By the time most of you read this, the event will be over.
But its significance to Red Land Cotton will still be strong, almost tangible to us.
The event – Made South Holiday Market in Nashville, TN (Nov. 17-18, 2017)
The significance – It was our first opportunity to take our actual products out into the world.
Reminiscing
See our company, like most, was born from a little idea. Mark Yeager, our chief dreamer, and head farmer posted a picture of our cotton being ginned on Instagram in 2015. A kind relative commented that she would love a set of sheets made from that northern Alabama cotton.
From there, the boll (cotton-farming humor – forgive us) started rolling.
We knew that just “making bed sheets” wasn’t enough for us. If we were going to do this, we are going to do it differently.
We are going to use our own cotton.
We are going to be American made.
We are going to make sheets to be proud of.
Once we decided as a family and as a farm to pursue this little idea, we started to consider what kind of sheets to make. Through that process, a family friend loaned us heirloom sheets from the 1920s. We knew then, we wanted to make sheets from that bygone era. We wanted to pay homage to the time of our grandparents and great-grandparents when products were made to last.
Made South
Fast forward to November 2016. We traveled to Made South Holiday Market in Nashville, TN. (Y’all, that was just last year.)
And, we actually took products! Things people could truly touch…could hold. Not just an idea but tangible things.
You makers and dreamers out there realize what a huge milestone that was for us – from a comment on Instagram to actual sheets in our calloused, anxious hands.
For us, it was a surreal moment in our company’s history. See, Made South was created by Christopher Thomas and his wife Kimberly to connect the nation and even the world with fine, unique products made in the South. (Hence, the name – Made South.)
It started as a subscription-based company, sending out Southern made products to its customers every 3 months. You know, like a curator of sorts. Then, they went a step further to create Made South Events, which bring Southern artisans together under one roof to share their stories and to sell their goods.
This event in 2016 brought us full circle. We started as an idea in 2015, and by 2016, we were at an event designed by someone like us, who had an idea and ran with it, surrounded by other makers like us. It was exhilarating, to say the least.
In Closing, Thank You.
So, as we travel back this year to Made South’s Holiday Market, we are reminded of how far we have come.
We are reminded that for an idea to truly take shape much work, prayer and support are needed.
We say an earnest thank you to you fans, to the loyal customers who share our story and buy our products. In today’s culture, the most precious thing you can give to a person or an organization is time. So, we thank you for taking the time to write the kind comments about our products on our site. Thank you for taking the time to tell others about RLC. Because you don’t have to but do anyway, it means the world to us.
We humbly thank the people behind the scenes – those working in the mills to produce our fine products, those helping to farm our land, those quilting our duvet covers, those greeting our customers at our Moulton store and those praying for the Yeager family and this business. We can honestly say we wouldn’t be here without you all.
Events such as Made South are so many things…exciting, scary, reinvigorating but most of all a great opportunity for us to meet you and share our story in person.
If this is your first time to our blog, we are thankful for you too. You may be interested in some of these posts to learn more about Red Land Cotton and our products.