Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Local Yarn Store - Goes out of Business

One of the local stores has a split personality.  Downstairs is a store dedicated to all things embroidery; patterns, floss, lights, frames (you get the idea).  Upstairs was a lovely yarn store for those among us who knit and crochet.  This store was a pricey but had lovely things to look at and was well organized.  It was not the kind of place you can sit and knit and drink a cuppa coffee like my two favorite places (Blazing Needles in Salt Lake and Knit Wits in Sedona), but a good place to find that special yarn.

Well as the economic turn of events would have it... the owners decided to discontinue the yarn store part of the business and concentrate on the embroidery part.  This is sad  news in some way... but brought out a feeding frenzy of yarn buyers!  Word got out on the psychic yarn buying news that this store was going out of business, and the first week the yarn was 70% off!  Now, I have a stash of yarn, there is no NEED for anything.  In fact I recently bought more storage to keep my yarn organized; but I thought I would go check it out.  (of course)

At 70% off the prices of the really nice yarn were in my budget.  I found some lovely silk and wool blend that I'll be able to use someday, and some baby alpaca that I'll use for handwarmers.  It was a bit overwhelming shopping without a project in mind, but after an hour I managed to escape spending only a bit over a hundred dollars (discounted price). 

While shopping I saw three friends who also got the psychic newsflash... then while checking out  I found 2 more people I knew.  One was a lady who had joined my bookclub the week before who is a snow bird from Chicago (she had come down to get away from the cold weather, but had left all her knitting supplies behind - she didn't know if she could take her stuff on the plane!) I had invited her to find the store! No knitter should go without yarn and kneedles.  It's inhuman!!!  Anyway, the other was another member of my knitting group.  Ahead of me in the check out was a guy who it seems had also been there the day before, buying for his wife's stash as a present.  Now that is true love!  The cost of his purchase before the discount???? $4,600.00  -- after $1,200.00.  

One of the ladies who had come to the shop because I had passed on the info, was a brand new knitter.  She didn't even have a stash -- but she does now!  She's been back at least 2 more times.  The store had a "fill the bag" day for $100.00 then a few days later the "fill the bag" day was $50.00 a few days later "fill the bag" for $25.00.  You can see how the buying frenzy exacerbates! 

Yesterday, one of the ladies at my local libary came to ask me about spare knitting needles.  Our library knitting group accepts donations of yarn and knitting needles that we use to help new knitters get started.  I went into the kneedle stash to get her some starter needles.   She doesn't knit (yet), but it seems that she had already been to the going out of business yarn sale ---- gotten some yarn to get started and was going back to get needles... but wanted something to start learning to knit with. 

The yarn sisterhood continuing to expand. One of us has learned that she loved making yarn animals for kids, one is getting certified as a crochet teacher.  Some of us just love touching the new yarn we have.  Our stashes are all bursting at the seams now.  I am sad to see the store close down, but glad that the lovely yarns have been spread out all over the community.  Helping new and experienced yarn people all over town!

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