Friday 18 January 2013

Three Important Things and some Pyjamas!

Wow. It's been quite a week. Culminating (well, for those of you who work a normal week...) in this bloody big snow storm. I think. Or maybe it's just snow. There's been so much 'snowpocalypse' malarkey on facebook I seem to have lost the ability to judge for myself what's normal. Just in case you've forgotten what snow looks like...

Can you see it? You can't really, can you? Suffice to say it's sort of round, white and cold and it. comes. from. the. sky!

Anyway, on with life... 


Those of you on facebook will be bloody sick of hearing about this but tough. Not everybody's as obsessive as us... Apparently. 

The first thing, and the thing that's going quickest is the Cygnet DK. Yes! The Cygnet DK! It feels like the end of an era. This is the first yarn that was fully in stock at the opening that we're getting rid of. And I am saaaaaaaaaad. See it in the glorious circle cabinet by clicking here. It's been a loyal favourite around here and there are some colours that I will be very sad to see go but I have my plans folks, plans, plans, plans (is there ever a blog post where I don't mention plans?). 

Here's the gossipy bit. For those who are interested: 

When I was a young (waaaaaaaaarthooooooooooooooooooooog) woman I worked at Indigo dry cleaners down on Upper Parliament Street. It was a bit of a shithole but we had delirious-on-the-fumes fun and I learned to press garments (a skill that has laid dormant since). When the recession hit, people tightened their belts on  dry cleaning and the shop went under. It was empty for years. Then I expressed an interest in it for the shop and all of a sudden it was under offer - sod's law. After about a year it opened as a charity shop. I'm all in favour of that. But, on the way home from knit club one night, I passed the shop and noticed that there was yarn in there! And the colours looked suspiciously like the Cygnet DK. Well I got up early the next day to check it out and it bloody was wasn't it!? For £1.95!!! 20p more expensive than we stocked it for. I was dead angry, I'm sure most of you have seen me in a rant-y mood and by god was I rant-y! Here's a very condensed version of why: I'm never happy about charity shops selling new goods anyway, what's the point? I thought it cheapened the brand (you might think differently). I thought that Cygnet should have showed more loyalty to a good customer. Why would anybody walk up a hill to come to my shop if they can get it smack bang in the middle of town? And how the bloody hell can they justify 20p more per ball than me!? Ugh. 

So I calmed down and rang Cygnet but they couldn't do anything - they weren't going to stop selling to a customer which I can understand, money is money ain't it? But they did keep saying 'oh well, they only stock a few colours'. I made it clear that I wouldn't be stocking any colours if they carried on there and they did. So that's that. I'm hoping that we can stick with them for other yarns in the brand but I am hearing some ugly rumours about other shops stocking it so, we'll see. We want to be different, we don't want to stock what everybody else stocks. That'd be sad wouldn't it? 

We've replaced the Cygnet DK with the King Cole Pricewise DK but that deserves its own little blog post so I'll just leave it there. Stunning green in the guacamole though - boom!

So that's the gossip. Now let's move on to something else/more interesting shall we?

Other yarns in the sale are the King Cole Wicked DK and the King Cole Shades DK and I think they're in for the same reasons - that they're maybe too bright for people? Each have their loyal followers but they haven't sold like I wanted them to and, being such a tiny shop (and, let's be honest, actually wanting to make some money), we can't afford to have yarns in stock that don't sell on a daily basis. I'm most sad to be seeing both of them go because the Shades is a beautiful yarn to work with and wear and the Wicked really caught my attention during the 80's fashion phase that we're having/have had. Anyway, I started a jumper in it on Tuesday that was supposed to be a Knit Club project but actually turned out to be an every-minute-of-the-day-when-I-can-possibly-justify-not-working kind of project. Beauts: 


Excuse the horrendous photography - it's getting dark and I'm planning a blog post about the jumper on its own anyway because it's all gone stupendously right (crossed fingers, touch wood). 

It's been described variously as fireworks, liquorice allsorts and a starry starry night (one of my favourite songs ever). :)


Anyway, there are jumpers worths left in both the Wicked and the Shades. Really, there are blankets worth which is apparently the name of the game in this weather (literally, eight blankets worth of sale yarn sold this week!). 

Moooooooooooooooving on...

I've confirmed the coach for our little trip to Skipton and I'll not shut up about it until all the places have been sold. There was interest from about 20 of you in the end and plenty of you said that you'd like to bring mothers, aunties, sisters, friends - me? I'm hoping you bring single, rich, handsome men who aren't scared of needles. Failing that, a bottle of port? You don't have to pay for a seat for the bottle - I'll look after it up front...


I've settled on £24 with the hope that enough of you book for me to be able to pay for the parking when we get there (which will be about £50 for the day) and, if we're really lucky, the entrance into the place. But like I keep saying, it all depends on who books. I've given a deadline for getting the money to us as the end of June because that gives you six paydays from now to get everything together and gives me a good chunk of time to get my act together and pay the coach company after that. I can't emphasise enough that it won't happen unless we have enough people because I'd rather pay for yarn than a half empty coach. :)

I'm trying to think of other things I have to tell you. But I can't. All that's in my head now is to crochet this lovely jumper and watch things on T.V. I'm trying to work out if it's worth me going home? I can't think that it's going to be as bad as facebook seems to think and if all I would do is crochet at home then I may as well be here. So. Decision made. Though I would like to be wearing pyjamas. Would you judge me if I brought pyjamas in tomorrow? I have some beauts, courtesy of Cazza (the sister) and Sports Direct: 


That's Batman in case you can't see... And it says 'boom' all over it! BOOM!
Right, my lovely blogees, I'm offski,

Love Eleanor. 







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