A lovely Salamanca Market day

After a break of a month, with Tom and Kels doing us proud at Salamanca Market, Loz & I hit the Market with renewed energy yesterday. Caught up with lots of our lovely fellow stallholder friends, sock customers old and new, and thoroughly enjoyed our day.


We had the fantastic Guerilla Zingari busking near us at Salamanca Market - lucky us!





Jewllery Designer Rebecca Roth's Xmas window has got us feeling all festive.

Rebecca's shop, in the Salamanca Arts Centre, not only showcases her own creations, but also emerging local artists. One of our favourite shops.

Dawn breaking over Seven Mile Beach as we left for the Market - the picture doesn't do it justice.

A wallaby  in our old bath salvaged from our bathroom reno, greeted us when we got home from Salamanca. It was a bizarre sight.

Good wool and happy sheep

 The news item below is reported by the Textile Source  released: Monday, 7 February 2011

You will be excused for thinking that every Aussie Sheep Farmer muleses thier flock after reading this story. I've just got to say they don't! Especially in here in Tasmania. From April this year all our gorgeous wool will be certified non-mulesed Tasmanian grown. All our pure wool products will carry recognised certification so our customers can be confident and even better our farmers have had to jump through environmental, animal and agricultural hoops to ensure the wool production is ethical & sustainable. From the sheep to the shelf we demand (and get) the worlds best offering. 

Our farms in the pure south of Australia, enjoy a mild climate and lush rain fed pastures = happy sheep!  

Americans lash out at AWI

Australian Wool Innovation is facing harsh criticism for abandoning talks on mulesing alternatives with US retailers.

Six American bodies representing big-name brands, clothes retailers and importers have upbraided Australia's top wool body for failing to heal industry splits over ending mulesing, a practice that has led to retailer boycotts by animal activists in the past.
The group includes the American Apparel and Footwear Association, the National Retail Federation, the Outdoor Industry Assocaition, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the US Associtation of Importers of Textiles and Apparel and the Wool Working Group.
Gap, Macy's and Liz Claiborne Inc are among the companies that have expressed ''great disappointment'' over Australian Wool Innovation's decision to walk away from an industry group writing a response to the Americans detailing how the practice will be phased out by 2013.
''As the face of Australian wool around the world … AWI's withdrawal now calls into question whether the industry is capable of providing any kind of response and represents, in our view, a considerable setback to any potential progress …'' the companies said in a letter.
Mulesing, surgically removing part of a sheep's rear to prevent potentially fatal flystrike, led People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to start a boycott in the US seven years ago.
American textile companies have since set deadlines for Australian woolgrowers to find alternatives, leading to deep rifts that have rocked AWI.
It withdrew from the latest attempt to write a response for the Americans after Victorian and Queensland farmers' representatives refused to endorse a draft that deleted all mentions of the word ''mulesing.''
The vice-president of the US National Retail Federation, Erik Autor, who has been a negotiator with Australian woolgrowers, said that the letter to AWI was intended to send a message to the entire wool industry. He has warned that many American retailers and brands were taking ''the path of least resistance,'' directing suppliers to use only New Zealand or South African wool.
He said the industries in those countries, ''whether accurately or not, have [been] successfully promoted as a non-mulesed alternative to Australian wool''.
AWI's chief executive, Stuart McCullough said woolgrowers were experiencing one of the worst flystrike outbreaks in memory.

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!

Proud!

I submitted this note to our local newspaper "The Mercury" for hopeful inclusion, I'm doubtful about geting it printed so I'm posting it here!
I was filled with a great sense of pride, as I read the Sunday Tasmanian (2/11/08). Three separate articles featured a diverse bunch of innovative, creative, hardworking Tasmanians. All kicking goals. These people, Scott Kilmartin-Haul, Robert Pennicott and Michaye Boulter-Bruny Island Charters and Tasman Island Cruises, Nick Haddow-Bruny Island Cheese, Matthew Evans and Ross O’meara-Rare Food’s all have something else in common. They all have stalls at Salamanca Market. As a fellow stallholder at Salamanca Market, I know I’m in very good company. Salamanca Market has been the backbone of my own small business, and many hundred’s of others over the last 30 years. I highly recommend the Market to any Tasmanian producer looking for exposure and to anybody wanting to find some of the best things our little island has to offer.

Tasmanian dollars and sense.

We’re big fans of all things Tasmanian. Not only do we proudly manufacturer ( and wear) our own Pure Wool Mongrel Socks, Tuff Mongrels, Mongrel Tasmanis Arm/Leg Warmers and Head Warmers, we always seek local product when ever we can. If it’s shopping for vegetables or browsing for a gift, we regularly look for a locally made product over an imported line. We do this for many for reasons. The main being we see the higher value of a dollar spent locally rather than spent on imported goods. A local dollar employs, it enables local enterprise to grow, it stays in the area, ready to be passed on again. It’s not only economic benefits that entice us to spend locally, more often than not, the quality of the local product is superior to the imported equivalent. One huge plus not to be over looked when buying locally is the environmental benefits. Obviously with less transportation, there is less carbon impacting, locally and globally. All good! So it’s more than dollars and cents, its dollars and sense. I’d like to introduce a few of the great Tasmanian made products I’ve found, here in this blogg space over the next few months. All can I personally recommend.
Meadowbank Estate Vineyard is located only a few kilometres from our place, in the beautiful Coal River Valley, over looking the Coal River. Not only is the situation idyllic, the wine is superb. Check out their website www.meadowbankwines.com.au and you’ll see all they have on offer, or even get out there and have a tasting and a bite to eat, the food is impeccable. Check out the FGR Riesling and Pinot Gris both are stunning, and are personal favourites.

Election 07

Woo hoo! We are finally at the end of the Aussie Election campaign, going to the poll in a couple of days, and what a long campaign it felt like. So in honor of this occasion I’d like to draw attention to a new Tasmanian book I've come across.
Most of our work manufacturing our range of pure wool mongrel socks etc involves very little “face” time with our customers, lots of the sales side of business is internet or phone based. So we relish our time every Saturday at Salamanca Market, where we sell our socks direct to the public. It’s always nice after a week of nothing but work to get amongst it. People, that is. Meeting locals we know, strangers we don’t and all sorts of interesting folk in between. Last weekend we met one such character. A local bloke, who is a freelance cartoonist, and has just released politically inspired collection of cartoons. There he was with a table at the market flogging his own book. We purchased a couple of copies for family Xmas gifts( signed by the author), so got to have a good look at the book, and recommend it to anyone who’s politically aware with a good sense of humour. The authors name is Jon Kudelka and can be found at: www.101usesforajohnhoward.com or www.kudelka.com.au
If you are not adverse to a little bit of fun being poked at our nations leaders, do yourself a favour and have a look.