What about the Leilo lady and Tewa?
What about the Leilo lady and Tewa?
Palm made products a portrait of modern triumph
Tewa - before my time (ten years ago). They were gone before I became a regular.Originally Posted by 2eez4life
Leilo - Flash in the pan - only around for a year or two.
Hammeck - they weren't in business for long either.
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thanks for that reminder. Maybe that is it, he just decided to go back to his profession rather than trying to continue on in the commercial side of hammock camping. Especially as more people entered into the business. And maybe he figured best way to do it was just to cut ties completely, no looking back. I hope so, he was a good guy. He hosted a lot of large group hangs for a number of years.
Re: Speer, then maybe 10 years is about when he decided to go back to his profession to make a living. Because anyone who was around here before then dang sure remembers Ed Speer. With his hammock camping/make your own hammock book, and his large group hangs, with his Pea Pod, Snugfit, SPE and just his hammock which was very highly rated by quite a few folks at this forum.
I guess if you didn't remember Ed Speer AND never knew anyone who owned anything from TTTG, you just were not paying attention. I can even remember when- well after he took over Speer's products in addition to his own, as famous a person as I think it was maybe Dutch, started a thread saying TTTG's Switchback hammock was possibly the best one he ever used. Several other vendors chimed in the say "Ditto".
Edit: it was Dutch, and it was a lot closer than 10 years ago, more like 6:
Dutch: Switchback, world's greatest hammock......I love my switchback.
Outandback: Yep I love my single layer 1.9 SB classic.
It has one of the flattest lays, no calf pressure, and the widest view of all the hammocks I have tried.
Peter Pan(JRB) I agree with Dutch...They are a well kept secret... Superbly comfortable ... Pan
https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...eatest-hammock
Last edited by BillyBob58; 07-05-2019 at 20:05.
I remember back in 2011 at Fall MAHHA, there was a guy who posed as Ed Speer - even brought books to sign. It was funny as heck, but Speer was already a relic of the past, and not many got the joke.
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Leighlo-flash in the pan? You are delusional. Her quilts are highly sought after. They never stay on the For Sale section more than an hour or so. I joined the Forum as she was closing to go to school. I didn't know enough to buy at the time. I've tried to buy used but my timing is off. Anyway, I am biased as I am from Tennessee, but your comment was insensitive.
As delusional and insensitive as I may be, Leighlo never even got her own forum. Her quilts are so highly sought after that the last one I see for sale was in March 2019, and the last one to sell before that was Feb 2018. She appears to have been in business for about two years.
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bearded Hanger seems to have closed down sometime in the last three years. I don't remember seeing a closing announcement. Too bad, I love my BH hammock, and three years of cat claws are starting to wear on it.
Little known mention made on the forum; Outdoor Route owner; David made the Brio bridge hammock along with odds and ends in his store. His bridge was nice as time one of four corners or all separated, has closed shop. If he reinforced those corners those that had one would be in service.
Nemo tried to enter the market with the patio version and lightweight in time these will be a memory.
Last edited by arczeneb; 07-06-2019 at 11:47.
A few years ago (maybe 5 or 6?) there was a HUGE surge of new people hanging out a signpost to try and sell hammock related stuff. Problem was, most were just rehashing what others were doing, for good or bad. Let's be honest - how many places can sell whoopie slings, continuous loops, and soft shackles, and not much else? Especially when most people can either make them on their own, or get them as an add on from a larger vendor who makes other things they need (like Dutch, AHE, even HG). Most of those smaller folk were flashes in the pan, gone within a year or so. Especially once the materials (rope, insulation, fabric) became more accessible to the common person, and not just to people who could afford to buy in bulk.
A lot of the older vendors that have closed are due to people passing away or moving on. Speer got out of the game, Clark is retiring, Tewa was one guy and he moved on, OES went back to school and tried to keep things going but failed, Leigh Lo went back to school, Hiking Dad went back to hiking, Hammeck was a family affair and part of the family moved so they closed down, Marty passed away, BIAS was a duo but one left and I'm not sure the other is still keeping things going ...
My guess is that people who enjoy making gear often think it would be a fun or good idea to try and do it for a living, but then once they actually open a shop they find out how hard it can be, how the time commitment impacts their lives (and their ability to be able to get out and actually do the thing that they're making gear for), etc. - and many decide to just go back to being a hammocker instead of a vendor for hammockers. Natural progression, I suppose. And little by little we've seen the people that do stay around become one stop shops, so the need for smaller specialized vendors becomes less important.
I will say that it's a bummer that some of the folks who made some truly innovative stuff have closed shop, as the market is less differentiated in their absence. But someone else will likely come along to fill the void, eventually.
Her quilts are so well made and valued, that few people sell them. When they do post them, they go quickly. I agree that she was not a huge shop, but even Hang N Out acknowledged in one of their sales videos that they were a small shop and catered to a small customer base. As far having their own forum, that's not really a good judge of the quality of the product that a vendor has. Case in point, Katabatic quilts is one of the premier quilt manufacturers and yet somehow they don't have their own forum either.
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