Weaving in the Desert

Doing the books this week has been a sobering experience. I've been going along for a year telling myself that what I'm doing is the best thing I could be doing so it's not worth looking too hard at the details. "It's better to just keep on truckin'!"

Well, now I have choices to make. Do I continue with the plan to buy the booth? How long will it take to raise the money? Could I create other opportunities for myself that would pay off faster? Good numbers will help me make these decisions.

I am more resolved than ever to acquire the services of a good accountant. In setting up my accounts just for the purposes of data entry, I made a big mistake, marking the money people loaned me to buy the loom as an asset instead of a liability. I've fixed it, and it made a huge difference to the net worth graph...



[Net worth, bad accounting]



[Net worth, better accounting]

The first thing to notice is that the loan is a huge liability, worth a large percentage of the rest of my assets, including the loom. No wonder it's been so tough to put a dent in it!

The next thing to notice is the impact of my time at the sanctuary on my bottom line. I moved in August, the first time my net worth raised appeciably above zero. The Artist in Residence program is almost solely responsible for my ability to make it as an artist starting from scratch. I hope that we can keep this program going by finding other artists who could make use of just such an opportunity to launch a fledgling art career.

Even a big planning error that left me without weaving in December didn't drop me down as low as I was when I lived in San Francisco.

Accounting aside, this trip to Los Angeles is doing amazing things for me. Apart from testing my bags with thousands of customers, I'm developing crucial general insight into this customer base and their desires. Every day of the show I get feedback from hundreds of customers who try on garments. They tell me what they like, how much they are willing to spend, and what they'd change with the current line. In the end, they vote with their money.

I'm also learning how critical supply-chain planning is for a business like this. It takes a couple of months to go from a yarn order to a stack of saleable garments. And that's for each colorway. Right now I'm weaving as fast as I can and shipping stuff to Oregon so it can get sewn into garments for another show in a week and a half. Next week, I'll be weaving peacock ruanas and doing the sewing on them myself so that we have them to sell the following weekend. The good news is that this extra work is only necessary because sales are fantastic!

While I was at the loom today, I looked over my shoulder to see a roadrunner watching me from about 10 feet away.



[Image from iBird Explorer app]

I'm really enjoying all the birds down here. This is where many of the pretty migratory birds spend the winter. Right now we've got bluebirds, tanagers, and the noisy and beautiful hooded oriole. Some of them will probably head north at about the same time as I do, about two and a half weeks.