2011 Black Sheep Gathering

Thank you all for a wonderful show! (More photos on my Flickr.) It was a terrific weekend and I loved meeting so many fiber lovers. And particular thanks to those of you who showed me projects and yarns that you'd made from goodies that you'd previously bought from me. I really love seeing what my babies grow up to be. Like this gorgeous shawl from coordinating handspun (BFL/silk in the Red Rocks colorway, Navajo plied to preserve the color runs) and Willow sock yarn:

I know some of you were buying yarn for other stripe studies; looking forward to seeing some of those in the next few months.

It's on to Sock Summit dyeing for me now. I'll be focusing on sock yarns, natch. I'd thought about adding in an 8-ply sock yarn, restocking Cascara MCN sock, and bringing in a new merino/cashmere/silk lace. But being realistic about how much time I have between now and SS, I think I won't be ordering those till after SS. Look for those at OFFF in September, and online shortly afterwards.

Seeing the steady stream of shoppers, and knowing that I have SS coming up, my next door neighbor at the show, Joy of Shepherds Lane (and you all should check out her lovely Gotland fiber and yarn; some Gotland handspun sneaked its way into my car), suggested that I hire some help. I am a little (okay, a lot) afraid of getting entangled in paperwork with L&I and other state agencies during crunch time, but clearly I could get much more done if I had a hand.

a new chapter

Friday is my last day at my job. I have been there for 11 years, but for many good reasons--dyeing yarn is way more fun, I was tired of people hating me just because I worked for a government agency (at least hate me for something personal I did to you), we refinanced our house at an absurdly low rate that opened up our financial options--I will now be a full-time dyer!

I am so excited. I'm bursting with ideas for developing and marketing my business. And interestingly, this has spilled over into my last three weeks at my job. I've astonished myself with the creative ideas and approaches that I've come up with for tackling some of the same issues that I've been working on for years.

This also means that I've been busy on a number of fronts. In my February newsletter, I promised a Feb 10 stocking at Etsy, but I've been juggling a lot of things, including an avalanche of fiber for Madrona. (I didn't get a booth this year, but NW Handspun Yarns will have my BFL and BFL/silk fiber for sale.) I'm afraid that stocking my store has been forced to take a back seat with all the craziness that's happening. Look for a stocking on Feb 17 instead.

Taking the leap has opened all sorts of possibilities to me, even just within my own mind. What have you been wanting to do? You only live once. And life is too short to not be happy.

change in store return policy

Since August, I have been dealing with a headache of a return, for a transaction that occurred at Midwest Folk & Fiber. I had already paid the state of Illinois the sales tax that I collected for all of my transactions there. I contacted the Special Events division of their dept of revenue, and she made it sound like it would be simple to get my sales tax refunded for that transaction--just get a state business license and she could cut me a check. So I went ahead and refunded that to my customer.

Five months later, I am still dealing with the fallout from this. Right now, I'm still too enraged over the latest salvo from the state of Illinois, which I got today, to get into the details. However, I do know that effective immediately, I will no longer accept any returns on sales made at shows. I will accept exchanges for the duration of the show. (I am still determining how my return policy for online sales will be affected.) I think this change is fair, as buyers are able to touch and see my products in person at shows, so they know exactly what they're buying.

The other change I will be making is to never do business with the state of Illinois again.