I know there were a lot of complaints about shopping hype on Black Friday, so I thought I would fill you in on how important the holiday shopping season is for the LYS where I work part-time. We are both lucky and unlucky to be located on the main street of the downtown historic district in Grass Valley. The exposure is great, as the downtown has become more and more pedestrian-oriented, but the rents have climbed accordingly. There are many things a yarn shop needs to carry and some sit around for a long time, while others (most notably books) have a narrow profit margin. It is hard to make a profit.
Black Friday originally was dubbed that name because for many businesses, they were finally coming out of the red for the year... especially some of the smaller ones. I don't know about the yarn shops where you live, but I learned from a customer yesterday that there are towns much bigger than our two (Grass Valley and Nevada City, where there is a yarn shop in each) that have NO local yarn shop. I can remember when our region didn't either, and hope I won't have to go back to such days. We were ecstatic to 'do the math' and realize that this year's Friday-Saturday Thanksgiving weekend sales were better overall than last year's. Maybe we can hang in there another year....
Keeping a yarn shop in my area is not the greatest reward I get from my job. The real treat is the people who come in.... one of my sweet successes was helping a grandmother select yarns to make the Brushed Lace Cardigan from this winter's Interweave Knits for her teen--aged granddaughter. We spent a good deal of time selecting a similar range of colors from Berroco Ultra Alpaca, taking them to the window and making sure they blended well... I loved seeing her concern that she select something her granddaughter would like and wear for a long time, and wished her every success.
I had an even better time helping the young girl with the edgy haircut who came in with sis, mom, and gran and proceeded to select yarns for projects for almost all of them (it turned out that grandmother could knit, and was advising as well as keeping little sis occupied as we pored over patterns and matched up yarns). This child reminded me of myself when very young, passionate to try hats and mittens, eager to learn how to make I-cord for the purse handle of a small felted bag, and delighted to realize she already knew how to decrease and could make the triangular slanted flap that so intrigued her. She left with a large bag of yarns (for two hats, two scarves, one for sis and one for mom, and one purse), pattern magazines, needles and a great big grin on her face.
I gained a new value for Knit Simple, as I dug up the issue that showed how to make hats for everyone in the family from five gauges, and the one that showed mittens in many sizes... I might not buy these for myself, already having lots of experience with both, but they were new and richly exciting finds for her and she will be in the next generation of designers pushing the frontiers of knitting!
Speaking of frontiers, I was pleased to be able to steer a couple seeking a present towards Nicky Epstein's books; they could only remember part of her name, but enough for me to realize they were seeking inspiration for a knitter on their gift list.
I don't always get the whole story from my brief encounter with a customer... there was the mom and gran picking yarns with two young boys and it was not until they were on the way out that gran, a semi-regular customer, mentioned to me that the daughter was a new knitter and her task had been to make sure the hats weren't going to be beyond her abilities... then, there was another repeat customer who was trying to keep her patience while teaching her sister to knit. There was a woman coming back to purchase more yarn, for a baby blanket she told me. Apparently, she had come in the day before Thanksgiving, started knitting over the holiday and realized that she had not gotten nearly enough so was making sure to buy more to take home with her and finish....
The yarns that cross the counter are a frequent inspiration to me... Lang Zoom, Nashua's Wooly Stripes and Julia, Manos, to name a few from yesterday. I can easily get so many new ideas that I will never get around to finishing or even starting... the latest to be added to my Ravelry queue was the Circle Vest in Silk Knits. I think I might want to spin and dye my own hand-painted yarn for that one!
I will be taking next Saturday off to spend with DH on his birthday, but look forward to my Saturdays at the shop and the surprises that our customers bring to us each time I am there. We provide exceptional customer service, if I do say so myself, and gain immense joy while doing it.
