{How to Creat Loyal Customers}

How to Create Loyal Customers: Eat.Sleep.Knit Case Study

One : Have a beautiful, well organized website where the consumer (me) can find exactly what she wants and drool over gorgeous photos.  Look at this website for reference: EatSleepKnit.com 

 Pagewood Farms Yukon in New Horizon

Two: Offer great promotions on your website, like the Yarn Marathon that Eat.Sleep.Knit has - an ongoing promotion offering bonuses just for buying yarn!

Three: Keep your prices competitive.  All the prices at Eat.Sleep.Knit were within just a couple of cents of the lowest prices I could find when I went shopping on froogle.google.com ( my secret to all things bargain shopping on the web).

 Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in Amber Trinket

Four: Have 2-3 Day Shipping for only $5.  I placed my order with Eat.Sleep.Knit on saturday afternoon and received the email that it had been shipped a half an hour later!  I'm not joking. My box came in the mail today!!

Five: The details count! Include a little piece of chocolate with each order. For Reals! It really hit the spot when I got home.  There was also a little scratch lotto card for the chance to win a gift certificate.  Who doesn't love a scratch card?

 Lorna's Laces Shepherd in Baltic Sea

The Backstory:  My sister had a really horrible customer service experience with a small local business recently, wrote about it on facebook, and managed to get in to a facebook flame war with the owner who couldn't believe that she would say such horrible things about her business (The Horror!).  I posted, rather respectfully I think, the age ol' addage that a customer who has a bad experience will tell 10 times as many people as a person who has a good one - so you better do your best to not have upset customers.  I wanted to change that up a bit this time.  EatSleepKnit.com  has blown me away with all levels of their business.  They have made a loyal customer of me for life!

And no, no one gave me anything to say these things. Just go shop there!  We need to reward those businesses who do right by their shoppers, don't you think? :)

{Man I Love A Quick Knit!}

Though this project didn't go as quickly as it could have (the previous post explains why), it still only took me a couple of days.  Gorgeous Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk in aran weight, and enormous size 15 needles were the main reason for that, certainly not my concentration and skill!

Here's the black version of the yarn because I cast on with the cream ones before I got a photo.

And here's the finished object!

It wraps twice around my neck, plus some.  I'm still trying to get a handle on the styling.  It is soooo soft though and so warm, even though it's all holey!  I would have taken a picture of me wearing it, but I was in my pj's pretty much all day.  ;)

In other yarn related news, I did manage to pick what to buy and I'll show everyone when the yarns get here.  After picking up the mail, I remembered that I had bought a skein of sock yarn from a destash on Ravelry!  It was only a couple of bucks for this skein of Sock It To Me.  Should be fun!  I'm disappointed in the yardage, which I didn't pay attention to before. Grrr. Hopefully it's enough for two ankle socks.

Thanks for all your help and advice yesterday!  I can't wait for my package of new yarns to get here!! :D

{Yarn! and Knitting!}

How is it you folks do it?  How do you work for 8 or 9 hours a day and still have energy for anything else?  This internship has me worried about my ability to function in the real world.  When I go to school you see there are days where I work from home and I have a chance to cook and tidy the house and even get some knitting in.  It's not like I'm taking easy classes or anything... I'm a Math major, but still.  Now this accounting internship (which I am really enjoying! Surprise to me!) is from 8:30 to 4:30 Monday through Friday, but since I'm an hour away I'm out of the house from about 7:30 until 6.  When I get home I'm not in the mood for anything  except vegging out with a bowl of cereal in front of some blogs or a tv show.  Once the weekend hits, I don't even bother to get dressed unless I have to go out for groceries or something. lol  So I say again... how do you do it!? I know some of you peeps have kids and responsibilities and stuff.  LOL

Needless to say, my knitting has consisted of my stockinette Pipit (details to come) , and a VERY easy lace pattern (K2Tog, Yo) kind of stuff for this pretty cowl/ scarf: The Mustard  Scarf.

I'm knitting mine is some GORGEOUS aran weight Debbie Bliss Alpaca/Silk that my friend at Susie F Handmade gave me as part of her destash!  She gave me two 50g balls of cream and one of black.   I'm using size 15 needles for this! They're so cartoonishly large they are cracking me up laughing! It's like knitting with Tent Pegs! hehehe  That project is not quite done.  I think I'm going to use my large Antler Buttons mom gave me for Christmas LAST year on this one. I'm so excited to wear it!

I'm also excited about buying YARN!  I got a $50 rebate for my recent cell phone purchase and have been given the go ahead to use it JUST for buying yarn! YAY!  But now that I have the opportunity to buy yarn,  I'm so lost in all the choices!  Do I buy two skeins of fantastic sock yarn? (one for a shawl, one for socks of course).  Do I buy more of something less expensive?  I'm always looking to get a great bang for my buck and I want to spend my money somewhere worth while if I'm paying regular retail, ya know?

So here's a few of my options I'm liking:

Lingonberry Jam - SW Merino/nylon sock yarn . $23 + $2.50 shipping from Springtree Road .

 Zen Yarn Garden's Squooshy - $23,50 + unknown shipping.  I've already had a great experience with socks here. They're washing in the machine great! 

I've heard good things about Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock.   The nice thing about these is they're about half the price at about $12!  I might give this a try.  It'd just make my money go so much farther!

 I've knit one pair of socks already with Araucania Rancho, but not the sock version with a bit of Nylon.  Also a good price for the yardage at $15.

These look really pretty from ToPlyFiberArts:

Sea Glass is 80/20 Superwash and Nylon again, a great price at $15.  I like that it's hand dyed by an Etsy artist.  She charges $2.50 for shipping, but then only 75 cents for each additional item... hmmmm.... 

What's your favorite Sock Yarn? Do you dye your own on Etsy? I'd love to see it!  What's your favorite online sock store?  Let's hear it!

Hey, this is kinda Find A Deal Friday, isn't it? Neato!

 

{First Knitting of 2011!}

I've been working at my internship in the Business office at school doing all kinds of cool accounting stuff.  I'm really enjoying it, but dude! It's like a... a full time job! LOL

I got this little project done before I started January 3rd, but I come home in the dark every night so getting a pic has been hard. I caught this one just as I was losing sun!

I had been knitting on that lace scarf for a while, but with the working and all I needed a good stockinette project.  Enter the Pipit Sweater.  (rav link)  It's an interesting construction, enough that I don't fall asleep, it's top down seamless, since I'm knitting the sleeves in the round, and it's going to be SUPER comfy in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino.  I can't wait for this one to be done!