Pushing the Button Part 2

We had to be ready to sell stock on 28^th November which was the first day of the Queenscliff Music Festival so the 2 weeks running up to this date are a bit a whirlwind.

Many many trips up to Brunswick and down to Dandenong (See the Jilly Bag).

Amanda. Originally we had planned on three colours, Larrakin Blue, Light Blue and Black. When the material was rolled out on the cutting table at CGT, the two blues were superb, but the black was a disaster. The dye had not fixed properly to the material, so we had to pull the black and go with the two blues.

Gareth. Originally we had planned on two colours, Larrakin Blue and Grey, but the grey had the same problem as the black, it was patchy and not fit to made up.

Both the black and the grey was sent promptly back to the dyer to see what could be done, and CGT cracked on with making the sweatshirts.

Benjamin and Jules were also being made at this point, and fortunately there were no issues with any of these

The Jilly Bag. This is our super top secret ingredient material beach bag. This came about when I was thinking about how could we reuse discarded material to make a bag to put our clothes in at point of sale. I thought about a lot of different products, rice bags/ sacks etc and ended up focusing on sails. Melbourne has a very strong sailing community and a good friend (Jilly) offered to try and find some to see if we could convert them into bags. At this point it became evident that it was unrealistic to make these into give aways, but there could potentially be a market as beach bags. Then began a voyage of discovery to try and find someone able to manufacture such a thick material. Firstly, I managed to secure, from some very generous boat owners some old sails that were to be thrown out. I then contacted a company in Reservoir who specialised in manufacturing Jeans and went up to see them with a sail. Initial discussions were very positive and the owner promised to have a sample made up of the pattern that our designers had put together. Come monday, I called and was told that "no can do" "too difficult" " would cost $100 to manufacture 1 bag". Unfortunate to say the least and I saw my dream of a sail bag disappearing. So after reclaiming the sails, I phoned up a second hand sewing machine distributer and asked about the price of a heavy duty machine that could cope with sail material. I was given a price and was about the hang up when I asked if Steve knew of anyone that had machines and skill capable of doing what I wanted. He gave me a name of a man in Dandenong. I called, set up a meeting and low and behold found a factory that specialised in making articles from tough material like canvass and vinyl. Tan liked the challenge, I gave him the pattern and agreed a time to collect sample. 2 hours later the phone goes. "The pattern doesn't work! We can't do it". My response was to ask whether he had another pattern he could use to mock up a sample and to see how it looked. He said yes and we agreed a time to collect. 2 days later I returned to Dandenong to collect the bag. It was great, but too small. I didn't have the time to go back to the pattern maker, so taking a couple of empty wine boxes, some sticky tape and a long ruler, I set out to make a pattern that would work. I returned to Dandenong that afternoon armed with my DIY pattern and was reassured by Tan that this would work, and he committed to have 20 bags made within 3 days. I collected them on Friday 27th November, the day before our first market.

And finally, just to challenge ourselves even further, we decided at the last minute to make up some kids hoody's in pink for the girls and red for the boys with a screenprinted design on the back. Fortunately the material dyed well and Amy (girls hoody) and Finn (boys hoody) were born.

Throughout all this we had to manage the flow of manufactured product from CGT to the embroidery company Golden Cup and then back to CGT to be pressed, labelled and boxed ready for sale. The operation at Golden Cup is phenomenal and their machines are state of the art. Our requirement for the embroidery was pretty complex. On Benjamin, Jules, Gareth and Amanda, we wanted contrasting logos on the front and contrasting names on the back. So each garment had to be embroidered twice. Under immense time pressure, Golden Cup were able to deliver and able to have the garments back to CGT in time for us to collect the pressed, labelled and boxed garments.

So we are now at Thursday November 26th........