Friday, January 23, 2009

Australia Day

It's the end of January already and while we might be back in to the swing of things after our go-slow post xmas, we're looking forward to having our first two day week-end in ages. Most weekends find us plying our socks at Hobart's Salamanca Market every Saturday, where we've been for the last 12 years-ish. Working at our home based workshop 5 days a week, with one full on Market day, doesn't leave us with much free time. No complaints here, because we love or work/life style, but Yay! Australia Day gives us a long weekend, well worth celebrating. So even if Mongrel Socks are our life, we're excitedly looking forward to the 26th which will see us sipping a good Aussie drop of wine, in a vineyard in South Australia, listening to Paul Kelly prepare us for the music legend, Leonard Cohen! We're slipping off for a couple of days of self indulgence. I never thought in this lifetime I would get to see Leonard Cohen perform live, it really is something special, and having the true blue Paul Kelly as his back up, what more can I say. I guess the cherry on the cake, it we are going with a few friends, and catching up with some in S.A. too. It just doesn't get any better. Thinking about it-if I get home to a screen full of online orders, and our teenager hasn't trashed the house, then that would be great too. Better go-got some packing to do..

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Thursday, January 8, 2009

It's only the begining!

I can't believe its a new year already. It seems all of sudden we're back in to it again. After a couple of go-slow weeks in our sock making-just doing the minimum, this week we've been swamped. So as I write, late on this Friday afternoon, I feel like I'm just catching up with myself. In these uncertain economic/financial times I feel very lucky that our sock business seems to be weathering the storm. We've got a big year coming up, spending a bit of time and money, getting our web site re-done. It is a slow process, but worth it, I hope. I'm guessing it will be another 6 months before it's all done and online line. If we can come up with an easy to use, attractive looking web site I'll be happy. That's the royal "we" as I'm so IT retarded, I am reliant on experts to do the sock web site building and seo.
This year we'll continue to not only make our beautiful pure wool Mongrel Socks, Tuff Mongrels, Possum/merino socks and all the other products we produce, but we will trial some other unusual blended yarns, like bamboo/cotton, camel/wool, organic spacedyed cottons etc. I'm excitedly looking forward to see what these are like.
We're just about to head in to our yearly production of Arm/Leg Warmers. We manufacture them only for a month each year, as the machinery is such a cow to change over, we like to get them all done at once. Our stocks are way down at the moment-lucky it is summer and the demand for those has dropped off a bit. It's always a bit of fun in the work day coming up with new colour mixes, that perhaps we haven't tried before, or haven't done in a while.
Anyway, all looks good for the future for us, especially my very near future as a put my feet up and knock the top off a wee drop of fine Tasmanian Meadowbank FGR Reisling (my personal favorite). Cheers!

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