Sheepishly Yours: Adventures of a LYS owner

Wow.  It’s been over two days short of a year since I’ve updated.  I really, REALLY suck at posting.  Okay, let’s see what’s changed in the past year:

• The shop still has lots of yarn.  Unfortunately I can’t seem to sell any of it.
• I’m still worried about the bills and paying employees, so nothing new there.  However, now I am “divorcing” (in the state of it’s-not-final-on-paper-but-IS-everywhere-else) and have to pay myself too.
• We have a shop cat!  She’s a great big, full of herself baby and we all adore her.  People come in to bring her treats–even those who don’t knit!
• My oldest son is this close to graduating high school and starting college at GA State.  My younger one is “graduating” elementary school and will be starting Middle School next fall.  (Lord, may I please survive the next 6 years, thank you.)
• I have moved house, but not shop thanks to the leasing company negotiating rent with me.  It’s still not easy to meet the bills, but it’s slightly better.

I think perhaps I have grown more cynical in the last year.  I have definitely grown fatter.  I continue to be grateful for the good things:  folks at the shop, my kitties, my boys, an ex-husband who is much easier to get along with now that we don’t live together.  And hockey–can’t forget that.

I’ve been thinking about our business hours and whether they need to change.  Our current hours are:

Tuesday 11am to 8+pm (we stay late for Knit Nite, but also for shopping)

Wednesday thru Saturday 11am to 6pm

Sunday 12noon to 5pm

Would it be better to open earlier?  Stay later?  Everyday?  On weekends?  Let me know what you think:

I’m feeling better today than I have in a while.  I’m going to attribute it to having yesterday off–the first day in two months that I have really had off.  I was able to sleep late, shower unhurriedly, poke around the house.  I actually sort of made dinner!  And washed some clothes!  It’s a bit pathetic how happy I was to just stay home. 

All goes well at the shop.  I need to order about a zillion more things (including needles, again) and I’m trying desperately to fill special orders.  There is just not enough money in the bank to do all I want to, and the landlord has raised rent!  By a lot!  How much would it suck to have to close the shop because I cannot afford the rent?  I’m thinking about checking out my options–looking for other available spaces around town, doing some research, etc.  I think a meeting with the management company is definitely in order, and I want to go into it prepared.  I wish I could hire someone to take care of all the tedious things–I just want to play with yarn!

Every few weeks or so I hit a wall.  Yesterday was the day.  I would have killed for a really long nap.  I got a really short one.  Then I went back to the shop and stayed till 9:30pm.  The husband guilted me into it:  “It’s your shop and your knit night.”  I know, I know.  I sucked it up.  And had a good time, but I was still tired.  I ate “dinner” around midnight last night.  That cannot be good. 

At 3:30am my 9-year-old woke me up–there he was, standing by the side of my bed telling me he “can’t sleep.”  It had something to do with the nightmare he had the night before–he won’t tell me what it was about.  So instead of him climbing into my bed (like the night before) I went to sleep in his.  Two people in a double is still somehow better than three in a queen.  I woke up this morning with a head full of hammers.  Frak, but my head hurt!  Two cups of coffee and 3 ibuprofen and one PB&J later it still hurts. 

I’m sure I pissed off my husband when I wouldn’t get out of bed at 7:30am.  I heard some comment about how my waking up and walking Xi to school “didn’t last long.”  If I could have given him some of the hammers I would have.  He wasn’t at the shop till 9pm…

Now that I have wrestled with the computer to print new labels and have sort of balanced the check book I suppose it is time to get going.  Perhaps my mood will change like the current weather:  hailing one minute, sunny the next.  If I’m not my usual “perky” self today, give me a break.

Believe it or not, that’s actually a title of one of my favorite knitting books!  (Yes, I have it in stock.)  It taught me about the construction of knitting more than any other book.  But the whole idea of the book is that you don’t NEED a pattern, or rather, that you don’t need to get so attached to the idea of a pattern that you cannot let it go. 

A pattern is often just a Starting Point.  Maybe it gives you an idea, maybe you love the shape or pattern stitch BUT, and this is a big BUT, chances are it’s not going to fit you exactly as written.  We are all different shapes and heights and weights.  Some patterns appear to only have been written for young waifs with no hips or breasts (though that does seem to be getting better).  That DOES NOT mean that you cannot wear it!  Can you increase?  Decrease?  Then you can knit it for you!  Gauge a problem?  You can fix that with simple math.  Bless those patterns that have diagrams along with the written instructions!  That makes our lives so much easier.  But even if there are no lovely drawings, you can STILL do it!

Your friendly folks at your LYS can help you, but first you must Let Go of Your Fear.  Sounds scary, right?  But you’ve got to do it.  What’s the worst thing that can happen?  You have to rip out some rows?  You can handle that!  You make the whole thing and it’s too big?  Felt it!  Too small?  Block it into shape!  Worst case scenario:  give it to someone it fits!  They’ll love it or else! 

Quit being afraid of what you CAN’T do.  Just do it!  (Nike said it best.)  Don’t tell us it’s too hard, don’t tell us you’re not good enough.  Tell yourself that you suck enough times and you’ll start to believe it.  Anyone who is doing something with their hands, who is trying to make art, does NOT suck.  No one, not even us goddesses at the shop, are perfect.  Learning any craft takes time.  I still learn something new on an almost daily basis.  Life’s over if you stop learning. 

So this year sit back and take a deep breath.  Go to your stash and take out a project that intimidates you.  Go to your LYS and start a project that scares you silly.  Read the pattern, but remember it is not gospel.  Get out your calculator and do a little math.  Keep breathing.  Pick up your needles, or hook, or spindle, or shuttle.  Start slowly.  When you run into a problem, come see us.  Our JOB is to help you.  We want you to increase your mad skillz!  If we don’t know the answer, we’ll put on our thinking caps and figure it out.  Anything is possible.

And you TOTALLY don’t suck, even if you aren’t an anarchist.

Everything about owning a small business has been a learning experience for me.  I honestly can say that I’ve never run anything before except my household, and that not very well!  This holiday I totally misjudged how long it would take to receive packages of needles and whatnot.  And I misjudged how well somethings (like gadgets) would sell.  I know the death of a shop can occur when it doesn’t have the basics.  I tried to stock things that sell well; for example, I ordered lots of extra size 8 and 10 needles because they usually are the biggest sellers.  I could never have predicted the run on size 6 double points that occurred last month!  I mean,  I am totally happy that people are knitting with smaller size needles–we stock a lot of lace weight and other thin yarns–but SIZE 6 DOUBLE POINTS?!  I never saw that one coming!  By the time I could scrape together enough cash to place an order with my main supplier, it was already deep into the seasonal shipping madness.  It took longer to receive than even I thought. 

Okay, so what has this taught me?  PLAN AHEAD!  Set aside some extra money for last minute items that there is a run on.  Order BEFORE you run out.  Anticipate shipping to take forever.  Do your damnedest to assure you DO get that last minute MUST HAVE SKEIN no matter what.  Prey you have wonderful, understanding, patient customers.  (I do.)  Then realize how lucky you are to even be in the position to run out of items–it means people are shopping at your store and that they like what you stock.  Take a moment to be thankful.

Lesson learned.