More thoughts. The town warehouse could be an alternative place to deposit items, instead of selling them. A worker would have to be present to make any item. Give a time frame of say 3hrs-12hrs for construction of the item, depending on the type of item you are creating. A portion of the money an item sells for in the general store goes to the town treasury. (I'm not sure if that already happens, the interfaces for the game are not as detailed as I would like). The worker earns wages and xp depending on the difficulty of the item being made. The money to create the items (wages, what ever else is thought to be needed) comes from town treasury. The amount the town receives back would obviously need to be higher than the amount spent to create the item.
An example of the items that can be created would be:
2 wool = plain white shirt (+3 toughness, +2 appearance.)
5 cotton = flannal shirt (+5 toughness, +3 vigor, +3 appearance)
2 beaver skins = beaver skin hat (+4 set traps, +3 animal instinct)