Tuesday morning is bright and shiny. Right away I get an IM from Judy. She tells me that Ms. Kong has her sample ready. I went down to the concierge and arrange a taxi to go to see Ms. Kong. Super exciting. This is the factory that Judy is most fond of.
I get to the factory and am greeted with a hot cup of water instead of tea. Ms. Kong hands me the sample and it is looking really good. She has an employee named Gary there and he attempts to translate for us. He makes a good effort but some spots are still murky so I leverage Judy via phone once again. Judy helps and I get pricing confirmation that is completely reasonable. Awesome!
Ms. Kong actually did a few samples to show the different stitching styles. One of them looks mighty strong which is good. A competitor's product, I learned, has recently recalled 74K blankets due to the binding detaching and posing a potential choking hazard. So needless to say, the triple stitch is looking good. I have also added a cute little tail. So sassy!
She also added the new pockets which I'm super excited about. I am thinking this is a really nice new feature to this little product.
After a while I have a hallway phone chat with Judy. I basically want to lock in with Ms. Kong despite not receiving the other samples. She agrees based on what has transpired. Ms. Kong is fast, professional, affordable and creative. Perfect. If one of the other factory's late coming samples blows my skirt up, I'll just have another option in my back pocket.
So I commit to Ms. Kong and we make plans to move forward. Forward as in now there is the customary eating phase. I accept the invitation to lunch and am asked if I like Chinese food. I say yes but caution that I prefer vegetables - the truth.
We head to a place extremely close. It is the kind of place you may not even notice from the road. Because of my veggie statement, they lead me to a back room where I can point at dishes that look good. I point to portions of dishes because practically all of them have meat! There was one fish head that was still wiggling, a bucket of eels and lots of other doomed critters pacing around in their containers. Oie!
We are then lead to a private dining room with a large lazy-Susan in the middle for sharing dishes. This is typical in nice Chinese restaurants from my experience so far. We have a good meal and Gary is with us and he helps us have a conversation, albeit sparse.
After lunch we return to the office and then Gary, Andy (more English help) and I head to the textile market. We need to locate an Organza and Satin provider. Andy scored a great resource after we sweated our way through numerous mini-show rooms. I love the feel of this market. It has a buzz of new and old.
Back at Ms. Kong's office, I pledge to drum up more detailed documents with 3 color options for each fabric. The poly fleece colors can be custom. Ms. Kong's factory makes the fleece. My restrictions are with the satin and more specifically the Organza. When I have bigger orders, I can order this custom colored too if I want. For now I have to stick with what is available. I plan to work late Tuesday night to have color options and get my pattern pieces to 100% of size and converted to centimeters.
The day at the office ends and Ms. Kong takes me back to my hotel. She tells the bell hop that she will be there at 8AM to pick me up the next day.
I grabbed some dinner from the buffet and head up to get to work. I focused on the blue blanket since that is the sample she made. I worked till 3AM and didn't get as far as I would have liked but I have enough to get going. I finalized the embroidered freckle pattern and a document template for hand-off on all 2008 designs and all of the gory details on the blue blanket.
Wednesday AM comes too soon but I'm excited anyway.
XXOO
Sheila
1 comment:
NNooo WAY!!!!!!! I cannot believe how nice they look! The 3 stitch is perfect. They do a realy nice job. Keep the pictures coming!
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