Toe Kozies

2006-12-22T14:07:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

This year will be a little bitter sweet. I am really looking forward to seeing my daughters face on Christmas morning when she discovers that Santa has been.
I was very successful at my maternal creations craft fair and Point Grey was not as good but Mom said she had fun doing it. Oh yah, my Mom went as it worked out best for all that way. I got my Toe Kozies into Kidlets I am really excited about that. My next order date comes up in Feb. So I have a lot of knitting to catch up on. And now that I sold all my stock to them I have nothing left for the luncheon with Sandra Wilson. That got moved to Jan 20th. So I do have time, but knitting has to become my priority. It has been coming last on my list these days. Christmas even with its bitter sweet tone is fast approaching and I feel like I'm quite ready and organized. I am really looking forward to seeing my brother and his girlfriend, they arrive tomorrow.
Today I am working in my moms store, I am enjoying being a part of the hussle and bussle of last minute shoppers without being one myself.
Today is winter solstice so our days will start getting longer, I am really looking forward to that. Welcome the sun!
Happy solstice Merry Christmas and All the best for 2007

2006-11-29T09:29:00.000-08:00

Let it snow

The Craft fair at maternal creations was a big success. I really enjoyed meeting other moms and artists. On the sat it began to snow, it was really pretty and it felt like Christmas. It snowed all through the night and the other show got postponed. So I promptly got an earlier flight so I could get home to my Meika sooner. I sat at the airport not knowing if I was going to get home or not for FOUR hours. Then finally a bumpy icy landing and I was home.
It was so great to see Lehe and Kat again (my midwives). And meeting the other vendors was wonderful, anytime I missed Meika I was able to hold someone else's baby. Here are some photos of my table. One of Lehe and her daughter Sarah (she is wearing a creation that my mom made). And Dee and her little baby Body wearing his Christmas booties. I traded the Christmas booties for a beautiful CD that Dee made. The music is so sweet it made me cry. And you will notice a woman nursing her baby in the background there, I traded a pair of booties for a book that she made. It has a beautiful painting on it she called it the healing heart. I do have some healing to do so it all seems appropriate.
I look forward to going next year. And I cant wait until my Craft fair on Dec 9th at point grey.
Oh... Only I wont be going if its snowing like this... This was about an hour ago and its still like a blizzard out there. The perfect day to just knit.I have a few orders to fill anyways. I feel bad for my Mom, she is opening her store in a few days. And moving everything in this.
I couldn't resist adding a picture of Meika sleeping after a big long trip in the tabogin. She was toasty warm and having a nice sleep while I ran some errands with the tabogin. I am having fun with the snow.

2006-11-22T22:29:00.000-08:00

Meika and I have moved to Quadra.

A lot has changed since my last post. Some sad and some wonderful things have happened over the last few weeks. One wonderful thing is that We are now living on Quadra and I'm so glad because Meika seems to thrive here. She loves playing with her cousins and she adores her Grandma and Grandpa.
I have dropped out of the West End craft Fair due to the unscheduled move. But I am sticking with the other events. I will be leaving Meika for two nights with my mom. This will be the longest I have have ever left her. I am going to try to just enjoy the time, but I know I will miss her like crazy.
Things are very busy around here with Mom opening her new store next week and Me getting ready to go to Vancouver. There's no time to knit which seems counter productive really. But I have a lot of stock ready to sell thanks to the pneumonia last month. And Mom has helped out a lot as well.
I don't think I will have time to post again until after the trip so I will have pictures of the craft fair and the work shop. {I'm so excited}

2006-11-05T08:11:00.000-08:00

I'M BACK !!!

It feels good to be healthy again. Meika is doing well and very happy to be home. While I was away I got a ton of knitting done. It seems that they sell as fast as I can make them. It is wonderful and scary at the same time. Above is a picture of the pile of Toe Kozies that I made while I was sick. And above that is my new knitting bag that I absolutely LOVE! My mom is so great, I was feeling really bummed out when I was sick so my mom gave me an early Christmas present, my beautiful knitting bag. It is a far better bag than the plastic grocery bags I was using before.
This is going to be a busy November. I have double booked myself all over the place. My wonderful mom has offered to save the west end craft fair for me so I can do the second day of the pomegranate fair. And I have recently found a wonderful opportunity. I am going to be a merchant at a workshop for stay at home moms. It is going to be a wonderful time to network and be inspired. Sandra Wilson will be speaking. She is the founder of Robeez. I am very excited. Altho I do feel bad that my mom is doing two days of the west end craft fair by herself. But she assures me that its ok. I am trying to look at it in a business point of view.

I am going to try to write my blog more often now that everything is happening, and I'm home.

2006-10-19T13:52:00.000-07:00

STILL SICK

So I am still on Quadra and it turns out I have a viral pnemonia. Yuck! But it is nice to spend so much time on Quadra with my parents. They are really enjoying the time they have with Meika. It is so beautiful here this fall. It hasnt rained much and the leaves seem more brilliant than ever.
Well down to business. I have another store order. Kelly the owner of Explore (A wonderful little shop on Quadra) has asked for my Toe Kozies. I was so happy that she approached me about them. I have gotten alot of knitting done. I am going to be here for a while longer as the pnemonia seems to have a good hold on me. I do seem to be getting better. So I am getting alot of orders and alot of knitting done.
It turns out Meika has also come down with something. At least we are well taken care of here.

2006-10-05T21:58:00.000-07:00

CRAFT FAIRS GALORE

I stood in line for an hour with a very good and patient Meika to get into the West End community center craft fair. I reached the front and took table 13 for the two days. Nov 25th and 26th, I am so excited about my craft fairs. It looks like my mom will be able to join me for most if not all of them.
I almost forgot, I am also doing the maternal creations art exhibit and craft fair at pomegranate community midwives on Nov 24th.
I have gotten a lot of knitting done this week as I have been sick. So staying in has been a lot more enjoyable than facing the rest of Vancouver.
I have decided to take another trip up to Quadra. Thanks giving will be a lot of fun this year with Meika and the rest of my family. I will also be able to get a lot of Toe Kozies done for my Kidletes order. Not to mention for the many craft fairs.

2006-09-30T19:43:00.000-07:00

Here is my first big order completed. It might not look that big but for me it is. Five sets of small Toe Kozies with hats is $200. A big office downtown had decided to keep baby gifts on hand for the staff. I think this is a wonderful Idea. I will be targeting all the big office buildings with this Idea in the spring after my hands heal from all the knitting I will be doing this winter.

Here is Meika's first guitar, and she couldn't be more pleased. I am so glad that she seems to have a love for music, she comes from a long line of musicians. As you can see, Meika's new Christmas Toe Kozies match her guitar. Too cute !!

My Mom made these beautiful Christmas Toe Kozies, I plan on having a lot of them for the season at the many craft fairs I will be attending. Today I was accepted into 'the famous annual Aberthau Holiday Craft Fair' Sat Dec 9th 9:30 a.m to 2:00 @ West Point Grey Community Center 4397 West 2nd Ave. For those of you who don't know the area, Point Grey is a beautiful and rather wealthy part of this fine city. The Aberthau Mansion is so beautiful, I cant wait to see it all decorated for Christmas.

Tomorrow I am getting up early to get into the West End Community Center craft fair. That one isn't going to be judged it is a first come first serve type thing, so it should be interesting. Hopefully tomorrow I will have more exciting news and more craft fair dates. For now I'm off to bed... Well I'm probably going to get another Toe Kozie on the needles first.

2006-09-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

A Year later and still multitasking!!

The trip to Quadra Island was too short but we got a lot done. We decided on a good way to display the Toe Kozies for stores. I have one store order to fill for Kidlets. It is a beautiful children's store in Campbell river. I hope to have the order done by Nov 1st. But at this rate I'm getting a little worried. With orders pouring in from friends and big offices downtown I have been only working on those. I am confident that I will be able to do them tho. My mom is willing to help with the knitting as well. A lot of people have been asking about little hats to go with the small size so I have my best friend Jes helping me with those.
This week we are working on the web site and getting into craft fairs. And I need to keep on knitting.
My daughter and the house keep me very busy as well so I have to work on some time management. Well Im off to knit some more Toe Kozies :-)

2006-09-13T22:09:00.000-07:00

~~ The choosing of colors and yarn~~

*Its official Toe Kozies - Natural baby slippers is a registered business.*
Above you will find a photo of my not so baby Meika running through the kitchen one morning last week. She runs around the house in her Toe Kozies all the time and never slips. In this shot she is wearing her watercolor ones.
Tonight my mom and I have been trying to figure out the colors. This could be the hardest part, we have to put in a big order with Lornas Laces. This is pure Merino wool that we will be using. It is beautifully soft and wears so well.
I hope people like the colors we choose. We have been keeping an eye out for what colors are trendy in baby clothes trying to step away from the pale pinks blues greens and yellows that seem to be a thing of the past for babies. There are six colors to choose from, we didn't want to give our customers too many options because sometimes that becomes overwhelming. We have two neutral, two boy, and two girls colors. I am happy with it, Lets just hope everyone else is ;-)
Tomorrow I am off to Quadra to do some business and knit until my hands cramp up. I cant wait!
~TTFN~

2006-09-12T10:22:00.000-07:00

First, a few photos...

~Four generations at a craft fair on Quadra Island. From left to right, My Grandma, my Mom holding Meika, and Me. This craft fair was a lot of fun, you can see that my Mom was already trying to teach Meika how to knit.

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~Here is the first Toe Kozie I ever made, Meika wore these the entire fall season. They were wonderful and so warm, also they never fell off. With the ties they stay on babies feet so well.

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~Meika was having a snack while I started on my very first Toe Kozies. And you will notice she is wearing the pair my mom made for her. These ones were made with Sweatermaker yarn. It is a beautiful hand spun hand dyed yarn, made in Courtney B.C.

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How it all started

2006-09-10T08:42:00.000-07:00

Growing up my mother was always knitting, and of course at some point she showed me how. But as a busy kid I had no time for knitting so I didn't ever really pick it up.
Now I am 25 and have a daughter of my own. Meika was born on June 14 2005
I decided that I was going to stay at home with her instead of work. (Not the easiest thing to do these days)
So my mom, the owner and operator of a new business Fun Knits, had a wonderful Idea. She had knit a pair of wonderful little booties for Meika. Of course along with other wonderful knit things. We started talking about how we could sell them, and our business plan bloomed. Together we perfected the design. And this is the best part, Mom had no Idea that I could knit let alone have a hand in the designing of something like this. It was a proud moment for us both. We had a lot of fun trying different yarn and sheep skin for the soles. And I was really enjoying my new found hobby.
After a few months of caring for my daughter and trying to get anything done I realized that it is harder than I thought. And after the big response that we had gotten from just a few people. The Toe Kozies business was seemingly more and more daunting by the day.
So we did a few craft fairs and markets, We had them in a few little stores on consignment and they were going really well. So was Meika, she was developing at an amazing rate. I found it to hard to keep up, so Toe Kozies took the back burner.
The months go by and I realize that I am feeling stifled, what can I do to actually make a living that I will enjoy as I can stay home and raise my daughter. My husband Myk does quite well, but I am a very independent soul.
Myk came home one day telling me that a locally owned business that makes and sells baby slippers sold their company for over 30 million dollars. And they were only in business for 4 years. I felt like a bomb went off in my head, an explosion of opportunity and ideas went off. I called my mom immediately and said "Lets do this we will make it work" She was very happy to hear of my revelation. You see right before this I had been struggling to look for a second child care job and was getting very frustrated. So I instantly felt a great relief as we chatted happily about the Toe Kozies business.
So here we go on our journey to success, with little feet in mind.
See how Toe Kozies look

~Watch for "the deciding of the Yarn and the colors" on my next post~