More than six years ago, in October of 2018, I received an email from someone working for a food blogger with a YouTube channel, inquiring about making a large purchase of pine needle baskets, and by large I mean 600. Over the years I had racked up a little experience working with artisans in Mexico, and I immediately began to contemplate the challenges with this order, and to worry about what could go wrong. The lead artisan for a collective that makes the baskets confirmed they could handle an order that size by the target date-- and the deal was a “go”. The next and biggest issue of course was would the artisans actually complete the order on time. If not, the order would be cancelled which would be a disaster. I estimate that half the time I make a special order of crafts there’s a delay for one reason or another. Someone got sick, the rains slowed things down, it was fiesta time, etc. We hatched a plan designed to prevent such delays and offered a generous bonus for delivering a month early-- an idea that we had never thought to employ before. The bonus was so appealing to the artisans that the baskets were finished 2 months ahead of time! It seems that the entire village was called in to work on the baskets and they got it done. Great news! Not only were they finished early, which meant I could have a box sent to me in time for my Christmas sale, but I could also personally see the quality of the work before the client received them. Quality control is another very important concern when one places a large order. And one can’t be sure --even with a photo-- that the artisans understood exactly what I wanted. I held my breath as I opened the box...the baskets were fantastic! Exactly as I had envisioned. Wow, this was really working out!
I sent the final payment to the artisans, and I let the client know they would receive the 600 baskets in mid-January. Everything was going great!
Our first grandchild was born at the end of November 2018 and on New Years Day 2019 we threw a party-- her first public event. It was a joyous day. That's why I remember so well what happened next.
On January 2nd as I was casually checking my emails, I read the following message: “Peggy, I hope you had a nice holiday. I am emailing in reference to the basket order # 1357 we purchased from you. Unfortunately, our investor funding did not come through and we can not pay for the balance of the order. We are closing the company. I am very sorry but we need to cancel this order.”
Whoa. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. How could this be? They had already paid me quite a lot of money and were just going to walk away from this deal? I had never received such a large order for a single product, and I never had a client cancel on me. Of all the things I worried about with this deal, this never crossed my mind. And then after I got over my initial shock, it hit me: I have 600 baskets to sell!
Well, here we are with an UPDATE. It's January 2, 2025 and I can announce that every basket is gone! Some were given away as gifts or were used to raise money for a sick friend, some we sold to a restaurant in Oakland, and the rest were sold one basket at a time on our website or at sales events. I just realized a few days ago that the last one was sold at our 20th Anniversary event in December. We not only made it in business for 20 years, but we managed to finally sell all of those 600 beautiful baskets. We did it!
Sorry if you missed your chance to buy a basket, but we do have some large pine needle trivets we recently purchased that would be a lovely addition to your dining table. You can get them here: https://mexico-by-hand.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/pine-needle-trivet