Time for Inventory

We'll be closed next week for inventory. Groan. I was on a panel discussion at DKC last year http://www.downtownknitcollective.ca/dkc_prevmeetings.html (scroll down to the May 2007 meeting to read about it). There were four of us who work "in the industry". One question was "What is the worst part of your job?" My response was taking inventory. People seemed genuinely surprised by my answer, except for one of the panel members who used to work for another distributor. One of the members asked why and I replied that it's hot and dirty. It's amazing how filthy some of the bags can get. Everybody wears their oldest clothes. We usually go through a full bottle of hand soap in the ladies room while we're working. We work in pairs, one person counts and the other records. I'm not good with ladders so I'll count the lower shelves and my partner counts the higher one. I have a feeling it might take a bit longer this year. We have a lot more product, both yarn and gift, than last year. We count everything once, then a different pair will re-count it. That normally takes two or three days. Once that is done, we go back into the office and start modifying the various inventory items to make sure we have the correct quantities in the system.

I've been working on the website again this week. I got all the Lana Grossa wool sock yarns updated. You can see the page here:
http://www.estelledesigns.ca/images/Lana%20Grossa/Lana%20Grossa%20Yarns.htm

I've also put images on several of the pages. Karen Lawrence of Sheepstrings in Huntsville designed a cute shawl/shrug our of our Superfine Alpaca Paint so I put a picture on that page.
http://www.estelledesigns.ca/images/Estelle/EstelleAlpaca%20Paint.htm

I had a nice compliment from my friend Joan today. She sent me an email to say she really enjoys my blog, it makes her feel like we've just been talking when we haven't. She says that for people who don't know me I write exactly the way I talk.

I haven't been doing very much personal knitting this week, a little bit on a sock but that's all. I've testing a cotton/silk blend. It is 70% Pima Cotton, 30% Silk. It's nice but I'm not that crazy about it. Yesterday Chris brought in a sample ball of a hand dyed pure wool that would felt. It's a little scratchy and it's too thin. We're going to ask the mill in Italy to make up some that would be closer to a worsted weight.

My friend Susan and I are going to the ballet on Sunday. We're seeing Cinderella. I was telling Chris that we were seeing it and he called me a princess! And then he said he really enjoyed calling me that. Brother!

I think this weekend we're going to get the summer furniture out of the crawl space. We have wrought iron chairs and a table for the front veranda. It really needs painting so my father bought a couple of cans of spray paint. Our front gate also needs painting so hopefully the weather will cooperate.

Now that all the inventory has been quarantined in warehouse, I have the urge to go shopping back there. Oh well, it will have to wait for a week. It's not as if I don't have enough in my stash already:)

Have a great weekend and happy knitting!

Susan

Friday Again

It's Friday again. Considering this was a short week it has felt very long. Everyone seems to be dragging today. I think the fact that is has been so cold this week has added to it. I'm getting tired of wearing my winter clothes. I want to break out the summer dresses and sandals. It's going to be a bit warmer this weekend but still not hot. I'll probably be writing in a month about how hot it is:)

We had a visit on Wednesday from Vogue Knitting. I understand they are doing a piece in the next issue about Canada. They had been at Needful and they sent them to us. I didn't get to meet them unfortunately but they spent several hours in Chris's office.

I'm just about finished updating the website. It hasn't been this current for quite a while. Once you get into a rhythm it really doesn't take too long. This afternoon I finished up all the commission files for our reps and got them in the mail. They'll all be happy campers next week when they arrive.

I knit a test swatch this week out of a 70% Cotton, 30% Silk blend. It is very nice, a crepe sort of texture, but I don't think we're going to go with it. I'm now going to do a swatch of the same blend but a lighter weight. I think it will be a DK but we'll see. I've been working on a multi-directional scarf out of our Superfine Alpaca. It's looking really nice and will only take two skeins.

Karen from Sheepstrings in Huntsville stopped in this afternoon to pick up an order of Cascade 220 she emailed me yesterday. She and her husband had to take their dog to a specialist in Newmarket so she decided to pick her order up. I'm going to the cottage in June so I'll stop in and see her. She really liked the new colours of Arequipa and Cadenza so I gave her a couple of sample skeins to play with.

We're going to the garden centre after work today to get plants for the garden. It should be a good weekend for gardening. I think we're going to try a few different plants this year just to be different. I'll post a picture once it's done.

I bought a dress for the wedding last Friday at my hair dressers. They sell great clothes there. It is black and cream and very 60s looking. I'm very pleased with it, fits perfectly.

Well I'm of to the garden centre. Have a good weekend.

Happy Knitting!
Susan

Two Reviews

I saw We Will Rock You on Saturday and it rocked! It was so much fun. The plot was totally silly and you could see they actors weren't even try to take themselves seriously. The band they had was fabulous. I ended up buy Queen's Greatest Hits CD. We had lunch at the Senator on Victoria St beforehand. It looks the same as it always had. Lunch was delicious and reasonable.

Last night I saw something diametrically opposed to WWRY, My Fair Lady. It's playing at the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts. It was absolutely wonderful. The woman that played Eliza had an amazing voice. When I looked at the programme and saw who was playing Henry Higgins I recognized the name, Christopher Casanove. He played in many Masterpiece Theatre productions back in the 80s, most notably The Duchess of Duke Street. He did a really good job as Higgins. The costumes and sets were wonderful. The orchestra was great and of course the songs in My Fair Lady are so wonderfully recognizable. I almost elbowed the woman sitting next to me when she started humming along. Fortunately she caught herself. We had a great dinner at an Italian restaurant on Yonge St. It was a late night though. We didn't get home until 11:40 pm which is way past my bedtime. Oh well, it the Victoria Day weekend so three days to relax.

I've been busy updating the website again this week. I've updated the Cascade and King Cole pages. I'm hoping to get a pdf file from King Cole with all their patterns on it so I can put that on also. I think I'll tackle Scheepjes next.

I'm working on a scarf that is worked in different direction out of the new Superfine Alpaca. I'll be playing with that this weekend. I'll also be making sure that the decreases at the top of an Alpaca hat are correct. This is not my design but I'm having trouble interpreting the instructions so I'll have to knit the top of the crown myself and re-word the pattern.

We've decided to hold off planting the garden until next weekend. The weather isn't supposed to be great this weekend. Maybe we'll get some of the summer furniture out though. It's always a challenge to get the doors opened and closed before the cat tries to escape. My cat, Toby, is pretty old (I think he is 18 but he was a stray when I got him so it's hard to be certain) and doesn't move as quickly as he used to.

I'm meeting my friend Cynthea at Bayview Village tomorrow after she's through at the Textile Museum. I'm hoping to look for a dress for my god daughter's wedding. I have six weeks so there's no panic.

I'm getting my hair cut after work. I'd better go, we're closing at 3 today.

Have a good weekend.
Happy Knitting!
Susan

Open House

We had an Open House here last weekend (only for yarn store owners, not the general public). We have one twice a year to launch the Autumn and Spring collections. It's an opportunity for store owners to get a preview of the collections. Sunday was the busiest day although we did have quite a few stores come on Monday also. Chris came up with the brilliant idea to set up an concept shop at the back of the warehouse. We used some of the booth panels we use at the Gift Show (that's a whole other story). We displayed the top 50 colours of Cascade 220, our Cloud Cotton, the new Superfine Alpaca Paints, Cadenza, Arequipa and the new Arequipa solids.

The response to our new qualities was excellent. We are now offering Eco Bamboo knitting needles and crochet hooks. We're only doing straight needles and double points for now. I wasn't happy with the join on the circular samples we were sent. It was fine on the larger sizes but not on the smaller ones. Apparently the supplier has invested in new machinery to fix the problem. I hope so as I don't use straight needles, just circular and double point.

Mrs. King finished my shawl so it was on display and people loved it.

I've been busy the past couple of weeks working on our website. I've got Lang all updated with pages ready to load in the near future. Today I finished the Cascade page. I did a bit of work on the Lana Grossa sock page but I've got more to do on it. They've got 3 new sock qualities to go on.

The award ceremony I attended last Friday went very well although the drive down was horrible. It started to rain very heavily just past Trenton to the point that visibility was terrible. Add to that the big transports passing and rain spraying up from that, it was scary. The drive back was much better. Here's shot of me handing out an award. The girl in the picture told me that my brother was her favorite teacher ever.

The reactions of some of the kids were pretty cute, especially the kindergarten ones. One little girl was so upset about having her name called she literally clung to her father's leg and was sobbing. On the opposite end of the spectrum one cute little guy in a yellow dress shirt and tie jumped up in the air when his name was called.


I had an email this afternoon from our sales rep Diane in Victoria. She'd been to see The Button and Needlework Boutique in Victoria. The owners had knit this really adorable doggy sweater out of Jo Sharp Alpaca Kid Lustre for her chihuahua. Too cute.

I'm going to see We Will Rock You tomorrow. Should be good. Everyone that's seen said it was fantastic, not much plot but the music is great.


My father called me yesterday afternoon to tell me that a pair of Canada Geese and 7 goslings were walking along the fence at the end of the backyard. I wonder how they got there??? He said the goslings were tiny so they couldn't have flown there. In another ornithological anomoly, we have a pair of red winged black birds at our back yard feeder. I always thought they were marsh dwelling birds. Strange. I must say we are getting a really wide variety of birds at the back feeder this year: cardinals, blue jays, brown headed cow birds, both the red and white breasted nuthatches, purple finches, gold finches, grackles, doves, chickadees and of course sparrows. It's quite entertaining.


Well, I'd better go. Have a good weekend.


Happy knitting!
Susan

The Frolic part 2

The Frolic was a success although I understand attendance was down. The fact that the TTC went out on strike at midnight Friday took the entire city by surprise. They only gave 48 minutes notice. Quite a few people got stranded downtown. I've spoken to several of the vendors this week and they all felt that it was a roaring success.

We had 2 US vendors for the first time. I talked to both of them. Rebecca from Busy Hands in Ann Arbor were comparing notes on one company that we deal with (who will remain nameless) and discovered that they were just a difficult south of the border as they are north of the border.

I'm taking tomorrow off. My father and I are driving to Gananoque to attend an award ceremony. My younger brother died very suddenly in 2005. The school he taught at established an award in his memory. The criteria is the the recipient must share their talents with humility. This is what they felt my brother did. So we go every year and I present the award to one student in each classroom. The look of joy and excitement on the younger students faces is wonderful to see. Makes you realize how old and jaded you are (not really).

Mrs. King has finished the shawl I gave her last week. I'm going to take it home and block it. I can see where I stopped and she started. Nothing that blocking the heck out of it won't fix.

Lynn from Mary's Yarns finished a baby blanket and baby sweater and hat out of Cloud Cotton. I have it hanging up on display. The ladies in the office went crazy for the set. It really is lovely. She was in a bit of a rush to finish it and didn't have a button so I told her I'd go through my button box and bring one in.
I finished the neck warmer thing out of Superfine Alpaca. I'm quite pleased with it, especially the fact that I did it out of one skein. Now to right up the patterns for both of them. One of my least favourite things. I find I get so close to the pattern that it's easy to miss small errors or omissions.

Well, I'm off to Scarborough Town Centre to buy a wedding shower gift for my god-daughter. She's getting married at the end of June and is registered at the Bay. Maybe I should look for a dress while I'm down there. Having just paid over $1300 in income tax (ouch!) I have to hope they have a good sale on.

Have a good weekend and happy knitting.

Susan