Today I share a guest post from my friend, The Male Baker. Who doesn’t love baked goods, especially when lovingly created by a good-looking, young guy?! Read on for his recipe for lemon scones filled with strawberries & whipped cream (perfect to make for Mom this weekend), or check out his own site full of beautiful photography and delicious recipes!
I recently received a very direct and honest question: A friend had popped into a well-known fair trade shop and noticed that they were selling the same type of kantha-stitched throws as she had just purchased from dignify…for $24 less. “Of course I support you,” she affirmed, “but it might make someone ask… why are yours $98?” Indeed. Of course, I had heard vaguely about this before, and I knew from the start of the project that the cost-to-sale price of our blankets were considered “less than ideal” for importers/sellers like me. But I didn’t know the details, and I didn’t have an answer. Now I was asking, too! Not because I thought $98 was high, but because knowing that it takes at least 4 days of labour to make one throw, how could they sell them for so little? Well, as Robin, the managing director of BASHA – who make our blankets – said: “There seems to be a wide range of what people in Bangladesh call ‘fair trade’.” She offered many insights into the industry and how others, including that specific producer, compare to her operation. Read on for a more detailed look (in her own words) at the operation behind our own “fair trade” kantha blankets.
Recently, my sister-in-law was in the market for a new dishwasher. This shocked me, knowing that they had only moved into their new-build home in 2006. Really? A new dishwasher, already? Come on, I thought. And, as it turned out, so did she. But, the thing just wasn’t working effectively after many repairs, so she had finally embarked on a quest for her next, lifelong, dishwasher. “Which model should I choose to last, because I don’t want to be back here again any time soon,” she asked the appliance salesperson. His reply?
This past Saturday, my friend Shannon & I tackled something that was, shall we say, a new experience. Don't get me wrong - Shannon is an accomplished and very talented photographer. But, neither she nor I had ever done any kind of product photography, much less attempting to capture the unique detail of over 60 blankets.
Given the wildly common theme in career advice and success-talk, I should be ashamed to...
