Better Update ya...

So we've been here under two weeks now and its literally crazy how we've managed to set up our project. Its been really really hard emotionally some days, really really hard physically other days and so exciting all the time (and two massages and a pedicure in a week does help)

Our first week we managed to buy all of our machinery, equipment and fabric that we needed for the training and production. A lot of the time we did it without a translator which was great. We even got to spray paint the walls of our studio in florescent green, yellow, pink and orange. I won't bore you with the ins and outs of our first week, Rosie worked her arse off every day sometimes from 8am till midnight making the T Shirt patterns just right - she's amazing - while I texted my boyfriend a bit.

Our second week has probably been one of the most emotional times for us. Meeting the girls and getting to know them - theres 4 of them - has been so fun, they're all very unique and are so talented that they are actually better than Rosie at making the T Shirts haha! We both find ourselves wanting to cry, its been a hard year for us both and to finally see our vision coming into fruition is probably one of the most significant things we've ever experienced. Starting a business like this has been hard for us in a lot of ways but really if you think about it its also been so easy too. More people should do this, its not that hard you know, you just need the passion to get it done. Haha sorry about that, I just had a moment there...

So a little bit about what we've been doing every day during training with the girls.

Monday: The morning started with us meeting the girls, a couple of them speak English which is good but they aren't fluent enough for us to converse with eachother so we had our friend Samuel help us out. I gave a short introduction about the business and what they would be helping us with. I wasn't really sure how they took it, they all seemed quite shy so it was hard to gauge how they really felt. In the afternoon Rosie trained them in pattern cutting, we began to see how the girls worked together as a team by putting them into pairs. They worked really hard and were showing us how precise they could be.

Tuesday: More pattern cutting was done on tuesday, this lasted the whole day so that they would have enough pattern pieces to make 4 t shirts each during the training. It takes a surprisingly long to do these well.

Wednesday: This was a scary day for the girls, they had to start constructing the T Shirts. A couple of them took a few tries on the machines before they felt confident, the others were just naturals and were showing that they could produce a t shirt suitable for retail without much help. Garment construction took all day.

Thursday: Well thats today actually. This morning we all went out in a tuctuc to a market that sold EVERYTHING where we bought of few bits and bobs for finishing. It was a sweet time to get to know them and for them to get to know their new bosses (teehee!!) and as they will be running the business while we are in the UK they got to meet our suppliers and find out where things are sold. We also got them a CD player so they could play their Khmer music (one of them actually likes Nora Jones so we let her play that cd haha!) This afternoon we continued with garment construction, the girls getting better and better each time, they have amazing skill and are so determined to make quality garments which is really encouraging for us.

Friday: We are gonna make some more garments tomorrow morning and in the afternoon will move on to silk screen printing our designs onto the t shirts. From monday we are hoping to go into production for our first 200 t shirts, we'll let you know how that goes.

So I'm gonna try and upload some photies to this in a minute, if you see them up then I've succeeded, if not then I probably couldn't be bothered in the end. I look a mess half the time, there's no point tryin here. Rosie sends her love ('Peace to the homies') and we are both really looking forward to saturday which will be our first day off. We will use it wisely haha.

Love yas!
Jen xxx