Wednesday, April 25, 2007

What's happening at the store?

I remember when I opened the store that I promised that I wouldn't make the blog into a marketing tool for the store. I think that I've held true to that promise. Until today's post. Because today I have to tell you what a wonderful guy my honey is.

You see, he was at the store for the two weeks that I was recovering from my appendectomy. While there, he decided that there were some changes that needed to be made. For instance, see these baskets?
There are 14 of them. Previously, they held all the non-bamboo knitting needles, crochet hooks and circular needles that I owned. It was a mess. When someone came in looking for a specific size, one had to dig through the baskets to find the needles. If I had them. Which I didn't always, because keeping track of what I had was difficult.

In addition, I had one of those twirley-magazine display racks. It had 48 slots for books, and assumed that all books would be approximately 8.5 x 10.5 inches. In a perfect world, this would work. However, in the real world in which I live, only some of the books were the proper size. And I had more than 64 different titles.

So Doug decided that I needed a better way to display my magazines and needles. He scratched his head, sketched, scratched some more, measured, and sketched. He came up with a great idea, and he built it. This is what my pattern books look like today:

He even made allowances for the booklets which aren't 8.5 x 10.5 inches! Isn't he wonderful? I especially LOVE the way he utilized every last bit of space to make the needle display. Now my customers can select their pattern, and pick up the necessary needles without taking more than a step or two.
We discovered that I had lots of needles. Lots and lots of needles. So he built another needle display for me!
I do believe that he must be the greatest and most supportive honey in the world. (If yours is better, don't tell me. I want to continue to live in my fantasy world!)

I was interested in playing around with some more felting ideas, and using some Noro as well as the Nature Wool. So I tried this idea on for size--a mitred square with a cabled handle running around the exterior of the squares. The colours are just wonderful. The Nature Wool really brings out the jewel tones in the Noro.

The big question is what will happen when I felt it. Will everything shrink uniformly? (In my fantasy world, yes!) Will the bag lose its shape? Will the washing machine die? Stay tuned for the answers to these and other questions.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey, Carol,
The bag looks facinating. How big is it before felting? Did you write down the pattern while you knit? When can we see the finished project??
P.S. the displays look wonderful. May just have to make a road trip to Port Perry!