 Well, hello everybody. My name is Audrey Dancer and I am the owner of Salvage Studio. I am a clothing repair studio and I fix all things from jeans to sweaters to your, if you got an ember that burnt a hole in your puff jacket, I can fix it. So that's part of my business. Another part of my business is I am also a content creator on Instagram and I create all types of educational tutorials on mending, garment care, secondhand fashion and thrifting. So we'll get into how all of that meshes together in just a little bit. This is my contact information if you want a screenshot or you can watch the recording a little later and grab that. First, what is mending? I feel like mending is kind of a unknown term. People know alterations, they know tailoring, but what is mending? So mending is specifically the repair of ripped, unraveling, torn, holy textiles. Some examples would be like if a moth got into your sweater and you have all different moth holes, the ripped seat of your pants. You can see a few examples on the screen here of some things that I've repaired. The torn shoulder seam of a dress or if the strap has come undone or ripped off any type of patching or replacing like crunchy elastic in a vintage garment. So that covers all different types of repairs and that's what mending is. What is the difference between mending and alterations? So alterations is changing your garment. So maybe sizing it down, sizing it up, lengthening the arms of a suit jacket, hemming your pants. So taking in, letting out the waist or bridal and formal, those things I do not do. So that would be alterations. I focus specifically on the repair of garments and keeping them in circulation. Where it gets a little blurry, there are some things that maybe aren't necessarily repair, but I do also kind of decorative things. So if you want a cool patch from a national park or something that you want that put on your jacket or your backpack, I can do those things. I can also do a little embroidery. So the garment is yours and however you want to wear it, I can make that happen. All right, so that's mending. Here's just a little before and after as an example of kind of the things that I do. It's the torn seat of a pair of jeans. And on the right side, it's all fixed up. Okay, so a little bit about my story. It was 2020 during the pandemic. And at home, I previously worked in construction management. So nothing related to fashion or garment repair. And I decided to start an Instagram account. So on the left, you'll see this is my Instagram account with frifted wardrobe. And I really did it to share my style. I really liked dressing up for the office. And I actually had a co-worker tell me I miss seeing your outfits every day. So I started this Instagram account basically just to wear all of the garments in my wardrobe, just make sure everything got worn and to show off creative outfits. And through this process, I kind of went through my whole closet and repaired everything that was sitting in my mending pile and being delayed because I had a busy life. And now that I was able to down a little bit, I was able to tackle the mending pile. And I would share the process and just different techniques that I did on this Instagram account. And I found that out of all the content I created, whether it was frifting tips or like how to wash and care for your garments versus the mending, the mending was the most engaged with people were asking questions. Well, how did you do this? How did you approach this? What technique did you do? How would you approach this thing? Can I send you a photo of a piece and can you give me some ideas of how I might fix it? So this kind of was the beat in my brain of, oh, this is really a niche that people are interested in. And maybe there's the lack of content in this kind of sphere. And so through this, a friend reached out to me and asked me if I could fix a pair of jeans for her. And I said, sure, I'll figure it out. And I do have some sewing experience I've been sewing for 20 years, not specifically in mending. I mended my own clothes, but just hobby sewer. And so pulled out my machine for my own projects. And then for my friend, I fixed her jeans. And I just thought, wow, this is so fun. It was a great problem solving situation. It fed my engineering brain of how do I structure this patch so that it's going to be the most structurally sound. And also my creative brain of like, oh, how can I make it look really invisible and integrated and fit into this specific piece. So that really made me think, oh, maybe I want to do a little more of this. And so I posted on Nextdoor and just an open call. Does anyone have jeans or something that they fixed? And I started doing a little bit of that. And at this point, rewind a little bit, I had left my job in construction. I realized, kind of in doing this Instagram account that, wow, I really love the creative side and kind of getting back to my roots of fashion and creativity and thrifting. And so I left my engineering job with no plan. And so kind of this was my plan is posting on Nextdoor. Does anyone have anything they want repaired? Got a few clients from there. And then I thought, okay, how else can I advertise? So I created a Yelp page. I posted flyers around town and just kind of that grassroots marketing and slowly started gaining traction. And people would come back to me, repeat customers, they would refer to people. So it was a very kind of slow, slow movement and unintentional movement into starting my own business. So about a year and a half into just having my a thrifted wardrobe kind of content creation account, which I launched my business officially, Salvage Studio. And it is specifically for repairing people's garments. I repair people's garments from the city. I also have people mail in things. I do workshops. I do corporate mending, which is I go into offices and basically operate as a corporate benefit. Yeah, that's kind of my story in a nutshell. I've been doing this business for about two and a half years. And it was a slow, slow build and really gaining traction and kind of meeting to rethink some processes to streamline my business a little more. So that'll take you to the next slide of how does my business work? My business is very much a business of I am the product. So I am the marketer. I am the service. I am the chief financial officer, my accountant. I do all of the things. So I just have people send me a text, an email or Instagram DM with a photo of their garment. I get a quote. And if they want to proceed, they book a time on my calendar. I don't have a storefront. So I do have to be very creative with my marketing and how I don't just have a visible storefront that people can find me. So I'm really into the finding people through Instagram and creating posts that are engaging that bring people to me. The flyers help Google optimizing my website so that people find me. And somehow people do find me. So once I give people a quote and they book a drop off time, I intake those pieces and repair them about two weeks and then return it to them. So it's a pretty simple process. I'm needing to streamline a little more as my business grows, but that's kind of how it works for now. Okay. Well, we can get into some questions. I'll stop sharing my screen. Great. Thank you so much for that presentation, Audrey. And folks, the library has some questions for Audrey, but we really encourage you to enter any questions into the chat as well. And we'll make sure those get answered too. Audrey, what is your favorite part about being a small business owner? It's definitely the creative problem solving. So no two pieces are the same. Even if it's like the ripped bum of jeans, it's different on all jeans. Is it a stretchy pair of jeans? Is it a rigid pair of jeans? How big is it? What is the shape of the rip? So it really keeps me engaged and excited thinking about the approach and also working with the clients of like, this is the garment that you want to wear. So I can fix it in a way that I think is best. Or do you want a Sashiko repair? Or do you want something visible? Or do you want it invisible? How is this garment going to fit into your lifestyle? If it's going to be customized and detailed and have different colors, are you going to wear it more or are you going to wear it less? So I like working with clients and figuring out how they're going to wear it and how they kind of want to express themselves. And I want to kind of contribute to that. I also get to touch and work with some real pieces. I've worked on like a 1950s Olympics sweatshirt that someone's grandfather wore at the Olympics. I get to work on like 1920s pieces, just really special garments that I feel so honored to work on. And I don't have to own them. I can have kind of a special moment with them. But I don't have to like collect all of these vintage pieces. And also my clients are just so awesome. Like, I think people are just so excited to have life brought back to their pieces. And in whatever capacity, and they're just so excited that it's fixed and they can wear their favorite piece again. That's great. It sounds like your business allows you to express a lot of creativity. And it's, yeah, I'm sure you must see so many memorable pieces. Definitely. That sounds really special. What challenges did you face when starting your business? And how did you overcome them? Yeah, I think with mending and any kind of craft type business, it takes a little bit of convincing people that it's worth the cost with the cost of clothing these days and the quality of clothing. It's very cheap to buy things. And so sometimes the repair and actually often the repair costs more than what the garment is. And so I think there's a little bit of challenge of convincing some people that it's worth the investment. And I will be honest, sometimes I say, I don't think it's worth the investment. I don't think that you should save this. It's going to take me an extra amount of hours and this costs. And even though I want to save it, I think you should invest in a new piece. So I am very upfront about that. Another challenge that I am dealing with now is that my business is growing and I'm constantly having to adapt and change processes to make my life easier. So I'm not working 20 for seven writing quotes 20 for seven. One thing I recently did in the last six months was like actually have a booking system and like identify these are my actual like hours and that has really helped streamline my process. Because otherwise, I was just like, oh, I'm so flexible, like stop by whenever just let me attacks. And I was there's a little overwhelming. So maybe overcoming that challenge is kind of setting boundaries and like the standardizations for myself. And that's really important. And I have to do a little more of that as I grow. Yeah, I'm sure that is definitely a challenge wanting to seem open and flexible, but also maintaining human boundaries. I know you were just speaking about sometimes you have to be honest with a potential client that their item may not be may not actually the repair might not serve them in the best way and maybe it's time to invest in a new piece. Sort of piggybacking on that I see that quite a few folks in the chat mentioned. They're curious how you came up with a cost structure that works for you, like in terms of setting price points and pricing your men's. Can you speak a little bit about that? Yes, so full transparency. I was way under charging in the beginning. I think a lot of small business owners do that. I started recording men's in the same category and kind of recording how much time it took me and kind of taking that average of that. And I also thought of what is my comfortable hourly rate that I want to have. And so kind of having that hourly average as well as what I want to make per hour. That's kind of how I've done it. I have also one thing that has been so beneficial in my business because I don't have co-workers and also not many people do this. I found myself a group of menders across the US and we actually have a monthly meeting. And so things we talk about are business strategies, pricing, those type of things. So it feels like I have a group of co-workers. And so we're very transparent about how much we charge for things. And we were able to adjust our own pricing and we all elevated our pricing. And although we're in different parts of the country, it was the least a good kind of establishment of where to start on that pricing and we can adjust it for where we live. That's awesome. And I'm glad you have that group because it must be hard as a solopreneur to work alone in an isolation. This is just a factual question. Someone asked, are you registered with the state of California as a sewing business? So I am registered as a San Francisco business. I also have a seller's permit through the state. And as a repair person, I don't charge sales tax, but if I do any bespoke things, that does require sales tax. And I am not a tax professional, so you do your own search as well. What have been some of your most significant learning experiences in running a business? Yeah, so this is kind of piggybacking off of what we just spoke to. What's been really difficult is divorcing emotion from pricing, especially as someone, I'm a very budget friendly person. And so sometimes when I think about my pricing, I'm like, would I pay that? And I have to remember that I am not my client. And I have to respect my need for living wage. And so divorcing that emotion from my pricing and also like, if they're an existing customer, if they're a friend, like, don't give them, don't negotiate with yourself, like kind of have your set pricing and charge that instead of negotiating with yourself, because you'll always negotiate yourself down. Great, thank you. Audrey, there's a few questions in the chat about, so you mentioned sometimes you make the recommendation not to mend an item. Do you have suggestions as to where the person can recycle the item, goodwill, etc. Or let's see, someone had an interesting question. Do you work with any fabric material recycling companies? Or do you sometimes recommend that people repurpose non repairable items? For example, turning them into quilts, tote bags, placemats, etc. Yes, so a few options and no option is perfect. I will just say that. So with denim, I do sometimes take in donations, because I do use a lot of denim in my repairs. I am at capacity right now. So unfortunately, that's not an option at the moment. I personally, with all of my scraps, I do send them to a company called Four Days. It's a take-back bag and they have a specific cotton scraps bag that I use. Of course, there are flaws in all types of recycling programs. A similar one is called retold recycling and then also a local collection is Ridwell. They do take scraps occasionally. Last I checked, forcology does not take textiles anymore. But of course, the main thing is where and use it as long as you can. It's a textile that you can cut up and use as scraps for cleaning or cleaning your car or whatever. Do that. That's the best. Reusing it is the best and repurposing it is first and foremost for doing any type of recycling. Great. Thank you, Audrey. That's some great tips and I see folks in the chat are also recommending blue jeans go green and City College's fashion program can use scraps. Someone mentioned it would be swell if you could share links for the organizations that take scrap material. Audrey, if you're willing to send me the links of the organizations you just mentioned after the program, I'll be sure to send it out to folks in our follow-up email with the recording. That was a great suggestion, Wen. So, Audrey, can you tell us about one of your most memorable moments from your business career? I honestly, having you reach out to me for this program, I think was a huge foam because when you're in the thick of your business and every little thing compounds and you kind of get in your head, you don't realize the progress that you've made. And I think when you reach out, it was like, wow, they see my business as a success and that people would want to hear that success story when I don't always believe that myself. So, having an organization like the SFPL believe in me, I think that's a really accomplished moment and also just having kind of in a similar vein, having large brands reach out to me and want to do repair collaborations. That's also really rewarding and kind of makes, I feel like I sometimes have a little bit of imposter syndrome, but when I get opportunities like that, I'm like, wow, people see me in a way that I don't see myself and I should maybe see myself in those ways. Absolutely. And I'll share with everyone on the call. I first met Audrey in person, somewhat randomly, I had seen, this was maybe two years ago, Patagonia was doing like a Black Friday don't shop, bring your stuff to us. It could be Patagonia or non-Patagonia items. And they had Audrey there at the San Francisco location and you were doing mens that day. So I took a pair of denim to get a mend and I was like, wow, this is so cool. And then I started following her journey. It's really fantastic. Audrey's done a lot of wonderful things with larger companies. But Audrey, that brings me to my next question. As a content creator, how do you maintain your own business identity when taking on a brand deal opportunity? Yeah. So we haven't touched as much on my content creation on a thrifted wardrobe. I did businesses do integrate, but I do try to keep them fairly separate. So most of the brand partnerships for my content creation is very much like, does the brand align with my values and sustainability and ethics and those type of things? And are they making significant strides in progressing a sustainable platform? For partnerships in my business, like with Patagonia, I am maybe less strict because I think spreading the word about mending to whatever platform it is, whether it's a company that's maybe not as sustainable. I'm really hopeful that they're trying and that I can be a big part in introducing people to repair and more sustainable practices. So I'm, yeah, I may be a little less strict, but I do feel like I am reaching a broader audience and being able to kind of push a new agenda that maybe they previously weren't thinking about. And even if them reaching out to me or I had reached out to them and they're willing to do this, I think that's also a great indicator that they're willing to learn a little more. Absolutely. A related question in the chat that Yasmin asked is, which part of your business supports you most financially? Oh, so I was going to talk about this a little later. When we were going to talk about advice, I tried for a significant time just to do the mending and the content creation. And I was constantly thinking about my finances and it was stressful. So my advice was going to be, it's okay to get a part-time job or contract work. So at this point, purely mending or purely like brand partnerships with my Instagram account are not a sustainable financial situation living in the city. So I do some freelance work. I work for a sustainable shoe brand doing part-time work. And don't be ashamed that you need to get a part-time job. It was one of the best decisions that I made for myself because I'm no longer thinking about money and stressing about money. And my part-time position is related to what I'm doing and I'm learning all these things that I can then apply to my business. And you can always drop off things as you don't need them anymore. That's great advice, Audrey. I will also add on to that. So you have been asked specifically which one supports me the most. I would say the content creation side with a thrifted wardrobe, that's a little bit feast or famine. As maybe one month, I have a big brand partnership and that's a nice lump sum of money. But another month, I don't have any brand partnerships whereas the mending is a consistent, generally consistent every month. And so it's nice to have the consistency. I'm doing what I love. I love mending and then sometimes the larger sum of money, some months. And then the freelance work helps fill that gap. Sort of a related follow-up question. If folks are wondering does Instagram pay you to create content or is it the companies that you're partnering with themselves? Very good question. Instagram does not pay any of their creators. They used to for about a year. They no longer do that. So the way I support myself through Instagram is doing brand deals. And so that's basically either a brand reaches out to me or I pitch myself to a brand that I'm really psyched about. And we kind of negotiate the terms. What am I going to be promoting? How am I going to promote? What are the usage rights of that content? And we come up with a price and that's how that works. So Instagram is purely, I get paid through brands and not through that itself. Okay, Audrey. So I think I sort of previewed this question. But is there any other advice you might give to someone just starting their business journey? I see someone in the chat. Let me find it. There's lots of great interactions in the chat. Someone in the chat Feather shared that Feather has some of the same skills and interests as you, especially the vintage orientation. Feather has also started repairing and altering things for friends. Feather's biggest question is how much creative license do you have in your repair choices? How do you ensure that people will be satisfied? And somebody else asked as well. Let me find it. Like what do you do about unhappy customers? Do you have a contract between customers and yourself? Good question. I have been so lucky that I have not really had many unhappy customers. If it does happen, the best thing is transparency and making it right. Though you do need to consider that you put the work in and that you deserve to be paid for that time. So usually instead of a refund, I will redo it because that's just my time. And I think in this field, whereas alterations, it has to be perfect and fit them perfectly. I think most people are just very happy to have a repaired garment. And of course, quality matters and you want to really have pride in your quality of your work. But I think maybe people are a little more forgiving with repairs because they know it's not going to be, it's not going to look completely seamless or perfect. But I also am very transparent upfront, especially with like sweaters. I tell everybody it's like, it's nearly impossible to make it a completely seamless repair. So you will see, you will notice the repair a little different. And then I'll send them photos of kind of my portfolio or my Instagram account so that they can judge if my repair quality is kind of to the standard that they want. And being upfront with that really helps with any maybe dissatisfaction down the line because they know kind of know what they're getting. As far as contracts, I don't have contracts with my clients. I do request payment upfront. And that's kind of a security deposit for me in case they don't pick it up or just, it's easier and more secure for me to get payment upfront. But no contracts. And I must say as someone who has followed Audrey's both of her Instagram accounts, she does a really great job of you show repairs that you've worked on. And I think it's her social media does a great job of showing quality of work. And yeah, I really use, I use my business Instagram basically as a portfolio. So I'm not necessarily using that account to grow and get all these followers because I want targeted followers in San Francisco because that's my clientele. And so I really use that account just as showing the before and after. And so people can see my quality, see all the different types of things I do. There's jeans or sweaters, there's backpacks, there's purse straps, all those things. And people can kind of see if I'm aligned with what they want done with their piece. I feel like it's a very smart use of your social media. So someone asked if you exclude tailoring and alterations from your scope of work, which earlier in your slides, it seemed like yes, you generally do, but I'll let you speak more to that. And another related question was, do you need a space or do you have a space perhaps for customers to try on the items that have been repaired? Or is everything just handed back and forth? Yeah, so this is a very good question. I do not have a storefront and I actually work from my home. So this is why I do not do any alterations, because I don't want people coming in and out of my house. I also didn't study fashion design or anything like that. So I don't have. I can do these things, but I don't feel confident enough to provide alterations as a service to people. What was the other question? Did I cover it? Oh, the other question was, do you have a space for people to try on repaired items or is it all just sent back and forth? Okay. No, because I don't do alterations and that's mostly what you need triumphs for with repairs. Basically, just the rip is repaired and there's no change in the fit of the garment. But I do when I return things to them, I always show people what I've done to the piece and kind of explain what I did. And also, if there's any specific care instructions for increasing longevity of your piece and making sure the meant stays as good for as long as possible. In showing them that also is an opportunity for them to express like, oh, this isn't what I was expecting. Instead of them taking it home and being like, oh, this wasn't great. And then we have to schedule a time for them to come back. So it just kind of takes care of everything at once. Absolutely. So Yasmin and Wen are curious how much of your work is hand sewing versus machine sewing? And earlier, someone asked what type of sewing machine do you use? So maybe it's a good time to answer both questions. Yes. Most of my repairs are done by machine. It's not as common that I'm doing hand sewing. Sweaters are all by hand and then really delicate vintage I do by hand. As far as sewing machine, I tried to set up so you guys can maybe see it. This is my, it's a 1970s Kenmore. Solid steel, so it's super sturdy and strong. If you want to get into mending, you can use any type of machine. I started out with using my $200 path simple machine that's like 22 years old and it was trusty and I still use it when I do travel mending. So any hobby machine you can do any repair on. I don't think the machine is that important. This machine really only does straight stitch and zigzag and I can basically do everything and I'll pull out my other machine if I need a buttonhole. So a few other questions in the chat. Earlier when you were talking about your pricing model and that you have a group of menders you meet with and you sort of all adjusted your pricing models. Somebody was curious how did you communicate to your clients that your prices were increasing? Yeah, so I don't publicize my pricing and that's because I have pricing for myself, so I have a baseline, but I don't publish pricing online or anything because as I said earlier, all men's are specific. It depends on the size of the rep, the location of the rep. And I think I can streamline this a little more, but for now I'm just individually quoting each piece which is a little taxing on me, so I do need to streamline that a little bit. But I guess I didn't really communicate that and people just they can say no if the price doesn't agree with them. Speaking of that menders group that you have, which it sounds like has been helpful in your journey, your business journey, someone was curious how did you find that group? Are they open to new members? So I just reached out to some menders that I had been following on Instagram and we just decided to meet on Zoom and we've kept it consistent. We are always open to having new folks, so feel free to send me an email and we can connect. Great, and I will put Audrey's email in the chat shortly. When is asking do you ever use fusible interfacing or other fusible fabrics for repairs or mends? Sometimes. I will say, well first I'll say any repair that you do is a good repair, but there are better repairs than others. I would avoid doing any of the fusible denim patching because they're very stiff and rigid and especially if you're trying to put it on something that stretchy it really creates weak points around the edges of those. So I generally avoid those, but if you have no sewing skills and you just want it fixed, totally fine. I do use fusible interfacing sometimes for like a lightweight fusible for if it's something that's really delicate and I don't want to use a fabric patch behind it, but it's not very often. Great, we also have some marketing questions. Someone said it sounds like next door was really helpful for you. Any other ways of advertising that have worked for you and someone else is asking how do you differentiate yourself from folks who do clothing repairs at the dry cleaner? Why should someone go to you instead of their local dry cleaner? Yeah, so I'll answer that question first. I think because I think of my business as I am the product and I'm very accessible to my clients. I let people text me and I think that's very approachable and very human and that's how people, especially like Gen Z millennials, that's how we interact is through text. And I also have a portfolio on Instagram that people can just look at my stuff whereas a dry cleaner, you have to find a dry cleaner. There's no indication of quality of their work. You just kind of have to go with it and hope that it turns out right. They don't have photos of their existing work but they don't have a portfolio and it's a less personal experience. So I think having that access to me and kind of having, yeah, the access to me and having kind of knowing upfront what you're getting from me really sets me apart from the dry cleaners. My prices are more expensive than a dry cleaner and I do have people who have previously brought a piece to a dry cleaner bring it to me to fix it. So I think sometimes people need to learn the lesson of like, oh, this is the quality I can get a dry cleaner and this is the quality of a professional mender who does this just thought rather than dry cleaning and alterations and repairs. And sort of a follow-up to your success on Nextdoor and whether you have other marketing advice. Someone's curious if you use TikTok. Okay, so other marketing I use Nextdoor, Yelp has been really helpful for me. Surprisingly flyers just posting them around all of the bulletin boards in the city has been really successful. And my website is very primitive. I made it once and I haven't touched the fence but a lot of people just type in done a repair in San Francisco and they tell me I'm the first result. So I think it's just an untapped market but even my like really primitive website pops up and so yeah I think if you use the correct words I don't know anything about SEO but if you use the right terminology you can be discovered that way. Also I get a lot of traction through Instagram both through the business page as well as my effective wardrobe account because people know that I do repairs and so they reach out on both fronts. There was one more question in there. I think it was do you use TikTok for marketing? Oh yes, I do not use TikTok. I already feel a little spread thin and I didn't want to add another element into my business. So I don't use that but I've heard people have great success through TikTok. Great absolutely. If you could go back along your business journey and change anything what might you change or do differently? I think one thing specifically I've noticed in the last like six months is networking is really important and especially because I don't have co-workers or people that do what I do I have been making connections with people in related sustainability fields, other type of repair folks, vintage resellers, vintage store owners and if we can't help each other they'd know somebody that might need a repair and so networking has really kind of upped my game and I think another thing would be that I would try weirder things sooner and just send out cold emails and see if people need mending or events and I think I starting out was a little too timid and feeling like oh but my business isn't at a point where I feel like I'm professional enough or established enough just send an email make the phone call send the DM I think that's what I would do much sooner. Sorry great we only have Audrey for about 10 more minutes so I'm trying to catch up on the questions and also make sure we've covered everything. I know someone had asked earlier on you mentioned like you're the CEO you do pricing you do marketing you do everything you're solo you're a one woman show um someone was asking like how do you handle that how much of your workload is admin versus actual mending and someone else asked do you have any um tips on office software to help you organize your business? That is something I so it's hard when you do all the things to stop and do business planning um you may be overwhelmed in the moment but it's overwhelming to add the future planning to your plate and so um in the fall I did take a two week break to kind of focus on like future business planning um but I think I needed to do that again because the business is growing and processes have um I've outgrown some processes um managing all of that it's a little overwhelming and the things I need to work on are maybe getting some office software I mostly do everything by hand google spreadsheets those type of things so um I kind of need um and so I think in the spring maybe the next month I might do another like mending break so I'm not physically selling I don't have any client work I can just focus on doing the like unglamorous business things um um yeah I think that's a very human response and Audrey this might be a good time Audrey mentioned that because of this event she did with the San Francisco Public Library she's been getting quite a few more emails and texts about repairs which she's super excited about but Audrey do you want to tell us a bit about what your current um turnaround time looks like yes um thank you for reaching out to me I I think my response may just be a little delayed I'm usually really quick at responding usually same day but um maybe two or three days so if you haven't gotten a response from me and email or text just be a little patient um and as far as lead time for me actually repairing things it's about two to three weeks great thank you Audrey um so salvage studio has been in business for two and a half about two and a half years now what is next for your business yes so thinking about my day to day I if I just scale that up meaning I'm doing sewing for eight hours a day five days a week that's physically very taxing um so I'm working on finding things to diversify my business a little more focusing maybe more a little bit on like court mending and doing events in offices where I show up people bring bring me things to office and I repair for that day um or doing more workshops just to kind of um diversify what I'm doing so that my poor fingers don't get too tired um and also I want to do a little travel mending so um kind of in the works I might be spending a few weeks in Denver just exploring some um I have some clients in Denver so fixing their things and exploring a few opportunities to do some events there and so Denver maybe I'll go to Seattle next um but just like integrating a little bit of travel into into my career and and um having some flexibility that's exciting it sounds like a lot of exciting things um lie ahead for salvage studio um a few other questions that trickled in you mentioned sashi co some people were curious how you learned about that and more generally um if someone was interested in learning how to repair clothes themselves what are some resources you might suggest for folks particularly if they want to learn at home yes I love using Instagram and probably also tiktok I'm not a tiktok but um just follow menders once you follow one you will be suggested all of all of the members um so that's a great source of inspiration of um new techniques and just kind of getting your creative juices flowing of seeing what other people are doing um so part of a Facebook called I think it's called modern mending and that's where people um either share um projects that they've done or they post a photo of something that they want to fix but they don't know how to approach it and people are really helpful you get many comments of different ways to approach in different techniques um YouTube gotta love YouTube YouTube um I still use it for specific things like you can learn how to fix a zipper how to sew an invisible zipper like um very YouTube is great for like specific techniques you want to learn um as far as in the city I know there's a sashiko class at um what's it called fibers of no it's a yarn shop out in the outer sunset I'm the name is is escaping me but they have an upcoming sashiko class um that I think is going to be great and um I'm kind of taking a pause on workshops but um potentially I mean follow me on instagram and I will always announce um any new workshops that I teach I usually do like a basics of hand mending a sweater pair of cloth and then some sort of like patching class um but if you kind of know a few techniques um I do have a monthly mending circle and that the next it's the first sunday of every month and the next one's going to be march the third or fourth whatever that sunday is um at simbol the refill store on stanion and carl yeah great I was just going to try to put that in the chat so yes um sunday march third okay feverishly typing amending mending social se w hyphen c i a l um yes and that seems like a great place folks can come and bring items they're working on as well as learn and get some tips it seems like um sliding scale contributions yeah I there we had our our first one last sunday or this last sunday and um yeah use me as a resource come use me as a resource I can help get started on your mens and also other people in the in the um session can can help you as well use my yes great thank you I'm putting that info in the chat um what time does that happen at that's from 12 to 2 12 to 2 thank you I hope to be in attendance um March 3rd so I hope to see some of you there from this program but um we're coming up on the end of our hour um I know there were still a few lingering questions for Audrey lots of folks wanted to know about where they can recycle fabrics um Audrey suggested a few places earlier in the program and folks put a few resources in the chat I'll compile them yeah and if you have large um fabric or lots of fabric not not really small things but larger pieces um definitely reach out to scrap there are a um like art reuse center um in the bay view and they I I get a lot of my supplies there so lots of sewing supplies um and it's all recycled reused um materials from people in the community fantastic thank you for that suggestion so I will compile um Audrey will send me the suggestion she said earlier and I'll compile some from the chat there were lots of great resources thrown out like city college um their fashion design department um thank you when you're saying I did a good job of aggregating related questions on the fly everyone had fantastic questions for Audrey and I'm so sorry if we didn't get to your question but um feel free to reach out to Audrey I put our contact info in the chat Audrey thank you so much for joining us this was great it was so fantastic and I think Audrey's business journey is very inspirational and she's a great example of someone who has been very successful with social media and very successful without a storefront um but also like Audrey shared earlier um tapping into like her own self-care needs right and picking up that um freelance work to make um focusing on her business more more realistic for her I think that's a good takeaway um I see a lot of people are saying they would like to see events like this in the future I want um everyone to know our hope is to do this at least quarterly to highlight uh local business owners such as Audrey so I'd encourage you to sign up for our newsletter um and stay posted on our events Audrey we wish you and salvage studio tremendous continued luck thank you so much of course it's a pleasure the pleasure was ours thank you everyone for joining us um please fill out our survey I will also um send a follow-up email in a few hours with the recording um some links we're going to share with related resources and the link to our survey thanks again Audrey and thank you everyone take care bye