Boatloads of yarn

It's been a great yarn sale so far, but it is an even better one now! I got more yarn. Kind of a lot of yarn.....

 So now I have new Frogtree Chunky Alpaca, and 12 new colors of Peruvia, and about 10 new colors of Montera, and 10 new colors of Inca Alpaca, and some new Lush, and some new Plush, and a dozen skeins of Schaefer's great "Anne" sock yarn (which makes fabulous scarves and shawls too), and my order of Lorna's Laces also came in. All that, and before the end of the yarn sale, too. 

I am still waiting for the Donegal, Christopher Sheep Farm, Shibui Sock and Alchemy Haiku to arrive; those will all arrive over the next couple of weeks (Haiku might be a bit longer; they just started painting my order today. I am so excited!). 

 I have updated both my blog list of my current knitting projects and also my Ravelry projects page, so those of you who might be keeping track of my knitting can know what I am really up to. I will try to get pictures sometime. 

Really, though, I haven't been handknitting much. I have been just trying to run the store and trying to get all my sweater orders done for customers. I have about a dozen more sweaters to knit and then I will be all caught up, and then I can start on stock.... unless more people order sweaters! I would love that :) 

Yarn Sale At Unique One!

Yarn is 20% off Jan. 21 through 31! I have a lot of yarn that is ordered, that will be arriving periodically throughout the sale, so keep stopping by to see what just came. My winter hours are Monday through Friday 12 to 6, Saturday 10 to 5, and Sunday 12 to 4. (Yes, I know I have to change the web site.) 

A funny thing happened when I was ordering the bulky weight alpaca that we usually carry. I was ordering 10 colors, so I listed them for the lady on the phone. Then I asked her to tell me how many were back ordered so I could fill in with other colors (I wanted to have a lot of colors available for the yarn sale). There are usually a few colors that are backordered because they are out of stock. The lady paused and said that they were all backordered. Huh?? ALL of them? So I said, what colors do you have in stock, I can pick from those.... well, it turns out they didn't have ANY bulky alpaca in stock. None. They expected their shipment in mid-February. 

So I called a different company that sells bulky weight alpaca, and it turns out there is some kind of chemical spill or something near some port, so a bunch of ships are hanging around waiting to get into port to unload their cargo. The 2nd alpaca company is switching their packaging of bulky alpaca over from small round balls (which is convenient but doesn't have the oooooh factor when you feel it, like a soft hank does) to braids (which has more oooooh factor.) I ordered the 7 colors they have available right now in braids. They will have a lot more of their bulky alpaca colors available in braids, as soon as the darn ships can get into port :) 

I have lots of yarn coming in, so be on the lookout for more Donegal, Schaefer Anne, Inca Alpaca and Montera, Plush, Peruvia, Lush, and more to be coming in during the yarn sale. Keep checking back, there is something new nearly every day :)

Book Sale

When times were better, I was on auto-ship from Unicorn Books & Crafts, a major book seller in the craft world. They sell pretty much every knitting or crocheting book that is ever published, including some pretty obscure stuff. When a yarn shop is on auto-ship, it means that you get at least one of every new title published in the craft category you choose. EVERY. When I started out with the auto-ship program, there were maybe 10 or 12 new knitting books published in a year. (Yeah, that's how far back it was.)

But then there was the explosion of knitters in the knitting world. Suddenly everybody had a Learn To Knit book in the works, and I got all of them. I got a lot of books. Lots and lots and lots and lots. Some of them were very good, and I was glad to have them. Most of them were ummmmm.... let's just say, they weren't best sellers. Knitted underwear springs to mind. Knitting with wire also jumps up. There were wayyyyyy too many variations on "Let's Learn to Knit with Pammie!".

Now, its not to say that these books were all bad. Most of them had at least one thing in them that was worth knitting, or one thing that was worth  learning, but not worth shelling out $22.95 for. Know what I mean? The books started to pile up... and up, and upppp and up upupupup.... and they began to take over my shop.

Long story short, I realized I had 5 shelves of books,  most of which, I had counted in the last 5 annual inventories,  and I could be stashing yarn on those shelves ... yarn that would actually SELL, as opposed to books that do not sell. So I ruthlessly picked out the books that I wanted to keep, and put all the rest of them on sale for five bucks each. I figure, you would buy a pattern for $5.00, and each book I want to get rid of had at least one pattern in it worth five bucks. So, if you are near Unique One, come on in and see if any of those $5.00 books want to go home with you. Remember, not all the books in the store are $5.00. There is a special section labeled for sale at $5.00. Hopefully I will be able to clear off some shelves and get more yarn in here.