As I brace myself for the final day of our 2008 Fall/Winter buying trip cum mini-vacation, I’m struck with two things:  how incredibly fortunate I am to be in an industry so full of fun, funny, sincere, and sincerely talented people that I get to spend so much intensive time with just a few times […]

As previously mentioned, we’ll be off to Columbus later this week to attend TNNA’s NeedleArts Market where most of North America’s yarn shop owners and buyers purchase much of their product for the upcoming fall/winter season.  To us, that means rearranging schedules, packing up models that we’ve had on display from various vendors, getting Busby […]

Really.  I do.
It’s also now twelve hours and forty minutes since I walked in this morning, and our sales meeting is just winding down.  We will, therefore, go home, eat dinner, fall down, and come in tomorrow and get the newsletter out.  If you’re watching your Inbox, be prepared.  There’s interesting news coming, but it will […]

A good relationship with a trusted sales rep is wonderful. They get the inside skinny from each of their vendors about what they see coming down the pike, and because they do see numerous shops in your region, they have a good idea of what’s selling, why, and very often how.

With all necessary apologies to Lord Vader, yes, I’ve succumbed to the Dark Side.
I had a birthday two weeks ago, and since I’m both picky and difficult to fit, I generally get money. I had, however, made it widely known that, as I’m constantly listening to audiobooks on my Palm, I’d really like to […]

I’ve had more than one person suggest to me that this is the time of the year when us good ol’ yarn shop owners (LYSO to those who prefer letters) get to relax a little after the mad rush of winter.  Um… no.  It would be lovely, but that certainly hasn’t been the case at […]

Ok.  Yes, I was dorking around on Ravelry before I left the office tonight and stumbled across this.  I’m not typically one to disrupt the clean (BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA) lines of my oh-so-atypical ride (yeah, I drive a white Civic) with bumper stickers, but this might warrant an exception.

Also, much thanks to everyone who posted comments at […]

As I mentioned once before, we had a fairly unpleasant review of our store on “Judy’s Book” some time ago.  I found out today that AT&T Yellow Pages pulled that review for their own website.  If you would be so kind, please, offer your own opinion of ThreadBear.
It was a great weekend with Terri Shea, […]

Well, there’s really no need to count, but it was a little bit of a love-fest last night at the Bear.  In honor of St. Valentine’s Day, Rob and I asked invited our massage therapist—naturopathic doctor, Candy Chamberlain—if she’d come in and give our customers and staff some “knitterly” massage basics.  We had a bit […]

Hi, all.  If you’re a fan of knitting podcasts, you may already have heard the recent episode of KnitTherapy in which KnitTherapists Kim and Kimber hit ThreadBear during Franklin’s visit last weekend.  They’re so great, and we were delighted to have them here.  I, however, made a minor gaffe:  Cottage Creations’ Rambling Rows Afghan is […]