Brettuns Village Trunks & Leather
Old Trunks, New Leather. All from Maine.
June 14, 2007
Winters can seem to drag
on a bit in Maine, though I don’t really know why. After March 21st
you can hear the earth squeak a bit as the axis starts tilting toward that
big bright thing in the sky, and things really do seem to warm up.
Still, when it gets to be mid-June, as it happens to be right now in case
you’ve had your nose in textbooks studying for your final exams and lost
track of the calendar, I start looking forward to a couple of weeks out
of the year when I can get up in the morning and forego the long underwear.
We’re not there yet, but it’s so close I can almost feel my legs running
free, unfettered by the confines of polyester or cotton or under armor
or whatever else was on sale in the Long Handles aisle at the store down
in the village. Summer. Just the sound of it comes across as
a welcome visitor, unexpected but cheerfully greeted. Best two weeks
of the year. I’ll drop you a line when it gets here.
Last time you received this
printable bird cage liner I told you that we had been cleaning out a factory
and adding new items to the site.
I didn’t lie. Once
an Eagle Scout, always an Eagle Scout. Been adding things when we
find the time, and when I say we I mean me and That Dog and the digital
camera which still feels new even though it stores photos on a 3.5″ floppy
disc, which a few of my daughters’ friends can’t positively identify.
They can have their little SD cards. I like using a disc with some weight,
so that when it fails to work I can pitch it like a frisbee and really
get some distance out of it, and I do mean way, way out there. I’m
not littering. That’s never an option because you-know-who runs out
back there, tail wagging, and retrieves it. Good dog, That Dog.
Here are some of the new
things that we’ve posted so far, my old camera and me:
1. Suede hides and
cowhide splits – 8 new colors on the Suedes page. Nice stuff, reasonable
prices. Free shipping.
2. Thread – New one-pound
spools in different colors and many types of smaller spools for smaller
projects. Strangely, these are posted on the Threads page.
A little predictable, don’t you think?
3. Laces – leather
laces in many new colors and lengths, with options for purchasing 1, 10,
100, or 1,000 of them. Load up.
4. Leather on spools
– Many sizes and colors of leather trim spliced end to end on spools so
that, if the mood strikes you, you can run a 3/16″ wide leather border
all the way around your house. Twice. This stuff looks like
lacing that comes on a spool, so we stuck it on the Laces page. Very
cool stuff that looks like it should come in handy for wrapping around
things like dream catchers, handlebars, the neighbor’s doberman, etc.
Some of this lacing is even stitched like some sort of endless high-priced
belt for Barbie. Or for making leashes for very tiny dogs (all of
which should be named Shark Bait)(hey, don’t look at me, that was Jenny’s
typing right there).
5. Buckles – more belt
buckles, some new styles on the site. By the way, we did a total
rehab of the Parts and Accessories area of the BVL empire, so it’s menu
driven now. I think that’s the right phrase to use. Click on
the picture of rivets if you’re looking for rivets. Thread for thread.
Buckles, well, you get it. All part of our
Customer Satisfaction program
that resulted from endless committee meetings, mostly near the wood stove
on cold evenings back in April.
6. Eyelets and Grommets
– There are those who claim that eyelets swim south in the fall, spend
winter in the Gulf of Mexico, then swim back north in Spring, but they’re
big enough to be called grommets by then. I thought that was bluefish,
but what do I know? I know this fact, Jack – we’ve got lots of eyelets
and grommets. Fancy grommets. Plain eyelets. Bags of 100 for
about what it costs us to ship them to you, but what do you care?
You know, you seasoned Brettuns Village customer, that shipping is always
free to our customers in the 48 congrommetous states. Furthermore,
the chosen few who live in AK or HI know that they too can claim free shipping
status for most of our smaller items (on account of we can ship them in
flat rate priority mail boxes to you for about the same as it would cost
us to ship them to Chester down in East Waterboro). What I find interesting
is that when it comes time for me to conjure up a few words about eyelets
and grommets that will inform without inebriating, before you know it we’ve
got one heck of a long paragraph here. Thrilling.
7. Rivets – Tubular
rivets. Rapid rivets. Solid rivets. You want rivets?
Yes, we’ve got rivets. Lots of rivets. These are shown on the
frilly cashmere lace page. Just kidding. Try the rivet page,
Mr. Einstein.
8. Book binding wire.
If you use wire to hold craft items together or if, well, come to think
of it, if your books are falling apart, then a spool of this jazz might
be just the ticket. It’s cool, it’s easy to work with, it twists
like a demon (I mean this in a good way), and a spool of it will last a
long, long time. We’ve got a few thousand spools available. Each
spool weighs five pounds. No forklift. Pop quiz: You
now have enough information to calculate the number of ibuprofen tablets
required for me to fall asleep at night. Show all work.
9. Suede leather from
150-foot-long cows. You may have been reading along through this
hogwash, falling slowly toward Dreamland (which is just north and west
of Millinocket, by the way), but that woke you up. Spools of cowhide
split leather, 4-3/8″ wide, and about 150 feet long. Long cows?
No, there are seams. Glued seams that yank apart without much effort,
and so it seemed to me that the perfect spot to sell these is on the Clearance
page. That’s where they are. If you’re a swing or ballroom
dancer and have 75 pairs of dancing slippers to re-sole, one of these spools
will set you up spot on, Romeo. Black, dark brown, red, or maroon.
OK, so that’s a lot of stuff,
but we haven’t even made a dent yet. Lots more to come. Drop
by the site when you have time, have a look. As always, if you have
a question just holler. Do your hollering in an e-mail if you can, as the
phone – well, they still say we may be able to get a second line some day
but not quite yet. Want to visit the shop? Map and directions
are on the site now. Look forward to seeing you. Come during
summer – the week after 4th of July will work.
Thanks-
Churchill Barton
Brettuns Village Leather
Upcountry, Maine