So right about a week ago, Victoria Crossman, who was my first-ever production right hand at my old brick and mortar studio got ahold of me and let me know she had some space in her schedule.

Abby and Victoria in the middle of the Great Production Room Emergency Sort And File

It probably won’t surprise anyone who knows her, or who remembers my studio, that I leapt at the chance to have her come help me out with some stuff. For starters, she attacked the chaos that has been my production room here at home, sorting everything (because she already knew what it all was, and I could say things like “separate out batt materials from class supplies,” and she already knew) and setting up two carding workstations, one for the Strauch and one for the Pat Green.

That made us ready to push through batt and roving production like we used to back in the day. And then we got to doing that.

So for our first week of ramping back up, we managed to do 1 Batt Bar Batt, 16 Fresh Rovings, and a whopping 76 Classic Abby Batts. We’re so impressed with ourselves right now it’s almost cute.

Fresh Roving 20171115a is my favorite this batch. A base of 70% superfine merino and organic Corriedale blended with 30% hand-dyed tussah silk, 70 grams / $24.50

Batt Bar A

Classic Abby Batts: Forest Floor

Now, in fairness, we used to do that in two days, so we’re a little slow still. And also, those days were longer than the ones we’ve got right now. But I have to tell you: it’s amazing what it’s like to get back to work with someone I’ve already worked with, who’s already trained up and skilled up, and who already knows the big picture thinking and objectives and goal-setting and all that sort of thing.

Once I knew we’d be able to do some really solid production, though, I had to accelerate my plans to retool web sites and relaunch an online store and all kinds of stuff like that. I’d figured on spending a big chunk of next year trying to find and train someone to work with me on production, and it was all kinds of overwhelming for all kinds of reasons, ranging from work room chaos to finding someone and training them up.

So, what I’ve done this past week includes:

– make a “First Dibs Fibers” section that’s exclusive to Patreon members for the first 2 days
– make a “General Fiber Sales” section that’s where everything goes after Patreon folks have had their first crack at it.
– install a cart I thought I’d like, broke this web site, got it unbroken, and started reassessing the cart solution while keeping the First Dibs and General Fiber sections sorted and working.

Anyway, if you’d like to follow along with production and have insider access while we’re doing it — hear about what we’re making, see advance pictures, catch the occasional livestream as we’re able to get that sorted — we’re doing it on Discord chat and the Patreon feed. Once we’ve got a few tech things sorted out, we’ll probably open up Discord server membership more broadly, keeping some channels patron-only, but I’m trying to keep things moving at a pace where I can keep up and sort out hassles as they happen before they become entrenched.

Do expect to see redesign work going on for this web site for the next little while. Picture one of those early animated GIFs of a worker digging. Any time you’re working on a system that’s been up and running for over 11 years, you’re probably going to break something if you touch it.

Stay tuned! Lots more great things are happening.