Way Back Wednesday!

This pattern was one of the most popular patterns in the late 70's and early 80's.  I sometimes think that it alone has given me a slight aversion to the 'feather and fan' or ripple design.  It's a shame really as the pattern is quite simple and done correctly can achieve a complicated design without much effort.

We sold a lot of that particular colour combination, 3 balls of 3 of the colours and 4 of the main colour. Back then, now I am sounding old, we hold some of the yarn in brown paper bags in the storage space in the basement. Every week customers would come and pick up what they needed or could afford that week. Every once in a while one of the staff would take on the job of spending the day sorting through the bags, putting yarn back into stock if it was past the 60 day time limit.  It surprised a few when they came back to finish their project that the yarn was put back out and they realize that they had been working on something for over a year! 

I wonder how many of those afghans are still around?

See you Soon!

Just a quick reminder that the shop is closed Tuesday June 30th and Wednesday July 1st!

Summer in a Yarn Shop!

Let's just say that some days it's tough to keep ourselves busy in the shop during the summer.  I suppose we could spend the free time working on some samples or perhaps catching up on paperwork.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been wandering around the space and trying to come up with a better way merchandising.  I started with kijiji, it's a great place to find reasonably priced pieces of furniture.  I found some plastic shelves that have totally organized the storage space in the very back of the shop!

This week I picked up a lovely bookcase, just the right size for a little 'bookstore'.  Shifting a few pieces at the front of the shop we managed to fit everything while still avoiding light switches and alarm system keypads.

The other inspiration actually came when I was visiting another Yarn Shop last week.  They had cleverly displayed the tubes of buttons in an IKEA CD cabinet.  I have one of those, problem was that the only space it fit was right in front of an electrical outlet and plugged into that outlet was the carbon monoxide detector! What to do? Sometimes the obvious takes several minutes, or years! The detector was moved to another outlet! It took three of us to shift the big cabinet the  two inches we needed to get the cabinet to fit!

Then while I was sorting I found a display for sock yarn from several seasons ago.  It now has organized some chunky yarn into a nice tidy display?

Now there are some plans to move more things around to makes better space for the felting supplies!

That involves, slat wall paint and a couple of strong backs!

See you soon!

Way back Wednesday!

Many of you know that I have been knitting for a very long time. When I was just out of highschool I began working in the shop just up the street from Soper Creek Yarn.  Rickaby's was a family owned small town department store. It carried a vast array of products: China dinnerware, figurines, business supplies, kitchenware and yarn.  Although I worked in just about every department, near the end of my career there you would find me mostly in the 'wool' department.  It was a busy place and I loved working and helping customers.  

Over the years my collection of patterns has grown and I have a bit of fondness for some of the more vintage patterns. I don't really plan on making any of them I just like the designs and history.

I may be breaking some copyright rules but every Wednesday I will try to post a couple of pictures of some that have made me smile, or perhaps even made.

These three just remind me of how bizarre some of the fashions were in the 70's!

Imagine trying to knit flared pants!

Or hot pants!

The Poodle sweater, to match the Poodle skirt?

That's just the start!

See you Soon!

Summerfest!

Downtown events are always a challenge, I have to admit I have a love/hate relationship with them! When the weather is great they are so much fun. People are happy and we can be outside! 

When the weather is crappy then this happens!

The street was pretty much empty on Friday night at this end of town, a few brave souls made their way to the shop and we were happy to see them.  Fortunately I had posted that we would only be open until 7 pm and I stayed until just after 7:30.

Saturday was so much better! We were able to put all the clearance yarn outside! We made sure we left room for the ladies that planned to come for a Knit in Public event.

We had the most perfect day!  We even got out the community blanket we started last year and found 4 willing knitters to knit on it! 

Thanks everyone that came to visit, for some it was a challenge as when the weather is nice parking can be an issue.  

So far this year we are 2 for 2 for perfect days for events!

See you soon!

Family trumps Yarn!

I hope that not too many of you came into town on Thursday June 11 only to find that we were closed for the day.  It's not very often that the shop is closed within the posted shop hours, believe it or not it's impossible to be at the shop all the time.  

We close for holidays in the summer, a couple of days at Christmas and the Saturday of Labour day weekend.

We started closing that weekend when The Boy went off to University:

We closed this time to do this:

It took 5 years to complete, as he took a co-op program. He worked hard and did well and we are very proud!

Time flew!

Thanks for understanding!

See you tomorrow as we celebrate Summerfest in Bowmanville!

We will be open 10 am - 7 pm on Friday and 10 am - 5 pm on Saturday!

Lemon!

You know that phrase "when life gives you lemons make Lemonade"?

A while back we were given a lemon, a sock sample that was knit so poorly it was not suitable for display.  Even though you could say we received it as a 'free' sample, it still was not going to help us.

The nice people at Regia sell beautiful creative sock yarn.  If the shop owner orders enough a particular yarn you get a free sock for display. It makes sure that they sell a lot of yarn and because there is a sample already knit it makes it easier for the store to show customers how the yarn looks when knit.  (A win, win!)

This is the sock when it arrived:

Last week Betty showed us a sock she was knitting with the yarn at the right gauge!  Beautiful!

I really don't have time to knit a sample, besides it would cost me a ball of yarn to knit a sample sock.  (Just because I own a yarn shop the yarn still costs me money, plus now I am short one ball to sell!)  Then I was inspired.  Rip out the sample and re knit the yarn into another sock, or at least start one.
I cut the toe, ripped back the sock and began.

I had planned to finish it over the 'weekend' but left it at the shop.  Last night I knit as much as I wanted and gave it a quick soak to remove the wrinkles left from knitting with pre knit yarn
 

 

.

That's much better!  Did you notice that I managed to centre the design of the pattern into the sample, totally by accident.

 

See You soon.

 

You know 'that one'

There is a newborn pattern on Ravelry called Puerperium Cardigan.  It's not easy to pronounce so one of the of our local Midwives and I have renamed it: 'you know, that one'.

It's been on my list to knit for a while, as its cute, top down and one 100 gram skein of something lovely will make it.

Last week we received and order from our friends at Fleece Artist and in the box was a yarn called Merino 3/6; 100% superwash merino, knits to a slightly heavy DK.  It would be a nice Canadian replacement for Madelintosh tosh DK.  (We will still get that yarn, but its becoming more difficult to get and the currency exchange is making it more expensive.)

I began knitting the cardigan while watching 'Call the Midwife' and finished last night.  It came into the shop slightly damp from its little soak I gave just before going to bed. 

'The Boy' noted that I am willing to make sweaters for random unknown babies but never for my own children.  Knitting for a human 20 times the size of a newborn is just too much of a commitment at this time!

Hopefully it dries before I leave tonight so I can add the buttons and tie in the loose ends.

See you soon!