Folkwear Updates! Printing patterns, moving, and more

September 19, 2024 9 Comments on Folkwear Updates! Printing patterns, moving, and more

18 September 2024

Moving

First, if you haven't heard, we moved Folkwear to a new location! It is only about 10 miles from where we were located, but has nearly twice as much space and is right beside Western Carolina Sew Co. (and just down the road from non-profit Local Cloth).  We feel very lucky to have such good neighbors!  I borrowed a needle the other day from the folks at WCSC because I couldn't find my hand sewing needles (lost in the move and showed up today!) -- it is a great fit and so nice to have a related business to work beside.

We are now located nearly downtown Asheville, in the River Arts District, at 240 Clingman Ave Ext.  You can come visit us when we are open, which is generally 9 to 4 Monday through Friday.  And Western Carolina Sew Co operates a gorgeous boutique of their clothes (sewn right here in the factory) called Rite of Passage Clothing.  The boutique is open Thursday-Sunday 11-5.  To get to our studio, either ring the doorbell at 240 Clingman Ave Ext.  Or, come to the back - behind Ultra Coffee and we are the first door on the wooden walkway.

It has taken some thought to get our space organized and moving all these boxes was a LOT of work!  But we are so excited to be here.  Personally, I am enjoying walking around the city during breaks and getting good coffee.  I am hoping to bring my bike into the office soon and take breaks on the river trail which is near our office.  

The empty studio before we started moving in.

Looking from the other end of the studio.

As you can imagine, it was a lot of work to move all these heavy boxes (full of patterns) into the studio.

All moved in!  Still some work to do.

Printing and Folding Patterns

One of the reasons we needed to move to a larger space was because we bought a printer and folding machine to be able to print and fold our own patterns.  If you have been following Folkwear's journey over the last 3 years or so, we have had quite a few changes in pattern printing options (read more about it here).  And it has led to some hard decisions and some easy ones.  Another wonderful company printed many of our slower-selling patterns over the last few years, but they are located on the west coast of the country so shipping was very expensive (lots of patterns are very heavy).  They also could not always keep up with our demand and sometimes we would be back ordered on a pattern for many months.  We decided to take control over part of our production and get a wide format printer that could use lighter weight paper, and print our own patterns.   

The folding machine was harder to find but we tracked a Germany company down that makes and sells them and now we have a printer and folder.  We are still figuring out the folding machine (there are so many folding options), but it certainly is nice to have to quickly and easily fold patterns.  

We are now printing many of our patterns on 18# paper (as many very old Folkwear patterns used to be printed).  This is a nice weight -- lighter than copy paper, but still very durable.  Printing and folding in-house cuts our cost a bit, but mainly gives us control of our process.  

We are still printing most of our best selling patterns at the Simplicity factory near Chicago.  This saves tremendously on printing costs because they are able to print in much larger volume and on tissue (very lightweight paper).  So we are still working on keeping our costs as low as possible so we can pass that on to our customers.

So all that means we do have a variety of different tissues for our patterns -- some are real pattern tissue (brown and very lightweight), some are still around from our McCalls printing days (white 8# tissue, not as lightweight as the brown), and some are on 16-18# paper (lightweight bond, but not tissue).  I don't love that we don't have a consistent pattern paper, but it does save (you and Folkwear) a lot of money on printing and it allows many patterns to be able to stay in print rather than just be available as a PDF pattern.

The new printer and folding machine also means that we can print patterns for other people.  We are working through the process, but for now anyone can upload their PDF patterns to our site, we will print them, fold them, and ship them.  We are offering 25% off of all printed PDF patterns if you order more than one.

The Green Pepper

The other really big news, and bigger reason we needed a larger space, is that Folkwear LLC has acquired The Green Pepper, a sewing pattern company that provides patterns, fabric, and notions for outdoor clothes and gear.  The Green Pepper has been around for over 50 years and has over 100 patterns in print for an array of clothes and gear for adults and children (and pets). 

Late in the spring, Susan Downs, former owner of The Green Pepper, called me out of the blue and said she was interested in retiring and was seeing if anyone had an interest in taking over her company.  She knew Folkwear nearly from its beginning; it was also a small indie pattern company founded on the west coast.  And she had followed my journey with Folkwear when I took over nearly 7 years ago.  I had heard of the The Green Pepper and knew it to have great patterns for outdoor wear.  After talking with Susan for a while, I got really excited about the possibility.  Susan (and she and her mother, before) had built a sweet little business with some really great patterns, also offering performance fabrics and notions.  The integrity and kindness showed through.

After several months of working through all the details, we finally closed at the end of August.  I flew out to Oregon to see what I'd bought and was delighted to meet Susan in person.  The Green Pepper inventory is now on its way to Asheville, NC and our new location.  Meanwhile, Susan is keeping things running smoothly while we set up inventory here, prepare for shipping, and get our new website online.

I am very excited to have The Green Pepper under the Folkwear LLC umbrella.  It will keep its name, website, branding, and incredible patterns and drawings.  We are just going to be ushering it into the future by updating the website, gradually adding PDF patterns, and potentially increasing sizing in some of the smaller ranged patterns. We mainly want to keep offering these great patterns and provide exemplary customer service to all the loyal Green Pepper fans. 

You can read the press release for this exciting news here. 

Finally . . .

All of these changes have come together fairly quickly over the last month.  It has been a whirlwind.  A bit wild, and a bit stressful, but very exciting. And no big changes would be complete without my children bringing home another pet.  We got the opportunity to take a dog back into our house that we fostered for a short time about 9 months ago when my daughter brought him home from a farm.  So now we have a large Pyrenees/Golden mix 10 month old puppy at home as well.  He's bringing lots of joy to the family and just the right amount of chaos (and so much dog hair).  And he does make me laugh with some of his antics.

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