Changes
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
I don’t like change. Well, what I should say is that I don’t like to change the way I do things. It’s probably pretty frustrating for poor Mr. Yarn Pirate. He is very creative and practical and good at figuring out ways to make things easier. Rinsing the yarn is a good example of this. Several weeks ago Mr. Yarn Pirate offered to help with the yarn. I had him rinse a bunch of yarn, and I showed him how to do it. Some skeins take a lot of rinsing, which means the hot water would run out before all the yarn was rinsed. Well, after Mr. Yarn Pirate got a taste of yarn rinsing, he decided my method had to go. He ran to the hardware store and rigged up a high pressure sprayer hose that hangs above my sink. (I took a picture but it didnt come out so great. also, my sink in located in front of an ancient electrical box with a zillion wires everywhere, and i thought it looked kinda dangerous in the picture) (I assure you it’s not dangerous).
After a little research and a few phone calls (and a big chunk of change) we had this:
That is a tankless hot water heater. It never runs out of hot water. Ever. I’ve even tried to tax the system. I can do laundry, run the dishwasher, and take a shower all at the same time and it never gets cold. It’s my new best friend. Thanks to Mr. Yarn Pirate, rinsing yarn is a lot easier now. So easy that he decided I didn’t need his help anymore ;).
Here’s another thing that I’ve resisted changing since I started. Yarn tags. Oh, yarn tags. They are one of my most hated chores. Probably because my yarn tag method was so horribly inefficient. I’ve had the exact same yarn tags since I started selling yarn. When I did my first upload to etsy I listed about 16 skeins of yarn and we went out for sushi. When we got home, I had sold almost all of them so Mr. Yarn Pirate whipped up some quickie tags, I printed them on cardstock at Kinkos, and the rest is…well, you know.
The Kinkos tags look great when I first print them off, but I’ve always been unhappy with how the ink rubs off after a while. The only thing they really had going for them was that they were cheap. I could print 500 tags for under $10. Uh, you know what else is cheap? Business cards. Especially if you order a whole bunch. These are my new tags, courtesy of Mr. Yarn Pirate. They’re printed on business cards (we use Overnight Prints). All the specs- the colorway, yardage, fiber content and care instructions will be printed out on labels and slapped on each tag. Not only is it going to be easier, it will look nicer too. They cost about the same, but it will save me tons of time. No more running to Kinkos. I really hate the people who work at the Kinkos by my house. Ug. That could be a whole blog post itself. Anyway, my new tags:
I have a feeling I will still hate doing the tags. I’m sure I will result to my old tactics of bribing people to come over “for a yarn tagging party” with promises of free yarn and pizza, but hey, it works. My slaves will find the process more enjoyable, I’m sure.
Here is some sock club info: I’m finishing up dyeing the first colorway right now. It’s a good one. I’m hoping to have everything shipped in the first week of July. I’m waiting for a few of my little goodies to arrive. All but one thing should be here by July 1. I would like to mention that the swag I decided to include was provided at no cost to club members. It came out of my profit, and I am happy to give you these things as a way of saying “thanks”. I promise they are little and useable and won’t clutter up your homes. I’m having Mr. Yarn Pirate work on some buttons you can put on your blogs. I’m having him make a few different ones. My favorite button says something about Yarn Pirate yarn being “bootylicious”. Heh. Oh, and there’s a flickr group you can join too. Hm… I think that about covers it for now.
