Thursday, April 23, 2009

Back again after a short pause...

Only two years later, I am re-blogging (is that a word?) with so much more to tell anyone who has found this blog or who may soon find it. I will be showing a lot of my dye workshop photos here as well as dye recipes for those who would like to learn about natural dyeing. Watch this space!

Meanwhile, though we are still in Monrovia, our Griffin Dyeworks business address has changed to: 174 W. Foothill Blvd #343, Monrovia, CA 91016. This is _not_ a store front (don't we wish!) but simply a mail-drop to ship our online and mail orders from. If you show up at this address looking for us, you will meet some very friendly people who won't tell you where we live. Sorry!

The reason for having a mail-drop is because it's cheaper to get UPS deliveries at an official box than home delivery. I have no idea why this is.

The reason we don't have a store-front is lack of money. Nobody has shown up with scads of money to back our business venture, either. So we still have our Corporate Headquarters in one-third of the family garage.

One of my major dreams is to have a crafts center, not just a store, that could house a small crafts store, a supplies store, a large crafts work space, and perhaps even a tiny tea room so we can get snacks on site. This would not have to be in the center of town. It could be in a safely-lit light industrial area, or in a large old house in a commercial area, or other such building. One such fiber crafts center was in a defrocked church. It was really neat.

I have found a great building in Monrovia that was once one of Charlie Chaplin's many small movie studios. But there is no way we could afford the entirely reasonable lease for it unless we could round up a goodly collection of other artisans who wanted to rent a space. I don' have the business head for this kind of thing. Vision, yes. Business, no.

So it's not likely to ever happen for me unless I win the lottery or one of you Out There wants to set me up in my dream.