A mistake or a lesson? Looking back at my very first season with Between the Sheets, our supplier delayed goods to where I decided to be transparent & alert our stockists that production might run behind schedule.

I worked with our factory to get orders out on time but they had to catch up where our fabric supplier failed and we had one store pre-emptively cancel while others were understanding and then surprised that we still shipped on schedule. It was a big deal to me that our very first customers be well informed, I’d rather underpromise and overdeliver so while I could’ve kept quiet and pushed to get the orders out on time like I did it was important to me to lead with honesty.

My biggest lesson learned was not to put all my eggs in one basket because I had already designed my next season with more fabric from that supplier, and sure enough there were more delays and this time they shipped us a different width in a new color of a material we were already using. Not to get too technical but the result was we had to spend money to redo markers (the blueprint used fo cut pattern pieces from fabric) and wasted inches on the side of the older colors. When fabric is shorter in the width, in this case a foot, it’s actually worse than being shipped less yardage, you’re losing 1/3 of each yard and paying the same price, not to mention on each layer underneath. Hope that makes sense, and don’t let anyone tell you math is not important as a designer/manufacture math is actually hugely important.

The supplier made no effort to reimburse me for these expenses, but I learned that I could be resourceful & competent as a producer and how to move around challenges & obstacles. Also I learned to put my energy into what I could do and control.

To see the original post on instagram – click here

We’re collecting all of my March Meet the Maker posts here on the blog for ease of reading and all of you who might not be on instagram or facebook. It was a great opportunity to share a bit more about our brand and hope it helps you get to know me and BTS a little better!

Since we moved our studio and storage unit contents up from city it’s taken way longer to organize and we’re currently inventorying our materials and planning recuts of our most popular styles and taking time to evaluate what’s been selling to plan new designs.

While doing that I am also sourcing new materials, production is more efficient and easier to manage if we can cut multiple styles at the same time.
Planning and tidying up our books for future funding/loans. I’d love to open either a small studio, sample room, or retail space and first step is always financing. With any new facet of business it’s better in my opinion to do a ton of research and planning. So before making any big moves to solidify any of those goals we’re in the dreaming, researching, & planning phase.

Not gonna lie, after many years of paying down debt I’m intimidated of taking on loans again, but also I learned more from setbacks and failures, and I know that in order to see any potential gain I will have to take a risk again, but for my own sanity I am glad I took a pause and wait approach rather than rushing into anything. Hey, I guess that’s the difference between running a business at 24 years old vs 34 years old! It was way easier taking risks before I fell and got up, I’m well worn in now and carry a healthy dose of caution born from experience.

We’re also up for bcorp recertification which I am happy to have Josh’s help with. This also gives us time fo assess our progress and evaluate strategy for improvement going forward.

Oh and I’d love to squeeze in a spring photo shoot when flowers are in bloom!

To see the original post on instagram – click here

We’re collecting all of my March Meet the Maker posts here on the blog for ease of reading and all of you who might not be on instagram or facebook. It was a great opportunity to share a bit more about our brand and hope it helps you get to know me and BTS a little better!