Oliver + S Wholesale Customer Newsletter

November-December, 2009, Vol. 15

It was great to have a chance to reconnect with so many of you in Houston last month. From my perspective on the floor, it was encouraging to see more foot traffic than at the last few Quilt Markets and more shop owners expanding their inventory beyond the product lines they currently carry. I'm hoping that this is an early signal of a rebound in the economy and that this holiday season will be a strong one for your shop.

Speaking of the holidays, when I was in Houston for Quilt Market, I passed a Macy's each day on my way from the hotel to the convention center. Looking into the store, I could see that they already had their Christmas merchandise on display: artificial trees, Santas, nutcrackers, and all the rest. You might have noticed this too.

I think you'll agree that early-October is just too soon to start celebrating the holiday spirit. But now that it's mid-November and there's a nip in the air most mornings, thoughts of the holidays are rapidly coming to mind.

This month, we kick off the newsletter with a holiday gift idea for you to promote with your customers. Then we recap a learn-to-sew syllabus that we posted on the blog recently. We hope you'll consider using it to help plan the classes you'll offer in the new year. Finally, we give links to a few recent and upcoming appearances in which you and your customers might be interested.

Cheers,

Liesl

A Holiday Gift Promotion

Why not encourage your customers to give the gift of Oliver + S pajamas this holiday season?

Many families have the tradition of sewing matching pajamas for all the children to wear to bed on Christmas Eve. This, of course, makes for wonderful Christmas-morning photographs. Check out this trio of adorable Christmas cousins from our Flickr group.

Promoting this tradition and encouraging your customers to adopt it provides an opportunity for you to sell both patterns and lots of fabric. (You do the math: three yards of fabric per child times the number of children, grandchildren, and cousins your customers have.)

The Oliver + S Bedtime Story Pajamas make a great Christmas pajama pattern. With size ranges from 6m-8, your customers will be able to sew for all the little ones in their lives. It's an easy pattern to sew, and it goes together quickly for those who need to sew in volume.

Make up a sample, create a sign that talks about the tradition, and display the patterns along with some suitable fabrics. When this idea is merchandised effectively, the fabric will practically fly out the door.

Learning to Sew with Oliver + S

We wanted to call your attention to a special blog post we published last month.

We hear feedback regularly that the innovative construction methods we use and the detailed nature of our instructions make our patterns feel like a sewing class in an envelope.

We've been working during the last year to round out our range of patterns so that there are items available for people interested in sewing at every difficultly level--from the absolute beginner to the very accomplished seamstress. On the blog last month, we published a syllabus for learning to sew using our patterns.

We have described the attributes of a seamstress at each stage in her development, and we've provided suggestions for which of our patterns will teach the skills a seamstress needs to acquire in order to progress to the next level of accomplishment.

Although the post was intended for our consumer audience, we hope that you will find the post useful as well. As you're planning your shop's course schedule for next year, why not consider offering basic, intermediate, and advanced sewing courses using Oliver + S patterns? You are welcome to download and print the free patterns available on our website for classroom use.

Liesl Teaching the Jump Rope Dress at Spool in Philadelphia

Appearances, On-Line and In-Person

Can't get enough of Oliver + S? Want to participate in an Oliver + S event or find out more about what goes on in the studio each day? Here are some opportunities for you.

Last weekend, Liesl taught a Jump Rope Dress workshop at the wonderful Spool in Philadelphia. Laura, of Spool, has posted a recap of the day (including photos--like the one at right--of all the work in progress) on Spool's blog.

Liesl recently spoke with Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood of the Craft Sanity Podcast. Listen to the episode to find out some interesting behind-the-scenes details about life at Oliver + S.

If you or your customers are going to be in the New York area, we have a free event next month that you won't want to miss. On December 12 from 2-4 PM you are invited to join Heather Ross, Denyse Schmidt, and Liesl at the New York Public Library to hear them talk about some of the inspiration they have found in the research library's collections and to do a little crafting yourself. We'll be posting more details about the event on the Oliver + S blog as the date approaches.

You can always keep up to date with upcoming Oliver + S events by checking the Event page of our Facebook Group.

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