02/13/2019
Hello everyone! It's been a loooong time since I've posted, or been able to manage much of anything LGW related actually. I apologize for all the unanswered messages and lack of updates.
Life is strange. I fell into this business completely accidentally, my love of babywearing met my love of sewing and design, someone noticed and it took off from there. As the years passed my personal life changed, as did the industry I had found so much pleasure and satisfaction in.
Things in my own life, behind the scenes, grew harder. We faced a major trauma as a family and struggled to adjust and recover. My attention, focus and time was needed to help get us through, to get myself through, and it was not a quick process.
As we began to come back from this and I was able to focus more again on Little Green Wolf and the work I enjoyed, I found the industry had changed drastically and I wasn't certain I wanted to try and rejoin it.
Although children's safety has always been my primary concern and my products have always been held to a higher than average standard, the hoops that needed to be jumped to prove that safety were costly, difficult and short-lived. As the dust settled and the standards and regulations were adjusted and then solidified, it became clear that it was no longer an industry that small businesses would be able to continue to compete in. The overhead was massive, the time and effort in the background (without "pay") were daunting and the possible returns were small.
Still, I genuinely loved this work. Helping people carry their babies, choosing the right fabric, the right size for each person. Getting to work with so many different wraps, brands and fabrics! It was amazing and I loved the creative outlet, the life and work outside of kids and family. I wanted to be able to continue, to create beautiful carriers for amazing (primarily) women!
The final nail for me though has been a more subtle change in the industry, in the market. As safety standards became the ultimate focus, the desire for unique, beautiful AND safe products began to decline. I didn't get requests for unique or interesting carriers any longer. Customers with loving stories of why they wanted a carrier, what a wrap pattern meant to them, why they wanted a certain shape or image on the waist became the exception rather than the rule.
Rather, I began to recieve more requests for carriers "like xyz", images of other people's work and requests to replicate the pattern, the style of other brands. I recieved more messages inquiring about availability and price; how fast could they get a carrier, was I cheaper than other places? There were carriers made by more and more companies, "shelf ready" products they could send out that day. Most wrap manufacturers began to produce their own carriers, many times designs and features that were taken from small manufacturers, that were slowly being pushed out.
As the desire for a personal custom made product waned, so too did the market become flooded with easily purchased ready made products with low price tags.
So I faced a dilemma. Did I adapt and change my product? Create a simpler, faster to make product that could be produced quickly, inexpensively and with little or no personal effort? Did I want to put more time and effort into building Little Green Wolf into something more than just a "small business" in order to stay viable? Or did I simply let it go? Close the doors on a passion and a creative outlet that had brought me so much pleasure over the years? I didn't want to let go, but I also found myself uninspired by the idea of creating a product that could be boxed and sold on a shelf. The point had always been the custom details, the creative process, the personal product. I couldn't continue that process, the cost was simply too high and the specific customer base too low. No matter what I chose to do, that time had passed.
I sat on my choices for a long time, as long as I could, and then longer than I should have. My family needed more from me than they had in the beginning, I no longer had the time I once had. I missed the work, the sense of pride and satisfaction it brought me, but I had clung to the outskirts of legality long enough. I had to make the choice: stop producing carriers or put the time, money, and effort into creating something new and I found myself uninspired by the prospect, unwilling to disrupt my family further and the choice seemed clear. Still...
I let it sit. I was needed by my family, new catastrophes arose and I found myself unable to accept any new work at the time anyway. I closed up shop, but I left it sitting still unsure of what I really wanted to do.
As it sat and my life once again settled I realized that I was not going to find the sense of satisfaction I once had by pursuing a new direction with LGW. My decision was clear, it was past time to accept it. The messages, postponed until I had something to say in response beyond "I don't know", would finally get their answer: I won't be taking new work. Period.
I am sad to say goodbye to so many years of making carriers. To so many skills refined and designs tweaked, but it's time, past time, to let go.
So there it is, the answer to every message asking me "are you still taking work?". I do wish it was different, but it is what it needs to be.
I remain undecided about what to do with Little Green Wolf, I intend to leave the page, the chatter group and the website as they are. I won't be answering messages or managing this page. It will simply remain here, the albums accessible to whoever cares to see. I won't be making carriers again, but I have not decided against making something else eventually. I remain passionate about baby carrying and although my baby wearing days have passed, I still drool over the amazing wraps that come out. I adore the fabrics, the patterns, the fiber blends, the handwovens and the machine wovens alike. I feel a creative twitch when I pull out a wrap and run it through my fingers. One day, perhaps, that twitch will take on new direction, a new creative spark lit. For now though, all I see are carriers unmade, conversions that will never be and it makes me sad that we live in a world where safety and artistry, individual creation, seem unable to coincide.
So, forever and always, keep your babies close to your hearts. ❤
Love,
Brooke
Little Green Wolf
