seems that we were in sync on all aspects of the show planning and set up and complimented each other every step of the way.  Joanne was raised in the neighbouring town of Quyon and so she seems to know everybody in the Pontiac!  I have a few graphic design skills and a little media planning/ placement experience which come in handy when advertising came into play. We are a good team for sure! (how lucky for me that I met Joanne at the chelsea market two summers ago!)

The event didn’t go live without a few unforeseen developments – only natural..; The caterer we had recruited had to step down a week before the event, due to an unfortunate death in the family. But to my pleasant surprise, would you believe, on the very day that the caterer and I spoke, I received an email from an interested vegan chef inquiring if we needed food vendors. She saw one of our postcards at a local bakery.  How serendipitous! ;  We had also accepted applications for 20 exhibitors and 2 of them didn’t show on the Saturday. I think the forecast of rain must have had them a little nervous;  We had two large tents blow over and break overnight Saturday. Fortunately Doug (husband to Joanne and co-owner of Lavender Ridge) is ingenious and with duct tape, bamboo rods and some engineering expertise, we were back up and running by 9am – no trouble bubble;  The temps were so cold on Sunday that our visitors did not get a chance to sit and relax on the patio while sipping soup or spooning into a hot chilli, instead, they had to try to keep warm by shuffling from tent to tent. Such troopers!

Despite these few gnawing suprises, Joanne and I had a blast.  Our primary goal was to host the very first show of this kind in the Pontiac, showcasing superior crafts, foods and artwork. We imagined that by providing a picturesque venue and inviting visitors through social networks and local print media, that this combination would provide healthy sales for all vendors.  If they don’t sell, then we are out of business!   Our not so hidden agenda was to have the chance to hang with like-minded people and to shop!!   I was so glad to receive such positive feedback from some of the artisans saying how their sales far surpassed their expectations, some even said sales were higher than any outdoor event they had attended all summer.  I was so impressed and so thrilled, needless to say. That being said, there is always room for improvement, and with their support, Joanne’s energy, my dancing (oh yes I was dancing on Saturday night) we intend to take this show to new levels with every passing season.

I celebrated my 48th birthday on Saturday. It will be a most memorable one. Not because I approach the big, bad 50 year mark, but I was so fortunate to have one of my dearest and oldest friends, Lakshmi to celebrate with, along with newer and just as dear to me, friends, Fiona, Joanne, Doug, Morgan, Pat, Hassan. My sweetheart Scott is away on business at the moment so was  unable to join in on the fun.. We shared a dinner of humous with chips, lasagna and multiple glasses of wine right from the oak barrel at Lavender Ridge.. did I mention that Joanne and Doug have several vineyards and operate a winery at the farm?  yup.. oh, and is the red wine ever good.  I can’t wait for them to get their license to sell. I will be jostling shoulders with many eager buyers when it is bottled and shelved.  They have a large waiting list already..

Tomorrow I will continue producing more bags, sweater blankets and the like for what time remains before my next show opens on November 15. I will keep you posted on how things are developing for that. Now that Art on the Ridge is behind me, I will try to work at a more relaxed pace.  I think I can, I think I can….

Happy sewing lovely friends!

Hugs,
Anne

Hi there all you happy sewers,

What started out this last month with my retail sales efforts, later shifted into a creative spell in preparation for my winter gift shows. All part of the juggling act to increase sales, to keep things fresh with every season and to produce, produce!   Of course the most enjoyable of the three major roles is the one where I create. The ideas are not a problem, the execution is where I get stuck given the constraints of time.  This month, I managed to design a few new beauties for this coming holiday gift show circuit which starts in October.

I had about 30 large woollen blankets tucked into large baskets in my studio.. You know the kind you find at yard sales that people just want to get rid of because they accidentally shrunk them in the washer?  Sometimes they can smell of moth balls.  Yes, those blankets..  I just can’t stop collecting them. A good friend of mine even collects them for me on her visits to thrift stores. (I am so lucky!)  I just let them sit there waiting for the right time, and figured that one day I would find the perfect use for them.  The white ones are the hardest to work with since they cannot be made into bags because the colours are just too light and will easily soil.  So I made pillows instead.

I aslo bought some gorgeous wool felt last year and have been waiting to get started on some bags with it. It is made in Germany and not something I want to waste if the design is not quite right.  I am really happy with how these are coming along. The interiors will be lined with some of my French fabric to make the felt more durable and I might have to waterproof them to keep the rain and snow out. The woollen blankets are also a great textile for this design.

The craft sale I participated in last weekend turned out to be terrific despite the major downpour we survived around 2pm. It just came so quickly and drenched my table cloths and nearly soaked my products had it not been for some wonderful visitors who got stuck under my tent. They helped me shuffle tables and merchandise to the centre of the tent and hung out until the storm passed. Peter Wood was one of these good Samaritans..  A few of his fabulour paintings were on show inside the Lions Club hall.  Am now saving my pennies to buy one of his works!

My not-so-hidden-agenda to attend this show was to recruit some ladies to crochet and knit for me. I set up this little announcement in a frame and propped it on my table, next to my crochet pillows, and hoped to get garner some interest.

Several women have already contacted me to discuss the projects I have in mind. I am thrilled. Thank you ladies!  There are a few wool producers in our area as well. If it could be affordable, I would love to incorporate their alpaca, cashmere and wool into my products. I am hoping to join the owner of a local farm in the next few weeks on the day when they will be sheering their sheep and goats. So cool.

My gorgeous friend and chief sewing queen Annamarie was here last week and the week before helping with some fingerless glove production. She has sewn 100 pairs so far!

I just put the final touches on these swanky knitted gloves. They had been sitting on my coffee table all summer missing thumbs. These are for my personal collection (with a six month lead time for production of one pair, I would be out of business in no time!) Right on time for dog walking on a cool windy day like the one we are having out here in the Pontiac. The thermometre keeps dropping by a few degrees every week. I love Autumn and its warm, cozy colours!

Happy sewing, knitting and crocheting!

Anne

A few days in Montreal, and follow up weeks on the phone while facing my computer and the retail sales effort carries on. With a few interesting prospects as well (though not without a tremendous amount of emailing and sending out of catalogues). One new retailer has signed on (yay oh yay). Ferme Lavender Ridge are just  up the road from us in the Pontiac.  They recently opened a gorgeous boutique on their farm where they sell the fabulous lotions and soaps produced by co-owner Joanne Labadie using lavender blossoms harvested on the farm. Their amazing wine will soon make it’s debut and will be added to the selection of delicious products the farm is going to feature in their shop.   I am not the only lucky designer that Joanne Labadie and Doug Briden have signed on for their boutique.  I share their shelves with a number of other talented artisans, including my friend and leather designer James Brooks.  Sales have been terrific thus far.  Happy Happy me.

But of course this business of sitting in front of  the phone all day long has it’s limits. I need to be creative at least one or two days a week.. C’mon!   Crochet seems to be the latest of my temptations. I have been hooking away at a series of woollen and cotton pillows. I have included these wool numbers in my product catalogue for my winter collection. Now I need to find some crochet queens to help me produce any orders.  I am accepting applications!!

What happy, creative project are you working on between computer sittings?

I have a new wallet design in the works, using my cotton weave from France. They are looking fab.. Stay tuned for my next posting to get a preview.
Happy sewing!   Anne