Biz, Blessings & a Martini

AvantGarb has been a growing, productive business for a really long time.

I started AvantGarb in my Berkeley, California garage when my youngest daughter was about 3 months old.

From the start, AvantGarb has been profitable and the dollars have increased through the years.

AvantGarb is a real, ongoing operation.

Even though we have been making money, and AvantGarb has been paying mortgages & rent for me and my employees for years. We have been buying shoes, clothing children, sending them to college getting our hair done and eyebrows tamed, I still sometimes think, it could be over tomorrow.

This is crazy thinking.

When I am sitting with a curved needle, stitching yellow muppet fleece to green muppet fleece, I have taken to counting my blessing.

Here are some of them:

• I have a really grand family. They keep me involved and interested in their lives. My husband is funny, handsome and sexy. My daughters are gorgeous and glorious.
  
• I  love my biz - making fuzzy critters that add a great dollop of fun to the landscape.
• I've traveled everywhere--okay, not everywhere, but a lot of places - Kenya, India, China, Mexico, Mexico, Mexico, Taiwan, Egypt, and oh yeah, Europe. I feel fluent in the world. I like to be places where I can't speak the language.
• ... however, I can speak Spanish, stutter through French and be polite in Swahili
• I love going to church on Sundays, singing hymns w/ the congregation, listening to the sermon and being blessed for the coming week with the benediction.
• I love reading the New York Times and napping on couch on Sunday afternoons.
• I have gotten bit of fame for doing what I do.
• ...and right now I'm listening to the general chatter in the studio as Angie drafts patterns for a very round Chipmunk, Tasha finishes some braces for the teeth of an orthodontist's mascot (sequins w/ holographic silver) and Amanda finishes 3 pairs of baseball shoes for the round Chipmunk!
• Every Monday I look forward to the week ahead.
• Every Friday I come home to a really good martini.

I am truly blessed. I have imagined my life, and it became real.

I suspect the story of other small biz people is similar.

The Patterns are Co-mingling

• Patterns have been piling up and co-mingling.
• We're completely out of open-cell foam.
• We have a the smallest smidgeon of muppet fleece.
• There is only 1 curved needle in the whole place 
• and Max is flirting with Fluffy!

How did things get to this state? Well, it's been a busy season. We have designed a herd of mascots. We've patterned big bodies, cobbled big shoes, cut, stitched, sculpted and stuffed. 

24 cube boxes have been packed and sent. Even the loading dock guys are impressed. 
The swirl of activity is completely thrilling.