Welcome to the month of September. It was a busy summer at Row West. In early summer, I got the equipment to do Dye Sublimation - the process in which you can actually dye fabric with the output from a inkjet printer. Not just any printer, mind you. Mine takes rolls of paper 44" wide and it's only a medium sized printer. Lots of experiments and ideas have been bubbling. The kids have been enjoying the test garments - lots of comic book images and so forth going onto drifit shirts.
Running Row West as a tiny backwoods company is always a challenge in terms of juggling workload and family time but it's also fun a lot of the time. This summer, the kids have been living half the time in the loft of the workshop, building lego and playing with Transformers while I've been down below getting the orders out the door.
This time of year is divided between getting the earlybird orders out to the schools and preparing uniform packages for teams who are yet to have their first crew meeting. New clothing ideas are on the table and I hope I can find the time to get more of the Row West website posted so that some of these new ideas can make out into the open.
Jeff Somerville in Peterborough is ready to rep Row West in Ontario (and beyond!). I'm working on getting the infrastructure out to him so he can make a presence at this Fall's regattas. I will post information in the regatta attendance section of the site once I'm sure where Row West will show up in Ontario. I'm excited to work with Jeff. He's got lots of inspiring ideas.
In Victoria, as a side-interest to making clothing, I also love toys - and designer toys in particular. As a result of this, I've got a good relationship with Cherry Bomb Toys - a vintage (and new) toy store on Broad Street downtown. They retail a jacket designed by owner Biagio, and myself and made by me. Same fabrics as the Row West Helo jacket but a much different fit - with lots of pockets for action figures. It also has velcro removable arm pockets. At their upcoming October Toy Show, I expect to have a vendor table there with a product line never before seen by rowers. It may have nothing to do with clothing at all. Cherry Bomb is my kind of company - family run 7 days a week, raising their baby amidst towers of GI Joe and Transformers. I do love small business.
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That jacket with all the pockets is awesome. Esepecially you know, you can keep your action figure stoked up with some special action smokable accessories in the pockets for easy access and distribution. So many pockets, it's unreal man.
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