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Quinstance: First off, what brought you to Cambodia? Why Cambodia? Rachel Faller: I had a friend who wanted to go there originally. She asked me to go with her in 2007. Ultimately, she decided against it, but I applied for a grant to study the crafts there. Cambodia has a...

        Have you heard about Nift? We've partnered with them to thank our customers for shopping with us. A Nift is a neighborhood gift (we are big fans of mashup naming practices). It encourages people to support local business. So you shop at Quinstance, let's say, and then to...

Last time, we spoke with Samantha Morshed of Pebble about how she began her work in fair trade and the women she works with in Bangladesh. Now we turn our attention to Pebble's design process, how fair trade affects all of us, and Ms. Morshed's thoughts on the future:  Q:...

In Quinstance, there’s a little item on our honeycomb wall, often overlooked, that can provide a much larger experience than its small size might suggest. The Rinse Bath & Body Co. Roll-On is about the size of a lip balm – which makes it convenient to carry around in a...

Continuing our emphasis on fair trade makers, our Featured Maker this month is Samantha Morshed, OBE, of Hathay Bunano, now called Pebble. Having worked in fair trade for over a decade, she began working out of her spare room with 12 women, and grew her non-profit to great honors and...

As a nation of coffee drinkers, I’m positive this has happened to you: you’ve been given your beverage with the cardboard sleeve around it to ensure a better grip and thought “This sure does seem like a waste of paper.” Which it totally is. Plus factory corrugated cardboard is ugly. Overall...

  I made a little visit to Vermont this weekend to meet our makers at Farmhouse Pottery. Tiffany and I had both met their founder, Zoe, and some of their other staff at NY Now in the past, but going to their workshop in Woodstock allowed me to see how they present...

Quinstance has a number of anniversary dates: we were incorporated in September 2014; the company started to coalesce around the idea of American-made and fair trade goods in November 2014; we signed a lease and began construction January 2015; and we opened our doors June 15, 2015.  So we haven't...

A note from Erin: Our first six Featured Makers were all American artisans. For our next six Featured Makers, we’ve decided introduce you to some of our fair trade partners. One thing we hope you’ll see from these interviews is how connected we all are. Our fair trade makers all...