A Rainy Sunday and Blowout Sale Bins!

This past weekend was a bit of a washout. Luckily I had some finishing to do on the ballet wrap cardigan, and the rainy weather forced me to do it. The most time consuming part of the finishing was knitting the 2 ties. Each one was 45" long. Long skinny pieces are not my favorite.

The sweater pieces went together quickly and then it was blocked, and voila! It's on the mannequin in the shop now and a few of our customers have already started it for themselves. I made a 34.5" finished chest size, which called for 6 skeins of Prism. I almost got away with 5 skeins, but needed to go into the 6th for the second tie.

Our weekly special on Saturday was 15% off Lamb's Pride Worsted and Lamb's Pride Bulky, through this Thursday. So I checked orders from home on Sunday. WOW. LOTS. And because it was raining I thought it would be a good idea to kill some time before our matinee (CARS) by pulling some of the orders. So I went in to the shop with my soon to be 7-year-old "helpers" Helen and Sophie. They like to help out when they can (they are in training for after school helping a few years down the road!) and they are pretty good at holding/carrying bags of yarn and writing down order numbers (with my strict supervision so numbers aren't transposed!) They are also REALLY good at:

1. playing with the UPS label machine
2. putting return address stickers on things (mostly themselves)
3. playing with the laser scanner
4. sitting on Betsy's chair in shipping and rolling across the floor (these uneven wood floors!)
5. collecting things from the warehouse floors like rubber bands and paper clips

Unfortunately, those are all things that don't really help to get orders picked any faster. I told them if they did a good job helping (and I meant helping at bag holding), I would let them each have candy at the movies, and that I would give them a dollar. I know it's bribery, but it did work. They still managed to scan a number of non-scannable items with the laser scanner, sticker themselves, collect some rubber bands, and roll around in the chair.

Last week Barb and I put together some great yarns for our local customers. They are just inside the front door of the shop, by the mannequin. The yarns are on blowout - they are just $1-2 a ball! Locals, don't wait! We've already had to refill the bins about 5 times since Saturday. At this price they won't last for long.