Sad News

One of our local yarn stores is closing. It's not one I get to often, because I'm usually at work when it's open, but I'll miss it. And, of course, I feel guilty, because maybe if I'd shopped more there it wouldn't be closing. But even I know that's crap.

It's closing because it's the right thing for the owners to do. When I moved to Atlanta six years ago (gosh, can it be six years? Wow!), there were four shops--Strings & Strands, Cast on Cottage, Needlenook, and Nease's Needleworks. A year or so ago, I counted 23 that were members of our guild--some closer, some farther, but still that's a huge jump! Now, three of these are gone or going--the store in Acworth simply went out of business a year or so ago, the one in Dunwoody is looking for a buyer, and now the one in Marietta is closing. A shop owner I spoke with the other day told me that the "peak" is over, that there isn't enough business from knitters.

My own experience in owning businesses is that business is cyclical. Business owners expect that, but it's still painful when you actually live through it. I expect there will be more "fallout" among the knitting shops in our area--I hope not. Some of them have been in business for 20+ years and most of them can probably ride out the storm. Others will fail; others will go out of business for unrelated reasons. In the end, I expect we'll end up with a few more than we started out with, but not 23.

But, of course, I did my part to help Dana and Ginger clear their inventory. I bought six skeins of Foliage (two each of three colors) because I have a pattern for a felted bag using it. And one skein of Trekking, or was it two? And they gave me a great discount on two full bags of Galway, which I'll use for CIC knitting. Twenty skeins of wool should make a bunch of sweaters for Russian orphans. And some patterns. Is that all? Nope, but I can't even remember it all.

Now to get it all put away before Ken returns from his trip.