Dyed in Vermont Tie-Dyes

I'm trying a new  formate for the store.

I started out with selected patterns available in all sizes of T-shirts.

But then 5 years ago I realized that I had a huge amount of stock that was not up for sale.  There were boxes of clothing--seconds, patterns I wasn't offering, experiments, and many odd garments I'd bought as samples.

After Christmas that year I started photographing a bunch of that stock, and came up with the idea of the Tie-Dye Bazaar for selling indivdual items.  This worked out pretty well.  Many customers really liked being able to see a photo of the actual piece they were buying, and I started getting sales.

But right form the first there was a problem with having 2 parts in the store.  It was confusing and customers seemed to get stuck in one part of the store or the other.  I put cross links at the top of every page, but that only helped a little.

I even discontinued the Bazaar for a few months, but then I hit on the idea of having  a side bar with links to the different parts of the store hoping this would clear things up.  The side bar helped, but it was still confusing with 5 different sections in the store.  Sometimes the same product was being sold in two different places on the site in different formats.

Meanwhile I had really honed my system for photographing and cataloging individual items for the Bazaar.  First I photograph each item. Then each image is  straitened, croped, color corrected, and saved in 2 sizes.

I catalog the information for each item in a spread sheet, and the actual item is stacked in numerical order in a plastic container.  Information from the spread sheet is then combined with the image in a HTML file that can be read by a browser.This is complicated, but I have automated many of the steps.

Then we get to 2008, and I'm planning to move.  I realized that I can put all the Bazaar items up for sale as soon as I can move the containers into a house and get an internet connection. Ah Ha, I started moving some inventory to the Bazaar by grouping similar shirts of the same size together under one photograph.

Then, just days ago, I decided that I want to move all my inventory into the Bazaar so that it is all available for sale, folded in containers, ready to go!  I'm currently about half way through, and have decided to put the move off until November 8th, so that I can be pretty much ready for Christmas sales when I arrive.

My Trip to Tenessee

APRIL MOVING SALE--15% OFF

Last month I made a trip to Tennessee.  We're moving to Murfreesboro which really a good city for me and the business.  It has a large University (23,000 students) and a mixed multi-cultural atmosphere.  We’ll finally have a broad band internet connection, more space for the business, and a large pool of possible employees and customers.
        I also visited with my daughters and grandchildren in Jackson, Tennessee.  They will probably move to Murfreesboro and I may have one or two actual apprentices who can take over some of the production.  This will also set me up to actually start publishing the how-to tie-dye books.

We need your help!!  This move is quite a production for us.  We’re going to load the whole business on a big truck, move it 1200 miles, and put it back up.  And we hope to do that in about 2 weeks and quickly reopen for business.
       I don’t usually take any money out of the business for projects until after Christmas—I’m usually pretty much building inventory for most of the year.  But this year we need a few thousand dollars in September for the move.  We really need your orders over the next few months so we’re starting off with the--

APRIL MOVING SALE--15% OFF

Just type “MOVIN” in the coupon box when you order for a 15% discount during the month of April. 

Pet Hair Warning

I currently have two cats and my son has a large white German Shepard so I am battling pet hair.  I plan to have a pet free storage and shipping room, but that won’t be possible until I move to Tennessee.  I am trying to send out clean garments, but for now if you are allergic to animal hair please rewash you item before wearing.  Washing will not effect the colors or condition of the garment.  Your garment may be dried in a hot drier and will not shrink.

Your garment may still be returned after washing.

Tie-dye Christmas 07

We had a great Christmas season, and I want to thank all of you for your orders. We could not have done it without you.

I finished dyeing shirts for the Christmas orders early in the morning of December 20th at about 3:30 am. I shipped all the orders on the 21st.  On the 22nd I dyed my Christmas presents, and on the 23rd I actually got a day to rest before making the 5 hour trip to Maine where I had a really nice Christmas with my family. George and I drove home today.  Double click on this image to get a larger version.

On the left is my brother-in-law, Bill, and on the right is my sister, and Bill's wife, Janet.  Then along the back from left to right we have my sister Gail, my nephew Jamie, my mother, Sherry, and my niece, Becky. They are all wearing their new tie-dyed zipper hoodies which will be offered on the site soon.

The inset part of the picture from left to right is of me, Becky, Jamie, Janet, my son George, and Gail.  This picture happened when someone said, "hey Richard hasn't been in any of the pictures", and since I didn't jump up, they all gathered around me for this shot.

I heard someone say this was the best Christmas ever, and, although I've been a bit a Christmas Grinch, I certainly could not disagree.

Announcing the New Tapestry Gallery

Right over there at the right you'll find a menu for the new Tapestry Gallery.  The gallery has over 100 individually photographed and priced tapestries for sale.  See the exact tapestry that you will get, and know that it is in stock ready to ship.  Note that if an item has already been purchased the Shopping Cart will not let you order it.

Tapestries are my most artistic item.  They are thin enough to take detailed tieing, and large enough for me to really show off.  I will be adding more tapestries to the Gallery, and I will keep the images of the best ones up even after they are sold so they can still be viewed.

I do a lot of experimenting on tapestries, and this format of individual items will let me try even more variations, and the gallery is going to give me feedback on what you like as they are sold.

Faster Shipping

Increased Stock Means Faster Shipping.

I’ve been going through an intense production period, and it is already decreasing the “turn around time” for many orders.  I just finished 46 peace signs and guitars last night which completes the long and short sleeve T’s.

I am now able to ship almost all T-shirt orders off the shelf.  I’m often shipping orders the same or next day after receiving them.

The inventory of other garments is spottier. I am starting to increase stock in hoodies, golf shirts, scrubs, dr. coats, dresses, etc, but this takes longer because these white garments are more expensive than T-shirts. 

I will never be able to stock all the variations of all the patterns in all the sizes—if you do the computations, it starts to get incredible.  So some items will always be dyed to order, but I am trying to stock at least most of the frequently ordered ones.

Well, I’ve got to go process yesterday’s shirts.  More soon…

Summer Soltice Update

I havn't had time to post anything here for over  a week. It's busyness.

I plan to move next march, but I'm already moving.  It takes a lot of work to move me and my business.  I've already looked at most of my stuff to see if I have to move it, but my personal stuff is small compared to business stuff.

I've had to put off further work on my how-to books until after I move.  And I won't be able to put up much in the way of new products till then either.  If I have time before Christmas, I will add a bunch of new discounted and one of a kind items. I expect to add a lot of new stuff next spring after I move.

At the same time as I'm planning to move, I'm building up stock for the rest of the year.  I've been looking at what the most common items are that hold an order up.  There will always be some specialized and new items that I can't afford to stock, and will have to make to order, but there are others that even if they were stocked at one per size would decrease order-holdups (new word).

Hey that's it and I have to get back to work.

Richard

Dyed in Vermont moving to Tennessee

I'm all caught up with my orders, and everything is chugging along nicely.

Our big news of the day is that I am planning to move to Tennessee.  Vermont is beautiful, but is expensive to live in and has extremely low unemployment which makes it very hard to expand the business.  Also I have children and grand children living in Tennessee who need employment so it seems like a no brainer.

At this point I am planning to move next March,  unless this house is sold and the new owners want to buy out my lease.

I am going to try to keep blogging through the whole thing.

The tie-dye adventure goes on.

Summer Business Up from Last Year

It's a beautiful day here in Vermont.  Yesterday's showers are gone leaving some clouds in their wake.  Partly cloudy and warm/cool--breezy.

Memorial day really kicked off the summer season this year with about 20 orders in two days so I'm very busy and have to make this short.  It's very hard for me to hire workers in this area, because there is virtually no unemploment here in beautiful Vermont so I'm doing about 90% of the work myself.

I'm dyeing today, shipping tomorrow, and then dyeing over the weekend in order to ship orders again on Monday.  That's busyness!

I've decided to really try this blog thing for a while, and I will be posting every day as much as I can.  I'd really like to hear from  anyone reading this blog so I know you are out there.  You don't have to be profound or anything although of course you can be if you feel so moved--you can just say "Hi."

More tomorrow...

New Doctor Coats

THE TIE-DYE NEWS

from
Dyed in Vermont
February 2007

Introducing a Whole New Line of Doctor CoatsWe are now doing a variety of Doctor Coats that have a star or mandala on the back and a solid color on the front. I was specifically looking for patterns that are subtler than the spirals. The Star-on-the-Back pattern is subtler and blends in more while still maintaining that tie-dye look.Doctor Liberation While Scrubs have become colored and patterned, the Doctor coat has kept its stodgy old white color. So we are trying to give those poor Doctors an alternative--breaking them out of White-Doctor-Coat-Syndrome and bringing them into what I like to call the "New Millennium of Full Color". How to Tie-dye Books I'm working almost every day on my series of How to Tie-dye Books. I expect that these books will give many people the tools they need to make great tie-dyes.