Factory Diary February

By Anna Kennett>

We reached an important milestone with our AlpFactory last week. The very first UK-made mats rolled off the line and out of the doors on their way to a few lucky customers. Our apologies to those of you who missed out, there will be more mats to come in the next few weeks but you_ll have to bear with us while we get up to speed. If you_ve got your heart set on a Mujo or Waffa then keep checking the website, Facebook and Twitter pages for updates. Gradually we_ll get quicker at making the mats so hopefully those of you who didn_t get one won_t have to wait too long.

A whole day was spent stuffing the first batch (they were a bit easier to stuff than the old Phuds, which the Mujo fairies were very pleased about!) and it was very satisfying to see the huge mountain of mats growing at the end of the factory. If you were one of the lucky few who got a mat we_d really appreciate some feedback; be it good, bad or ugly. We_re all really pleased with the new mats, but since this is new territory for us we_re keen to learn and improve as much as possible.

Last week we also custom-made a bike frame bag for John Ross who took part in the Rovaniemi 150 in a very snowy Finland over the weekend. From a tracing of John_s frame we produced a pattern and then the bag. We_re hoping to be able to offer custom-made frame bags as part of our range in the coming months. John_s was a black and grey 1100dtex Cordura with a very fetching prototype pink lining. This project gave us a good excuse to play with our new machine that arrived last week; a binder. It puts the webbing tape around the edges of products such as chalk bags and rucksacks and quickly tidies seams to finish a product off neatly.

Keen to try out our binding machine on other fabrics and inspired by the somewhat chilly weather we had recently we also decided to make a coat for Izzy_s dog, Ozzy. This was a simple design consisting of an outer shell of royal blue 1100dtex Cordura with a fleecy faux sheepskin lining that was bound with the webbing. Izzy said Ozzy was very chuffed with his new jacket and we thought he looked very suave!

Having the factory in-house is allowing us to develop all sorts of new products. It_s exciting to think that we_ll be able to take a product from concept to production and sale, all from our site in the UK. Stay posted for more product updates!

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