Opening date!

At first I was targeting 15 June to open the shop. Seemed like a reasonable date, allowing me time to get up and running. Then I moved it to 27 May, thinking the Memorial Day weekend might be a good time to be open. Then I found out about the annual River Park Neighborhood sidewalk sale on 22 May, and decided I couldn't pass up that much foot traffic. But since that is likely to be a very busy day, I don't want it to be my first day without a "shake down" run, so now the opening date is (drum roll please) 19 May 2010!

This will be a "soft" opening - no grand opening signs, no door prizes. I will advertise in the local paper, just to let people know, and will otherwise rely on word-of-mouth. I think I will do a grand opening Memorial Day weekend, but that is subject to change.

This past Saturday I went to an alpaca shearing down around North Liberty. I spoke with the owner and she is willing to sell me alpaca yarn. Even better, she is willing to bring an alpaca to the sidewalk sale, so people can meet one of the animals the yarn came from. I am psyched to have a local alpaca source!

This morning I am meeting with the Malabrigo rep, tomorrow with the Berroco rep. Yesterday I got a delivery of 5 book racks. Bob opened one up and lo and behold - they are for paperbacks. Most of the knitting books won't fit in these racks, and even worse, they are flimsy and cheap looking. So back they go - less a 20% restocking fee, and I have to pay return shipping.

I couldn't get my color printer at home to feed the business card stock - it just jammed every time I tried, no matter what setting I tried. So I had to buy a new printer / scanner / fax for the office - a Kodak ESP 7250. I got it hooked up last night (I was at the shop until 8 PM) and it works like a dream. So far I love this new printer. I got about 40 business cards printed - on both sides!

Well, off to the showers and then to the shop. If you are reading this and you are local, come see me 19 May. Until then, please knit responsibly.