White Buffalo Sale Day

Today was a good day at the store. Everyday is a good day at the store. I didn't post on Wed. night as I was too tired. I taught the first knitting lesson. It was a woman who knit 35 years ago and just needed a refresher course. It wasn't long and she was knitting like a pro again. Today was my White Buffalo sale. I think that yarn would do better selling in the fall as it wasn't that big a seller today. I sold a poncho today. It was for a 7 year old and is way too big on her but she loved it anyways. It is made with White Buffalo yarn and has multi coloured eyelash yarn knit with it on some of the stripes. She will grow into it someday.

I also made a hooded baby poncho out of White Buffalo and my Mom's doll Ming was modeling it for the day.

I got a big shipment in yesterday of Sirdar yarn and pattern books. I spent every spare minute today looking at pattern books trying to decide what to knit first.
I also got Carioca from Diamond yarns. This is amazing yarn, so soft and the colours are so rich. I sold lots of that today. I decided that I had to make something out of it so I started a vest for a baby with the red, gold, light blue and dark green.

This yarn is as fluffy as it looks in the picture and so soft. A dream to knit. It is 55% Alpaca, 20% wool and 25% acrylic.
This week I will take down the Buffalo yarn that didn't sell and put up the Sirdar. Anybody need any Buffalo yarn I have a bit to spare.

Had a great day at the store

We had a great day today. I met a lot of new people. Many spinners and weavers as well as knitters. Mom came over and we both learned how to use the program to checkout customers. It was nice to actually be able to use the program that I spent so much time preparing for. It was a rainy horrible day here so I admire all the people who braved the weather to come to the store. I keep forgeting to take my camera to the store but I will remember next weekend when we have our first sale.
I got some knitting done today on the shawl I am making with the hand dyed yarn. It is looking really nice.

Day 2 in business

Well it was a slow day. A few people were in the store this afternoon. A couple of ladies brought their knitting and enjoyed the store for a few hours. It is such a great place to sit and knit. My Mom ran the store this afternoon and I had it tonight. It was completely dead tonight but I really enjoyed it. I sat on the couch and knit. I hardly ever get time to myself so I enjoyed that. Busy would have been better but it wasn't. I decided Wed. evening would be a great time to teach new knitters. I will get that organized soon and start a small class.
Today I ordered Mango Moon recycled silk. It should be here in about 2 weeks. I also ordered magazines and some books for the store. I am going to carry Knitter's. Knit, Handwoven and Spin Off. I ordered a rack to hold all the books and magazines too.
This Saturday we aren't going to do anything special but the next Saturday we are going to have a sale on White Buffalo yarn. I have lots and a big variety of colours. That should be fun. I made my daughter a poncho out of Buffalo yarn, to keep her pregnant tummy warm this winter. It turned out really cute so we are offering the pattern, plus a child's poncho and a toddlers hooded poncho. I will post pictures of the children's one once they are done. Here is my daughter in her poncho.

The store opening went great

It went great. I had lots of happy customers today. Everyone seemed to like the store and were glad to have a yarn store again on Quadra. A few people came over from Campbell River to see the store. That was great. Brenda came. It was nice to see her again.
I have a lot of pictures so here goes.

This is a picture of Mom in the store just before we opened.

Mom knitting on the couch just before we opened


Here is all the sock yarn


Our yarn store just before it opened.

Within a minute of opening we had our first customers.

Brenda arrived second

Brenda is getting ready to shop.

Next some friends from the Machine Knitter's Club arrived


The day was full of people coming and going. We had a few moments to just sit around and knit and I finally got to look at some of the new patterns I got in.


My Mom and my Sister Judy sitting and knitting for a few minutes.

This is me relaxing a bit and knitting.

It was a great day and I am exhausted. I can't wait to open again on Wed. I love my new yarn store.

Ready or Not We are Opening tomorrow

I feel better about it all today. I got my sign today, figured out the debit, visa machine and it is all programmed. My Mom bought some yarn tonight and we used both the debit and the mastercard and it worked great. I still didn't get the cash drawer or receipt printer so I am going to take my home printer over for tomorrow. I need to print receipts. I will get some pictures tomorrow once the sign is up and just before we open. Now back to work. Don't think I'll get much sleep tonight.

A bit of Panic is setting in

Well it is 2 days to opening and I am panicing a bit. I don't usually panic about anything but this is doing it to me. Here is what is going wrong so far. I haven't had time to set up or figure out the Debit/ Visa machine. My cash drawer and receipt printer haven't come yet. So all my high tech gadgets and I will be taking checks,cash, Visa and Mastercard on the manual machine and putting it all in a margarine container. I will have to give written receipts and use a calculator. How crude. Maybe no one will buy anything. Maybe no one will come.

The store looks great. The shelves are FULL. The bins are overflowing and everything is inventoried. Tomorrow we are going to put in the front counter, hang the sign, clean the store etc. etc. etc.

I think I have Opening a new store jitters. I think I need to go and knit.

Made good progress today

We got a lot done today. The lighting is finished and looks great. All the sock yarn is inventoried and nearly all in the shelves. The only yarn left to inventory is my vast collection of eyelash and novelty yarns. Mom amd Dad came over and helped again tonight. We got a lot done. I am not posting anymore pictures until the store is cleaned up and ready to open. No more before shots.
I actually got some knitting done on Sunday. I started a pair of Silk socks by hand. I was ticketing the yarn and couldn't help myself. That is such beautiful yarn. I am making the pattern in the Silk Journal with the multi colours. I will post a picture soon. I just got new glasses yesterday and that sure helps the knitting. I can actually see the little stitches in sock knitting.

It's starting to come together

Finally I am feeling like I will get everything done before the opening next weekend. I got a lot more done today. I am still not done the sock yarn but a lot closer.. I took a picture of all the sock yarn that is in the shelves so far.

Here is a picture of the patterns and needles so far.

I put a sign up in the window today announcing that the store will be open next weekend. I had one excited visitor today who wanted a preview look at the store.It was fun.

I have decided that on our opening day 10% of all the sale will get donated to the Red Cross for the Tsunami funds. I was sitting in the store doing inventory and looking out at the view and I thought if we had a Tsunami that big happen here it would wipe out my house and store.
I am tired tonight and am going to take tomorrow off and sit and knit. Shouldn't work on the Sabbath anyways.

Yarn Store chaos

The picture I hoped to post tonight didn't happen(my nice sock yarn shelves). I got a shipment of yarn today and what a mess we are in. Mom and Dad came over and helped a lot and we made a lot of progress. Here is a picture of my Mom and Dad, They are sure great helpers. Hard work, no pay and yet they still smile.

This is Yarn Store Chaos. I assume all new yarn stores look this bad at some time in their creation. I have just never witnessed it before. I am posting this picture just so you can appreciate your LYS more. What a mess. We actually tamed this mess before I left tonight I just didn't have time to get a picture. Every picture I post from here on will be better.

My mom is deciding where to put what colour. Big job.

Well I am not worried anymore that I won't have enough yarn to fill the shelves. I have an over abundance of yarn. My opening date will be Jan. 15th. I am certainly looking forward to that day.

Still buried in Sock yarn

I got a lot more inventory done tonight but I still didn't finish the sock yarn. I got all the Opal done but the hand dyed and the Batik. Tomorrow I will inventory the Regia silk and the Patons Kroy and finish the Opal. I will do the Regia next and then I will be done sock yarn. My shelves are getting full. My husband got the track lighting in today and it looks great. Tomorrow I hope to get the sock yarn finished and take a picture of my wall of sock yarn.
I went weak tonight and decided to knit myself some socks from the Lollipop 1009. I wound it and will make them tomorrow night. I love that colour.

Sock yarn Central

I have so much sock yarn and it is hard to inventory. I spent all of Saturday doing that. My Brother and his family were visiting and they helped a lot. It was fun. All of the Opal yarn ( Magic, Lollipop, Elements, Batik, Hand dyed etc and every colour) has the same Barcode so to scan it into the computer I have to change the description for each colour of Opal and use the same SKU. Lots of fun. Once its done it will make the inventory easy to track but for now it is complicated. I hope to finish the sock yarn today. I also have to change my eBay templates for a lot of my sock yarn so I can post it tomorrow. I still don't know why eBay won't let me use the templates I already made. I have some new Noro yarn to list tomorrow too. Lots of work so I better get at it.
Once I get my sock yarn on the shelves I will post a picture.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year and I am hoping this will be a great year. It is starting off exciting with the yarn store getting ready to open. It should open in 2 weeks if all goes well.
Here are some pictures I took yesterday

This is the new light we bought for the store. I love it. This will be over the front desk.

This is the bassinet my Mom bought for our new Grandbaby. We thought if we fill it with baby yarn and it will inspire some great sweaters and shawls. We filled it with Sirdar Baby Care DK and Sirdar Domino.

The store partly stocked. Its a good start. I am hoping to get all the sock yarn inventoried and put on the shelves today. I have so much sock yarn so that should be fun

Another busy day

My Mom and Dad came over and helped me with the inventory again. Things were going really well until Mom ran out of price tags in the new pricing gun. It took me over an hour to figure out how to load the gun with more tickets. I was trying to do it very complicated and it was actually very simple. I must have wasted 1/2 a roll of tickets oh well live and learn. I got a lot more yarn in the shelves. I am such a hopeless yarn addict. Everything I put in the shelves I wanted to make something out of. I will probably go broke with this yarn store because I will knit everything in the store. I sold my 1st ball of yarn in the store today. A young girl came by and asked if she could buy some yarn for a hat. We said sure and let her in. Excused the mess and then she shopped. It was fun. She ended up buying Gjestal Naturgarn in black. Should make a nice hat.
Another person stopped by and bought a couple of scarves from me. It was a good days business for a closed store.
My Mom bought a baby basket for our new Grand baby due in June so we figured until June we will fill it with Sirdar Baby yarn. It looks really cute. This should inspire a few baby outfits.

Lots of work done today

I got lots done in the store today and yesterday. So far we have some of the new lights up and 1 of the slatwalls. Also we got the couch moved over. Today I got a lot of the inventory done and my Mom and Dad helped ticket things and stock the shelves. We are probably 1/4 done the inventory. Lots more to do. soon I will take some pictures and post them.
I put a small auction on eBay this week as they won't let me list some of my yarns. They are saying I have to edit my listings so I only got about 1/2 the usual inventory on eBay. I was able to get all my new yarn listed. I might have to relist all my old yarn over again. I am still waiting to hear back from eBay as to what is wrong with my listings.
As for knitting I have the back , 1 front and sleeve done on a baby sweater.
I am off to knit right now. I need some down time.

Started Inventory

I have a new program for inventory and I started to put it all in my computer yesterday. A real learning curve but I think it is working right. My huband got home last night with all the slatwall supplies. I am hoping to get some of it up and painted today.
I actually have some yarn in the store. I got 2 huge boxes delivered yesterday from Diamond yarns so I just took them to the store. I have completely run out of room at the house. Once its all in inventory it can go in the shelves.
Tomorrow - Christmas day and I will take the day off. My parents and sister are coming and I'm sure we will have a nice day. I need a day off.
Merry Christmas everyone.

Another fun day planning for the store.

Today was a really busy day. I had to meet with the bank and get set up to take Visa and debit. I also met with the accountant about setting up books for the store. I was planning on cleaning the whole store tonight but I am too tired. I got some of the bins cleaned out and called it a day. I am going to sit and knit the rest of the evening. Hope there is a good Christmas movie or special on TV that would be perfect.
Tomorrow I am going to wash the windows and clean the rest of the bins, my husband is down in Vancouver and tomorrow he will be picking up the slatwalls and all the hooks for the needles and book racks for the patterns.

The inside of the store. We don't have the lighting in yet, so it will be brighter when all the lights are in. . Also in the picture is my son and his companion dog. 

Inside the store. All my boxes waiting to get filled with yarn. The dog is Bella my son's companion dog. 

The front of the store, the bench is for sitting on and knitting on nice sunny days 

This is the view from inside the store