A Behind-the-Scenes Look at our Fresh Start Studio Tour
In case you missed it, we held our Fresh Start studio tour last weekend and it was a real success! Many of you joined us in the studio using our new Booking Calendar, while others joined us live on Instagram and waved hello. Thanks so much for seeing me through this milestone and for your words of encouragement! This was the first Instagram Live event we held and with a few technical challenges at the beginning, I think we got through it OK.
In this video I covered ALOT. I gave you a tour of our new working and teaching environment which was re-organised to allow for better flow of visitors. We also removed a large loom so that we can move tables around the studio to accommodate a full weaving workshop of 5 people to adhere to the ever-changing social distancing rules.
I also introduced you to my two studio assistants Tanya and Ellen. Tanya is a Drawing graduate and has been helping me in the studio on a weekly basis for over a year now. Many of you who have visited our studio have already met her. And those of you who plan to visit our Yarn Shop on Saturdays in the future will get a chance to meet her as she will be working many of these afternoons.
Ellen is a weaving graduate and has been with us for about 10 months. She helps out once a fortnight and it is likely that she has set up your hand loom if you visited us for one of our Creative Weaving Sessions.
During lockdown those of you who follow me on Instagram or Facebook will have seen that I have been working on a new body of work. This new collection, which I have shamelessly called the Corona Collection features a number of circular woven pieces that have been woven using my own hand-dyed yarns. I have also been exploring macrame and knotting techniques which I have incorporated into woven designs on my floor loom. These will soon have a proper introduction of their own.
One of the main reasons I was hosting this Fresh Start event is that during lockdown I made the decision to change my business model to offer customers more from my online shop. As many who have visited my website before will have found, I catered mainly to a local market for those wishing to purchase my handwoven designs or for those wanting to learn weaving and attend a weaving workshop in person.
With the uncertainty of Covid, I made the decision to future-proof my business and begin the arduous task of taking inventory of all my products and slowly (very slowly as it turns out) photographing, pricing and updating each and every product I have in the studio and adding these to my online shop. No easy feat when you're just one person with a few hours a week of help.
So those of you who have been frequenting my online shop from overseas (thank you to all of you fellow North Americans!), you can now feel confident to know that I have been working very hard behind the scenes to make sure that I am able to deliver all of our quality products to you (safely and quickly) so that you can weave from the comfort of your sunny Californian homes!
I also discussed a little about our Creative Weaving Sessions which have resumed on Fridays and Saturdays in the studio. These weaving experiences are short bursts of fun, broken down into 1-2 hours of supervised weaving on our table looms. With our studio re-organised we can now move our 3 table looms around the studio to accommodate everyone safely in the studio so that you can experiment with weaving without the trouble of setting up the loom! One of my favourite things to do... when there is time! =)
Finally, I talk a bit more about our new Rainbow Collection of weaving looms, tools and Yarn Starter Packs. Each element of this new collection was intended to offer weavers a bright and colourful alternative to our Classic Collection of solid beech weaving frame looms, tools and Yarn Starter Packs. Not only are the Rainbow Looms smaller but they are made of laser-cut acrylic which is the perfect Covid-friendly alternative as they can be washed and shared more readily within a household.
Well, I hope this gives you a briefer (maybe?!) version of our video and also gives you further insight into what I do and how I do it! If you have questions, get in touch as I love to hear what people think. And if you still have time and want to watch the video in all its un-edited glory, grab a coffee, hide from the kids or colleagues and pop your headset on to meet me in person... sort of!
Happy weaving!
Cass
Fresh Start (Behind-the-Scenes) Weaving Studio Tour