Support your local yarn shop? Maybe not!

I love going to yarn shops. I love yarn. I love spinning yarn. I love good yarn. I love store owners who treat me with respect. I have quite a few knitting friends and I teach classes occasionally.

This is a tale of poor customer service by a local yarn store. This may be one reason why customers are buying off the Internet. Anyway …

When one of my good friends asked for my help in selecting yarn to make a sweater for a new grandchild I was honored to help. She wanted something nice for a gift but as she had only ever bought less expensive stuff from the discount stores, she really didn’t know what to buy.

Road Trip.
We drove about 20 miles on a Friday afternoon to visit one of the stores where I have bought yarn in the past –not just once, but often when I needed something new and wasn’t spinning it.

When we arrived my friend was really impressed with all the different choices and colors. And was eager to get started looking for “the” yarn.

We are both over 50. And, because we had just driven a half an hour she wanted to visit the ladies’ room.  So, we asked to use the restroom and were told by the owner “WE DO NOT HAVE PUBLIC RESTROOMS”.

I was in shock. I have never been denied use of a restroom at a place that was supposedly a good quality store.  I never thought this store would be so unaccommodating,  or I never would have brought my friend there.  Clearly we didn’t look like street people or just those hanging out on the sidewalk. We were there to buy. Well, we didn’t buy anything there.

We went to a Friendly’s - bought ice cream  and Coffee and used their restroom. Then we drove 30 miles the other way and went to another of my favorite LYS (whose restroom was clearly visible).

She looked in awe. Bought $60 worth of stash and a pattern.

Note to store owners: The Internet has just about every color, manufacturer and very good sale prices. If you are not going to treat us well - we will buy elsewhere.
I will not recommend this store to anyone else.  And, I will not go back.

And, since I have told friends of this incident, they have mentioned other places where they have been treated poorly, snootily, or ignored, and where the shopkeeper was more interested in working on the computer than helping, etc. 

Anyway I am happy to say that 99% of the shops in and near Rochester, NY are excellent and visitors and newbies and experienced alike are treated very well. Thank you. You will get my business.

Quilting, etc.

The new issue of Piecework Magazine has two tatting articles in it. One of them looks pretty simple (picture left), so I am going to start  it this afternoon at our Monday Afternoon Get-together with my creative friends (We are trying to decide on a name for our group).

Doesn't this look cool.
The shuttles came from Handy Hands.  I scanned the picture from the Piecework  May/June magazine.


Piecework has had some really interesting articles in it lately, so I've renewed my subscription so I don't have to drive all the way to Fairport (about 20 minutes from here) to get a copy at Borders.  I'll miss getting to Borders, though.

As promised here are pictures of two of the quilt blocks I've been working on.  In these, I was auditioning the turquoise color for the joining strips.   I now have all six of the blocks joined and they look pretty cool.  As soon as I can find a place to lay it out to take a picture of the whole thing, I'll post it.

  

My daughter, Jen,  is now a Certified All Breed Dog Groomer and she is working at  A Dog's Dream doggy day spa in Pittsford, NY.  I surprised her at work on Friday.  The dog's name is Rosie and she was Jen's first client.  It seems Rosie is used to having her picture taken because every time I pointed the camera at her, she looked right into it.  

  
Anyway,  Jen has always loved dogs and animals and I am sure she will do well.

Time flies .... I can't believe it's April

   

I have been practicing tatting and have two finished projects to show.  So far, I can only do rings and chains, so I have to look for easy patterns.  I don't think I've made too much of a mess of these.

The first is a heart from the Handy Hands site that I started at our meeting on Saturday ... we gab so much I didn't get far, but I chipped away at it and finished yesterday. I used Lizbeth "Tutti Fruiti" and really like the colors.

The other is Betsy Evans' Shamrock that she posted to the HBT site on 3/14 with no pictures.  So I followed the instructions and made it for my teacher, Sherry Townsend.  I gave to her on Saturday at our meeting.   The variegated thread is DMC and the solid is a Lizbeth sample Sherry started us out with for class.

We are now going to meet the first Saturday of every month at the Liberty Cottage store in Canandaigua. The store will soon be carrying tatting threads and accessories.  What fun!

... and it only took me all afternoon!

My granddaughter is now seven.  When she was born, her mom asked me if I would tat the lace for the trim on her christening gown -  I took a deep breath and wondered (being new to tatting then) how long it would take me and could I do it in time.  I said yes and decided to do a foot a night until it was done.  Below is a sample of the lace.

Because they live about 600 miles from here & I live in upstate NY I wanted to be sure she liked what I did - so here is the sample I sent down. It is definitely beginner's lace, but it worked.  

I finished on time, and here is the picture of my beautiful granddaughter in her christening gown with the lace border on the hem.  

Now seven years or so later, I am starting all over again -  and here is a picture of the flower it took me all afternoon to do.  (After several emails to my instructor, Sherry Townsend - Celtic DreamWeaver, for help).  

What fun.  Hopefully, I will get better.  

    

The days March on.....

My friend Cyn-d and I have been quilting on Mondays.  We took a trip down to Material Rewards last week for some background fabric for her work in progress.  We are both putting together our own versions of a Cottage Beauty quilt.  Hers is the nine block version (large wall hanging for her LR), mine will be only six and only a small wall hanging size..

These are some of her unfinished blocks pinned onto a design wall for placement.  They will be quite stunning when done.   I'll take some pictures of mine soon.  My colors are a little different.

I've also been taking a class on tatting on Saturday mornings.  I first learned to tat about 8 years ago but haven't been practising and I forgot a few things.  So, I signed up for the class and lo and behold when I walked in, the teacher, Sherry Townsend, is the same woman who taught the class I previously took.

Sherry is very talented and has a blog at http://celticdreamweave.blogspot.com where you can see her work.

Here is a picture of our class in progress  from Sherry's blogspot.  I'm the one in pink with my mouth open in awe ....

The Olympic Socks are Finished ....

Just finished tonite at about 6:30 ..... These are cool and I can't wait to wear them.  The color is really, really gold.  I even have some yarn left over.

And now I have to get back to other unfinished projects.

A leg up ....

First leg is done, turned the heel and coming into the finish on Sock #1.  I think I will really finish this on time.  Cool.

I realized as I was spinning that this was more Merino than anything else.  So, for the heel I decided to use a mohair blend hoping that the heel would last longer than it would if it were just Merino - which I have had to replace on a few other pairs.

Sock Wizard helped me create the pattern.  This is a really great program.  Just enter the gauge you want and needle size and the dimensions and it creates the pattern.  You decide on what stitch patterns you want to use.