Dawn Brocco's Life & Design Blog

I haven't posted in 4 days - terrible! But I've been busy with Gazette subscription balance fulfillments. Have also been moving stuff elsewhere, so we can get started on painting the family room and my office. And had to continue working on the taxes, so we can get this huge box off to the accountant. Also finished a beautiful beaded cashmere scarf design and am working on a matching hat.

I had to order more Mill Hill beads at retail, so I can do more samples. I emailed Wichelt Imports to see if they wholesale the beads, now that they have taken over the business, but, am waiting 4 days (and counting) for a response.

I do not think that *any* business that is online and offers email as a method of communication should be so lax in responding. Heck, I'd have to be on my death bed before I'd make anyone wait that long for customer service. I'm going to give them another shout, using my other email address and see if I don't get a reply. Then I'll have to call, but by then I'll be agitated! If they were at a show, like TNNA, they could have their email prog send auto-replies so customers aren't left in the lurch.

Anyway, this is a lovely new design, and I'm making the hat in 2 sizes, as one size doesn't fit all!

I have 1 sweater to get photographed for a new pattern. Another pattern is all ready to go. I'm just waiting until I have a moment, nay, a few *hours* to code them, get them into the shopping cart and onto the Cardigans page, upload all the jpegs and pages, then email the knitters in my website updates database, then the shops, add the new designs to both my wholesale and retail catalogs and price sheets and reprint them.

This is why I hate doing it for just 1 or 2 designs - it's SO much work to launch a new design, I might as well do a bunch at the same time.

It's been SO cold outside, though for taking the cardigan photos - we haven't EVEN seen 20 degrees in - I can't remember. The photos take a while to do and in this cold and wind, it's just too crazy to do. And indoor photos are just more work to get a good shot - outdoors is always best, so I gotta wait 'til we get a 20 degree heatwave with no wind!

The yarns I ordered from Wool Connection came via UPS today - Classic Elite's Two.Two, Renaissance and the Frog Tree sport weight alpaca. I've just begun winding the hanks into balls and will swatch them all tonight and report tomorrow how they do.

I've also got a wonderful 50% silk/50% merino wool yarn sample skein coming. I had a wee snippet to knit up and it's luscious. It would make the *perfect* less-costly option for my cashmere yarn kits, and still feel absolutely luxurious. But, until I can knit a larger swatch and wash it, I won't know for sure. The gauge needs to be spot on or it won't do.