|
|
News From Maggie's
Please read the story of Maggie's NEWEST product, the
Maggie’s Menagerie (stuffed animals)…
The story behind Maggie’s Menagerie started with us trying to
improve the quality of our best-selling Crew socks and led to
the realization of our dream of helping create a worker-owned
cooperative in the US.
 Early
in 2007, while checking a production run of Crews, our first
and best-selling sock style, we noticed that they didn’t have
the ‘pop’ and crispness that our loyal customers had come to
expect. We decided to find the old knitting machines that originally
made our Maggie’s Crews back in 1992. These single-feed machines,
invented and built near a river in North Carolina, are almost
extinct as they run slower than newer machines. We managed to
locate a few machines, tested some pairs of socks, and were
sold! Determined to bring back the original Maggie’s Crew sock
we all loved so dearly, we found a knitter able to use these
machines and made the switch.
Of course this left us with a problem: what to do with the several
thousand pairs of Crews already knit but just not up to our
standards. Our staff had a meeting, and each of us brought creative
ideas of what to do with these ‘less than perfect’ Crews. One
of the ideas was to make the Crews into sock dolls - but who
would make them?
Ever since 1999, when we helped a group of hurricane victims
form a worker-owned sewing cooperative in Nicaragua (Maquiladora
Mujeres), we had hoped to one day bring the idea home, where
so many US apparel workers have lost their livelihood. In the
summer of 2007 while presenting at a workshop in Asheville,
NC, our president met the folks from SACCO (Southern Appalachian
Center for Cooperative Ownership/ Ownership Appalachia), and
they agreed to help us turn our dream of a domestic sewing cooperative
into a reality.
SACCO made the connection with the workers, all from Morganton,
NC, one of the many towns in the Southeast with boarded up apparel
mills and talented workers. We took the thousands of pairs of
Crews, partnered with SACCO and the motivated workers, and through
many design incarnations, came up with Maggie’s Sock Monkeys.
The Sock Monkeys are designed and made from those slightly irregular
Crew socks. We use pre-consumer polyester mill scrap for the
stuffing as it provides the smoothness and loft that our monkeys
need and survives machine washing. It also comes from a plant
in South Carolina saving both freight and fuel.
As for our supply of excess socks, our quality control folks
are very picky, so we do end up with quite a few slightly irregular
socks from various stages of production. These socks have slight
flaws and can have a new life as part of a stuffed animal. As
long as we keep making socks and apparel, we feel we can keep
the cooperative stocked with raw materials.
Maggie’s Sock Monkeys are the first of what we hope will be
a Menagerie of stuffed animals all made from excess socks and
apparel. This Menagerie collection has been newly expanded with
the launch of the Penguin, designed from our irregular pants,
baby bodysuits, and our wildly popular tie dye legwarmers.
The workers are the real story here. They are talented, committed,
and are putting it all on the line every day for the chance
to build their own business. There is much left to work out
including vestment schedule, production timing, and many things,
but right now we are all working very hard to make this project
a success. They have aptly named their new business Opportunity
Threads, and we are proud to be their partner.
WHOLE FOODS MARKET- KIDS FEST
West Hartford, CT
September 2, 2008
Note from the Maggie’s Organics Sock Basket Raffle Winner:
Thank you very much for the socks. My family is going
to enjoy wearing them. Mindy |
 |
Drop us a line
anytime!
|
| |
|
