It’s Friday and I’m bagged. Week 1: A brief history.
Posted: 22/01/2010 Filed under: Craft, Design, Travel | Tags: bags, Jacqueline Sava Leave a comment »Author: Jacqueline
Grab a coffee or tea and join us each Friday to learn how these Soak worthy bags came to be. Are you bagged? Send us your favorite bag. If we feature it here, we’ll send you a Soak gift pack, in a pretty bag, of course!
She loved the prints, the colours, the sayings and, I’m certain, the shopping that went along with them. Many bags are from boutiques that no longer exist, or stores that have changed their name, logo and image, time and time again. Did you know that Banana Republic used to be a ‘Travel & Safari Clothing Company’? (I miss those old Banana Republic t-shirts with lions and tigers and bears, oh my!) Club Monaco is a great Canadian brand of the past. Roots is still around with its iconic beaver et al. Remember Ken Done with those great water colours and prints?
I guess that’s where my fascination for bags began. Where we live, in the city of Toronto, Canada, there’s a new bylaw that states that retailers must now charge a minimum of $.05 for a plastic bag. This trend towards re-usable bags has created a larger than life collection of brilliant bags at our office. We now travel the globe, attending trade shows, visiting customers and of course, shopping. While our bag collection is often used for carrying Soak to and from the office, some of our bags are becoming icons in their own ways.Each Friday we’re going to share part of our bag collection with you. You’ll learn about bags from our distributors, Soak retailers, events we’ve sponsored and places we’ve been. We’ll include fascinating facts, merchandising tips and whatever else we find in the bag. So sit down, grab a coffee or tea and join us each Friday to learn how these bags came to live at our office.
a letter from Andrea, the summer intern…
Posted: 22/10/2009 Filed under: Design, Travel Leave a comment »I realized that I should really post the thank-you (love) letter to Soak from our summer intern Andrea. This is particularly important as she returns to our office Monday to work during her reading week. She was a dream to have at the office, we enjoyed teaching her as much as she enjoyed learning. This is her, along with her first knit scarf! Below find the letter she left for us on her last day.
Being a summer intern, entails me only staying at Soak for the summer. I felt it was necessary to write you all a lovely send off message before I leave to go back to school so you will remember me (not like that will be hard, I am pretty awesome). Jacqueline, I will be using your printer to print out this letter, luckily, it isn’t a resignation letter, so I have one up on that other guy who used your printer to print something of this sort off.
Moving on….I tend to ramble on with these sorts of things. My friends always make fun of me for it. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended up to be about a page long. Lucky for those of you who read it!
Working here this summer has been awesome. I’ve definitely learnt on a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t have in another workplace and I really appreciate being able have that opportunity. Also, I’m not complaining about how nice my hands smelt after doing some bottle washings.
Knowing that you have a great group of people behind you to help you out everyday is fantastic, and made me feel a whole lot less intimidated. I was able to break out of my shell and become a pretty different person. Lots of laughs, and stories contributed to this extra boost of confidence. I was able to get comfortable with everyone which makes coming into work everyday much easier. I’d like to thank each and every one of you for contributing to that.
Ailie: I wouldn’t want to share a stapler with anyone else. I wish both you and baby best wishes. Enjoy the big boy desk. It’s only brought me good times.
Chris: I’d still be a non-knitter if it wasn’t for you. Just thinking about that is unfortunate. I will be wearing that purple scarf everyday come wintertime. Thanks for helping me out with everything you did throughout this summer. You are hilarious. Just absolutely hilarious.
Jacqueline: 1. Thank you for my job. I am forever grateful. 2. Best boss ever yes? Yes. I’m most definitely not trying to kiss ass here. It’s most definitely true. Thank you for letting me into Soak to learn AND work at the same time. You are a fantastic person
Dafina: You’re super awesome, and great to work with! Have fun, and congrats again on being Canadian! 
So I would like to leave you with one last thing. The box area is both yours and my friend. Be kind to it, it really did no harm to you.
Have fun and don’t miss me too much. I know it will be hard. -AL
Settling in after a trip to the UK and New York
Posted: 30/03/2009 Filed under: Knitting, Quilting, Soak Stockists, Travel 1 Comment »We’re recently back from launching Soak in the UK at the Craft Stitch and Hobby show.
The launch was amazing- over 15 editorial pick-ups as well as signing on new stockists.
Here’s a sneak peak of our set-up with our new distributor EQS. We’ve also started the sample program in the UK, (Sample program: Are you a Soak retailer having an event or in-store promotion? We’ll happily send free mini-soak treats for your event, to launch and promote Soak to your customers. If you’re a guild/ stitch club member we can send you treats too, just tell us who your favourite shops are. Just ask!) so our stores there can introduce Soak in the same exceptional fashion we do on this side of the ocean.
We're all set up for the UK launch
