Thursday, August 30, 2007

Out of Jail!

Today was the Jail & Bail thing for raising money for March of Dimes. I had a great time! Met and saw some interesting people, and most important of all, raised $520 - woohoo! Thank you so much to all who donated, it is very much appreciated.

The horizontal stripes are such a nice fashion statement... I was trying to look pitiful, but kept laughing, which sort of spoils the effect. I still don't know who turned me in. You can still donate money to this good cause at

http://jailandbail.marchofdimes.com/woolworks

I had more offline donations than online donation, in case you're counting.

Okay, I think it's time to go home. I even got the ordering done today in spite of being in jail!
Diane

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

We dream in numbers...

Inventory is OVER, hallelujah! Everybody's head is spinning and chock full of numbers. Gah. We're such a great team - every year we come up with terrific process improvements that will make it go smoother next time.

Some of the good things about inventory is the chance it gives us to move things around where they belong, and find things in odd and strange places (no wonder we couldn't find that, huh...). It's a monumental task and I have so much appreciation for the extra effort that everybody puts in, and patience that everyone has with each other, with us for being out of communication, and just for the entire process. THANK YOU!

I pulled a fast one on our team. Here I am appreciating and thanking my fabulous employees and then I turn on them! I made them get their picture taken as a group for the catalogs. You never heard so much whining. Okay, okay, it IS inventory and we'd all been working since 7 am and were not exactly dressed to the nines.... So - let it be known by one and all that when you look at that picture in the back of the catalog that we're all FAR more glamourous in real life. :)

Diane

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Inventory

We've decided we'd try to do inventory a little differently this year, and get it all done in 3 days - making us only be closed for two days (Monday and Tuesday next week). We're going to be working our tails off, so wish us luck!

The catalog is still in process! It's going to be amazing, can't wait for you to see all the new yarns we've got coming in. I'm practically salivating as we open each box, diving in to see the colors and feel the yarns. Ahhhh, I love my job, I love my job, I love my job! :)

Pictures coming.... keeping way too busy with all too many things. We're a little short handed around here, and trying to do something about that too.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Keep Me Out of Jail!

I've agreed to help raise money for the March of Dimes through their "Jail & Bail" program. The March of Dimes does good work helping premature babies, etc., and it sounded like fun to me. If you'd like to help out, please check out

http://jailandbail.marchofdimes.com/woolworks

It's tax deductible! I'm supposed to go to jail on August 30th, and wouldn't it be cool if the local yarn store blew the record for donations?? HA, wouldn't that just blow their minds? And in a good way. We like it when everybody wins.

THANKS!

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The best laid plans of socks and sales

If you got the email about the sock yarn sale, and wonder why the heck we didn't get the prices updated on the website, it's because the power went out! Much of, if not all of Carlton was without power yesterday afternoon, just as Tim, our Wonder Web Guy, was putting the finishing touches on the sock yarn page and getting ready to upload it. POW, surge surge surge, lights go out.... (Expletives deleted). The email was already in the hands of the folks that send it out for us (Benchmark Email), and we couldn't update the website! And the power company said it would be about 7 pm before it was back up, so we all went home and hoped you would all be understanding and forgive us for not showing sale prices. Sigh... It's updated now! and the Maizy and Soxx Appeal is up too, yum! Cathy is knitting up some Maizy and says it feels like chenille, though it's not at all fuzzy, it just somehow feels plush like chenille. Interesting!

Anyway, enjoy the 20% off all sock yarns through the end of day on Thursday! wheeeee!

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Paradise Found

I found the perfect project, and the perfect yarn, and have started, hurray!
The yarn is Balance from the good folks at O-Wool. It's 50/50 organic wool and organic cotton and it's YUMMY. I adore this yarn. Knitters Review did a great review of it too, and had very nice things to say about it. And the pattern is very straight forward, very easy - just what I wanted. And I know I'll wear this sweater a LOT, short sleeved sweaters are perfect for Oregon weather. I used to have a short sleeved sweatshirt which was also perfect, but I can't find those anywhere. If someone knows a source, I'd sure love to know about it.

Friday, August 3, 2007

Stress

Everybody has stress in their lives, right? Some events are of course far more stressfull than others. Right now we're all dealing with a pretty big stress that I probably can't actually talk directly about just now. If you call in and we're distracted, we have an excuse, and probably I'll be able to say more about it later.

But I was thinking about how good knitting and spinning and weaving are for stress relief. Course, not all projects work for stress relief - some of them add to it in their own wicked and conniving ways. Last night I was wishing for miles of stockinette stitch to comfort me. All I have are some socks that are each at a stage that is not mindless, but need attention... I also have a couple of sweaters that need attention... one that's been on the needles so long it's an Epic Sweater - like they say in that big movie voice - "Four Years In The Making!" (and you can even hear the capitalization in the voice). My sweater, alas, is not a mere 4 years in the making. I started it when I moved to Oregon. In 1994. Ahem. It's got some cables and doodads going on, and it gets set aside more often than it gets worked on (yeah, no kidding), so I have to concentrate to figure out where the heck I am, let alone what I'm supposed to be doing. The body is done, and I'm working on both sleeves at once - well, at least occassionally anyway. Sigh. But it's not a comfort sweater for right now.

I filled out a questionnaire once for somebody that was writing a paper about knitting and stress relief. Like most questionnaires, the multiple choice options weren't quite right. I can't remember exactly what the wording was on them, but I remember writing in that I like to use knitting to focus my mind so that I CAN think about whatever is stressing me out, rather than using it to distract away from my problems.

Last night I stupidly used TV to distract, stayed up entirely too late thinking that then I'd be good and tired and would just fall asleep. TV distracted wonderfully! But then my brain needed to process that problem I'd tried to tuck away in a corner, so ZAP! There go the thoughts, skittering about, kicking each other into a fast rotation around my mind. Oh well, so much for sleep. I think I'll locate something requiring miles of stockinette, so I can sort it all out instead of trying to ignore it.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Stitch n Pitch, and farewell

Karen had a fabulous time at the Mariners Stitch n Pitch last week. She even got interviewed by the FSN guy! I didn't manage to catch the game, so I didn't get to see her, durn it. He asked what she was knitting, which was a dish cloth (Karen loves dish cloths!), but he said he didn't DO dishes, and turned to another knitter! Phooey on him. Anyway, a big big thanks to the folks at Lantern Moon for putting this together for all the Portland area knitters!

Yesterday we big a sad goodbye to Janice, who is leaving us to spend quality time with her grandson Kaleb. Luckily she's nearby and promises to check in with us and bring Kaleb along with her. I appreciated Janice for her calm under fire when customers occassionally get cranky on the phone, her taking the long view when bad days happen, her fabulous purple fingernails, her monster mask stories, and the myriad things that make Janice Janice. We'll miss you!

Cathy has a finished sock to show, but the colors are not even remotely true, so I'm gonna hold off on that one....