Chapter 285 Factory Manager of Wool Felt: It seems like we're running a scam. ...
"You want them all? I'll give you this price." The wool mill manager didn't give a specific number, but instead offered a price.
His heart was pounding wildly. If Qin Xiangxiang could help them get rid of this pile of waste, he would be extremely grateful.
"This price..." Qin Xiang thought for a moment and calculated. No matter how much there was, it was quite a good deal. "Director Zhao, we'll buy all the wool scraps that are piled up in your factory."
“Dyeing individual pieces is too troublesome. We transport them to our factory, dye them in batches, and distribute them as a benefit to our factory employees so they can play around with them.”
Factory Director Zhao was silent for three seconds, then burst into a grateful laugh tinged with disbelief:
"Director Qin, you're truly our savior! You...you're really sure you want them all?"
"Yes, I'll take them all. Dyeing one is the same as dyeing a batch, so it's enough to go through the trouble once."
Qin Xiangxiang spoke with great certainty.
Factory Director Zhao was overjoyed. He dashed out like lightning, his body and limbs feeling strong again, his headache gone, and his breath steady. He made a phone call back to the factory, praising, "You've learned so much during this training trip!"
Factory Director Zhao quickly ordered people to transport the goods over, and he personally went to pick them up and drop them off.
A few days later, the first large truck, fully loaded with wool scraps, rumbled into Feiyan No. 2 Factory, followed by a second, a third...
"Director Qin, Director Qin! Something terrible has happened! How much did you buy?"
"How much did you buy?"
Secretary Li came to find Qin Xiangxiang without stopping. When Secretary Li called Qin Xiangxiang to the warehouse, she saw the pile of grayish-white raw wool that looked like a small mountain. For the first time, she showed a "dumbfounded" expression on her pretty and calm face in front of outsiders.
Factory Director Zhao jumped off the truck and excitedly grasped Qin Xiangxiang's hand: "Factory Director Qin, I can't thank you enough! This is only the first batch. According to your request to 'take it all,' our factory's materials should be able to make about two hundred more truckloads. What do you think about the rest—should we use the railway or..."
More than two hundred vehicles?
Secretary Li's notebook slipped from his grasp, and even the well-informed Meng Qiaoyun and Meng Dadan, who were standing nearby, gaped in astonishment: "What a disaster... This isn't scrap material, this... this is a mountain of wool!"
Looking at the mountain of wool in front of her, Qin Xiangxiang felt a little dizzy. Imagining that there was so much more to come, her vision blurred. She poked a wool felt "Lazy Sheep" out of the wool, which was less than the size of a fist.
This huge pile of wool in front of you, if used to poke "Lazy Sheep" for a lifetime, then it won't be Lazy Sheep, but Diligent Sheep.
Qin Xiangxiang initially only intended to dye a batch as welfare for the factory's children, but it turned out to be a massive amount of wool "scraps"—note, scraps!!!
Factory Director Zhao must have been treating her like a dumping ground!
"Is this just a little bit? Is this a tiny bit..." Qin Xiangxiang circled the mountain of wool twice, her beautiful eyebrows furrowed, and she murmured, "If we were to turn all of this into finished products, how long would it take? It would kill us."
Making felted wool dolls by hand is simple, but even a skilled person needs one or two hours, and someone who doesn't know any better might need three or four hours. Letting people make all sorts of cute dolls by hand would certainly earn them a lot of money, but that's unrealistic!
Factory Director Zhao rubbed his hands together: "Factory Director Qin, the people in your textile factory are very skilled, so I'll leave them all to you."
Factory Director Zhao knew that these felted wool dolls were cute, but the craftsmanship was too complicated, and they might not even be able to "sell" them—it was better to let someone else do this time-consuming and laborious task.
"In my hands, this wool felt can only be made into crooked and rotten fruits."
Secretary Li was at his wit's end: "Director Qin, with so much wool, our factory can do the initial dyeing and processing, but to make finished products like panda dolls—we can ask the production teams in our neighborhoods for help."
"However, the people in the factory have tried making them, but everyone's shapes are different. They can't make them to a uniform standard at all, unless they are made by machine, but we don't have that kind of machine."
Qin Xiangxiang staggered back to her office, took a sip of water to calm herself, and said, "Don't panic."
"We're definitely going to make a profit buying this batch of wool scraps!"
"As long as we can sell them, we'll definitely make a profit."
"Yes, and there are also the alleyway production teams. All we need to do is find people to train them in their skills..."
Qin Xiangxiang felt like her head was about to explode. The thought of training so many people to make wool felt made her want to throw up.
"Mommy~" The little girl, Lanlan, ran over, holding a small felted rabbit in her hand. "Mommy, make another one. I want a squirrel one."
Lanlan held a small wool felting kit that her father, Li Jianzhi, had prepared for her. It had only undergone simple dyeing and her father taught her how to make one herself.
"Yes, even three- or four-year-olds can make it themselves—of course, whether it looks good or not is another matter."
Qin Xiangxiang rested her chin on her hand and said, "Let's just stop making finished products. Our textile factory will only do the dyeing process. Let's find a few people with good artistic skills to draw some nice patterns and make simple material kits so that people can buy them and make them at home!"
"These material kits... the big ones are eight cents a pack, the smaller ones are fifty cents a pack, they're all sold at the entrance as 'material kits'."
"We'll find a few experienced craftsmen to demonstrate at the door, and then we'll sell both finished products and material kits."
Li Jianzhi was unaware that his lazy wife had inadvertently created a DIY kit, simply because she was too lazy to hire a female worker to make the finished product.
"This is a DIY kit!"
Back home, Li Jianzhi heard Qin Xiangxiang's tearful complaints, saying that Factory Director Zhao had treated her like a dumping ground, stuffing her with a bunch of wool scraps, "He's just deliberately making things difficult for me!"
“I guess he deliberately offered me such a low price to see how I, the factory manager, would handle the wool scraps—so he could learn a thing or two. I’m really grateful to him for giving me two hundred truckloads at such a cheap price; this is his tuition fee.”
Qin Xiangxiang snorted. She had thought that Director Zhao, a big, burly man from the Northwest with thick eyebrows and big eyes, was an honest and simple man.
He's actually quite cunning!
"This is incredibly filthy! They're robbing and forcing people to buy!"
Li Jianzhi chuckled: "You've come up with a great idea too, a DIY material kit. It'll definitely make you enough to earn. Don't get jealous of how much money you guys are making."
Qin Xiangxiang: "What 'low-profile' material kit? Who knows if anyone will even want to buy it..."
“Look at your son, Li Xiaopang. He made a Sun Wukong—that thing, he's just so arrogant.”
Li Jianzhi's lips twitched: "That's called lacking self-awareness."
Look at the choice his own father made: Lazy Sheep, so simple and easy to make.
Qin Xiangxiang: "I even came up with a 'salted fish ingredient kit'."
Li Jianzhi: "..."
"We'll make 'Six Little Salted Fish' pendants and hang them at home, or we can hang them on your military uniform."
Li Jianzhi: "...Salted fish felt? Hang it on my navy uniform?"
"Yes, it's fitting for the occasion!"
Li Jianzhi: "Okay, okay, get more 'marine creature felt material kits' and I'll ask my comrades if they want them."
Qin Xiangxiang: "...You don't even spare your comrades-in-arms."
Li Jianzhi: "Draw a golden shaded cat—draw an orange cat, that's cute!"
Li Jianzhi later saw many golden shaded wool felted cats, which were very cute. Most Chinese people like orange cats, and golden shaded cats are a type of orange cat with golden fur, like a "lucky cat".
Nowadays, there are no British Shorthair cats with a color like Golden Shaded; the majority are still British Shorthair Blue.
Wool felt is best suited for making cat shapes.
Feiyan Textile Factory's dyeing process was far superior to that of other textile factories today. Many textile factories use chemical dyes, which have excessively high color saturation. Although the dyed products are colorful, the colors are too "bright".
In retrospect, this brightly colored dyeing was considered gaudy and vulgar.
Qin Xiangxiang asked Meng Qiaoyun to dye a batch of colors with lower color saturation, and to "adjust the colors" specifically for different styles.
"We mainly make two types of felt dolls: one is the 'Giant Panda Material Kit,' which is popular with the public, and the other is the 'Orange Cat Material Kit.'"
Qin Xiangxiang took out Li Jianzhi's "Golden Shaded Kitten" sketch and had to praise his painting.
Master Meng: "This cat is so cute, with a round face, but its legs are too short. How can it catch mice?"
Qin Xiangxiang: "As long as it's cute, that's fine."
Qin Xiangxiang made twelve different poses of "golden shaded" wool felt in one go. "I don't sell these. I put them at the door and sell the material kits."
Master Meng: "Hiss—"
Meng Qiaoyun looked at the felted cat made by Qin Xiangxiang and then at the felted material kit.
She thought to herself in a daze: Factory manager, it seems like we're running a scam.
This kit can indeed make an "orange cat doll".
But to make something like the factory manager's craftsmanship—most people who buy it don't have that skill!
"Factory manager, aren't we going too far?"
The people at the Northwest Wool Mill were very nervous, feeling that they were being unfair by dumping so much scrap wool on Feiyan No. 2 Factory. They wanted to see how the renowned Factory Director Qin would handle the situation.
Factory Director Zhao: "...Leave it to fate."
“I think the felt dolls they make in their factory are nice, and they should be able to sell them.”
"Factory manager..." the man said weakly, "It's just a few felt dolls the size of a finger. It takes an hour or two to make them. How long will it take?"
"And everyone's result is different! It takes months just to train the craftsmen!"
Factory Director Zhao: "...It was my fault for being so unfair."
"Should we send them two more cars?"
"..."
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