January 20, 2022

Winter 2022 Updates & What's Next

33 comments
Le Petit Derriere LPD

In this edition....

Yeoman, Le Petit Derrière, and more on 1/25

We have an exciting pre-order and restock coming up on 1/25. The Yeoman (which we promised all the way back in June!) and the new Le Petit Derrière (a smaller version of our popular LGD) will be available for pre-order, and a bunch of other favorites will be back in stock.  More details on the 1/25 Restock page.


Swift & Little Swift Pre-Order (Sneak Peak!)

Many have asked, and we are happy to report that we’re currently working out the details for a large knitting goods pre-order! We are bringing back the Swift, Little Swift, Yarn Stuff Sack, Tall Yarn Stuff Sack, Knitting Tool Pouch, Tool/Pen Wrap, and 3D All Fabric Organizer Cube. It’s quite a lot of bags and accessories to offer in a single pre-order and while it presents some logistical issues on the ground here in Seattle, we do think we can iron these out because, well, it’s worth it: these bags and these accessories just go together, so we want to offer them together.

We plan on offering the Swift and Little Swift in lots of fun color combos, but we do want to preface that there could potentially be some pre-order limits on certain colors, given new delays in receiving 200d Halcyon (more on that below).


March 28th Price Increase

By now, you’ve probably read something in the news about record high inflation, or you have noticed that prices on everyday items have drastically ticked up. At TOM BIHN, we have not been immune to these changes. We have seen substantial increases in our raw material and transportation costs since the beginning of the pandemic. As a result, we will be implementing price increases accordingly so that we can continue to run our business at the highest standards.

As some of you may know, our entire crew of 60 — design, manufacturing, shipping, customer service, IT — is entirely based in Seattle. We source what we believe are the highest quality materials from global suppliers, put thought into our designs without compromise, and continue to push forward with environmental and social initiatives as a certified B corp.

Due to various costs increasing over the last couple years since we last adjusted our prices, we have to implement a ~5% increase on most items. We understand this is a difficult time with high inflation everywhere and will delay the price increase until March 28, 2022 so that you may buy what you want at the current price. A list of the increases by bag can be found here.


Low Quantity Restock

We're going to target offering what's become known as a Low Quantity Restock (LQR) on a monthly basis. The last LQR was a big one because we kept postponing it due to general busyness here at the factory and we had just done our year-end inventory counts. Because it was a big one, and because our e-commerce shopping cart updates variants one-by-one when we mass upload inventory (there is seriously a little hourglass next to each individual item as it uploads), it took something like 10-20 minutes for all of the LQR items to load: less than ideal for obvious reasons. We can't fix the way our shopping cart uploads, but we can make the list of LQRs much shorter by offering them on a monthly basis.

That's all to say: expect the next LQR to be sometime in February.


Supply Chain Slowdowns

Back to the potential pre-order limits on certain 200d Halcyon colors for the knitting goods.

The ports are still super backed up. Believe it or not, there’s a shipment of ours that’s been waiting to be unloaded since December 8th. And there are some important shipments of 200d Halcyon crossing the Pacific at the moment. We hope these won't have to wait too long at the port once they arrive. There are a lot of reasons for these delays that are not in our control, but we know the folks who work at the ports are doing their very best.

We are hopeful that snaps will be back soon. That will allow us to restock the Aeronauts (more on that below) for the first time since 2020 and perhaps the Road Buddy Duffels down the road!


Very Early Heads-Up on 400d Halcyon

This is a very, very, very early heads-up that the mill that helped produce our 400d Halcyon in Japan is no longer operating. Our supplier has been looking for a different mill to work with, but they haven’t had any luck so far. We will keep everyone posted.


In The Works: Aeronauts

We plan to make a minor update or two (don’t want to mess too much with a great design) to the Aeronaut 30 and Aeronaut 45 and restock them this spring.


New Designs? Oh Yeah

There are various new designs in the works, and we'll share more details once they're truly close to done. One design we already spilled the beans on (for better or for worse!) is a tote backpack. It stands up on its own, fits a wide variety of laptops, and is quite the sleek bag. We are currently testing it in a variety of applications. Here is a little preview photo below.

A small white dog is inside of a rough prototype of a new tote backpack design.
*Not intended for dogs, but your little fluffy one may find it comfortable enough to hang out in

33 comments

Stacy - March 1, 2022

Thanks for being awesome! I’ve been waiting for the Swift, yarn sacks, and tool pouches for a while so this is exciting news.

Nina V - February 6, 2022

Hey there!! Just wanted to shoot a quick question, would you be making any Synapse 19s in black halcyon with other halcyon colors than the ones currently in stock, like wasabi or solaris, any time soon? I know supplies are limited and shipments of the halcyon are delayed, and especially the closing of the mill, will affect this for sure. Thanks again guys!
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TOM BIHN replied:
Hi Nina! We are restocking the Synapse 19 in Black 400D Halcyon with Northwest Sky very soon!

BethC - February 2, 2022

I was never interested in the Road Buddy when it first came out, but now that it seems my lifestyle, and many others as well, has changed for the foreseeable future to do more road trips rather than flying, I have a renewed interest. I believe that it makes more sense to take that style of bag vs. an Aeronaut or Techonaut for traveling by car.
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TOM BIHN replied:
That’s a good point! We’ve definitely seen a renewed interest in road trips since the pandemic. Make sure to sign up for the list to be notified when the Road Buddy comes back!

Katie Palmer - January 27, 2022

Hello! Any chance the black ballistic packing cube shoulder bag is coming back? And more color choices on travel stuff sack #3? I’m going on a trip in May and need some accessories for my Aeronaut (black/wasabi combo)! Thank you.
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TOM BIHN replied:
Hi Katie! We were just talking about which accessories we want to include when we restock the updated Aeronaut. No final decisions yet, but we will keep your suggestions in mind!

Erin - January 25, 2022

Just….how are you so amazing?

You are so good at customer service, so transparent about…everything, so many of the values that I hold dear (doing the right thing, paying people wages that give them the dignity of a real life, employing people who are your neighbors rather than cutting costs to make more money, the sheer amount of wisdom and thought put into your designs, on and on) displayed in your item descriptions [which are a thing of beauty all their own!] and in every other communication you put out,…

And I haven’t even said anything about your actual products! Which are AMAZING! They are influenced by the people who use them, and they are dynamic AND solid at the same time, and they are created not to be something pretty for people to ogle and provide you with accolades but for solving the problems of actual people as we move through this thing we call life. Then again, they are also pretty, and I adore ogling them!

I have no idea how I was referred to….wait a sec, scratch that. It was probably Knitty. So many things in my life have been influenced by knitting lol

Anyhoo, I am so glad that I was directed to this here website and this little company – not only because you make such well-made products that have withstood the tests of time and travel and use. I am also glad because you remind me on a somewhat regular basis that there are people in the world who do things for the right reasons and who stand for the principles that we’ve all been led to believe on which our country was founded. Our politics might be a clusterfuck (go ahead and edit that as necessary), and our “leaders” might be working hard in the opposite direction. When there are people like us still doing the right thing, it proves that the fight for change is still worth the energy it requires.
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TOM BIHN replied:
Hi Erin! Thank you for the kind words. It is customers like you who make us proud to do what we do! We strive to stay true to our core values despite the all the craziness in the world that we cannot control. We love making high quality products that customers can use for a long time and creating good local jobs, ones that make our employees proud to work for us! Oftentimes, there is so much going on in the factory, we actually find it hard not to share all the exciting developments and real-time challenges with you all in our newsletter. Our customers have played a huge part in helping us become the company we are today, so we want to keep you guys as updated as possible and give you all a line of sight into why we do what we do. We’re so glad that Knitty directed you our way! The knitting community has been so supportive, and we love creating new products with you! Hopefully there is something in the upcoming Swift + knitting goods pre-order that catches your eye!

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We're the TOM BIHN crew: we design bags, make bags, ship bags, and answer questions about bags. Oh, and we collaborate on blog posts, too.