News! Oh goodness, news!!
Nope, I didn't die, and yes, I am re-opening the shop! Well, hopefully. That depends on you all, my lovely customers.
Here's the deal: My cross-country move + being in school full-time meant that my yarn stock couldn't be replenished when I'd hoped to, and I wasn't living somewhere where yarn-dyeing could happen. Now that I'm newly settled into a house I plan to stay in for a while, I'm looking to open up the shop again. This is where you all come in. This is sort of like a Kickstarter campaign, only not as cool (and I'd do one there, but they don't allow what I'm trying to do, alas).
Basically, I'm going to take pre-orders for yarn. You can pre-order a specific colourway or just pretend it's a gift certificate for future use and decide what you want to actually order later. If I get enough pre-orders by 15 August, I will invoice everyone and then make a major yarn purchase, and get started dyeing. If I don't get enough pre-orders, then we all get to wait a bit longer, until I come up with some alternative financing.
How many pre-orders do I need? 25 skeins of Squoshy sock yarn, (75/25 superwash merino/nylon blend, 420 yds), at $23 each would get me the ability to replenish my supplies enough to get back up & running for real. If I get 30 skeins pre-ordered by 15 Aug, I'll even throw in free (first class) shipping to all my pre-orders in the US/Canada.
Note: I'm not including worsted weight or Sparkle in this pre-order, but they will be available when the shop re-opens. The worsted will be the same as before (100% superwash merino, 230 yds) for $16 and the Sparkle will be a new blend (75/20 superwash merino/nylon with 5% metallic fibre, 420 yds) for $28. The manufacturers have done away entirely with the old blend of my Sparkle base, which makes me sad, because I absolutely loved it and I loved being able to tell people that it had real sterling silver in it, but unfortunately, no one gets to have that base yarn any longer. :-( The new base is lovely, however, and I don't think that overall people will find much, if any, difference between them.
When I roll the new shop out, it will no longer be on Etsy, and it will be off Paypal as well. The initial invoices for pre-orders will most likely come from Paypal but after that, I'm hoping that my shop will run independently. So goes the plan, anyway.
So, now that I've explained everything, how do you pre-order? Simple: Send me an email -- draygoneyarnes@gmail.com -- and tell me what you'd like*. Please don't comment with an order; I want to keep them all in one place in my email account. I'll keep a running total for everyone, and will be in touch around 10 Aug if it looks like I'll have enough pre-orders to invoice everyone, with a grand total, including a priority mail shipping price (optional if I reach 30 pre-orders, unless you want faster shipping). I will also keep everyone in the loop about how long it takes the yarn bases to reach me, and when your order can expect to be dyed and shipped. Please keep in mind that it will take me a while; I'm running strictly dye-to-order from now on, rather than having anything pre-dyed, because it saves me from running out of base yarns. Also keep in mind that I start school again the last week in August, but I intend to dye on my days not on campus.
What colourways can you pre-order? That's a good question! (any yarns pictured on Sparkle base are also available on Squoshy, and will be available on Sparkle at a later date).
Stripes: Any sport team colours (if it's not an easy-to-find team logo, I may ask for a picture). Also anything you see here.
Variegated: Anything listed here.
Tonals: Anything listed here.
I'm not taking "custom" orders at this time, but that will be a thing in the future, as will many more colourways to come. This is just to get me going again; I want to be sure that when I can get these pre-orders done, I can get to them in a timely fashion.
* If you're simply buying what could be counted as a gift certificate,
i.e. you don't know what you want yet but you will later, I ask that you
give me an idea of how many skeins, and later when you want to order,
that you give me a minimum of 2 weeks before you want your yarn to
arrive, to let me know what you want.
