Lilia, you little rascal. Thank you for the Finders Key Purse! (Get it, gang, finders keepers? Um, I needed a friend to point this out to me.)I don't know if it's an LA correction, seeing as we had yarn stores stacked on top of each other for a while, but are we noticing the number of stores closing? Or being offered for sale? Seems like quite a few. Last month was the end of Knit Cafe. The store's rent was raised from 3k to 16k a month (yep, you read right), and there was no way for it to stay in its newly swank Melrose Ave location. Black Sheep's closing also had something to do with a pending rent increase. It's funny how the economy is bad but everything is going high end. What's that about?
Today I went to The Valley to pick up a Basic Tae Bo Workout tape that I found on Craigslist (it came with its own '90s crowd, Buns & Abs of Steel, Power Yoga with Rodney Yee, and Yoga Journal's Introduction to Yoga. I think these tapes have crossed all our VCRs at some point). It's the replacement I was looking for, so Billy and I are back in full swing. And you know I love him because I went to The Valley to get him. People who live in LA proper act like The Valley is another country. (Myself included.) If traffic is light, I can get there in 25 minutes, but traffic is rarely light.
I'd been planning to go over there anyway, because I had gift certificates from last year to Stitch Cafe. The owners of Stitch Cafe are looking to sell it, so before they do, or before they decide to close the doors altogether, I figured I'd best use my bucks. The Black Sheep closing sale was like being busted smoking by a parent who then forces you to smoke the whole pack: It ruined me for yarn. Still, Encore Worsted's always good for baby stuff, so I got that. The blue is really pretty, like robin's egg. If there's fabric within a 50 mile radius, I'll sniff it out. They had the beautiful print you see to sell as purse lining. I'll use it for that or something else. A flower pin, some darning needles, and some buttons, and now if SC closes I don't have to be like those Sharper Image gift card holders, meh.
The thing I can't figure is if these yarn shop closings and changes of ownership are due to the economy, or if the knitting revival is waning. Probably it's a mixture of both.
Tomorrow, a post I'm damn giddy about.
4 comments:
Oooo me likey your new goods. The fabric is beautiful. I can see why you want to sew it up right away.
Hahahaha I remember The Black Sheep Closing sale lol
We refer to it as the GREAT BLACK SHEEP SALE of 2007 or GBSS-2007. No other sale will EVER equal that sale. Sigh.
Love that blue yarn and the fabric. Excellent shopping.
I think you're correct about the closing of LYSs...it's a combo thing. We're on the downslide of the knitting craze and the economy is going downhill too.
Rotten economy yet more high-end places? I blame the fact that the richest are getting richer and the rest of the population is getting poorer. Perhaps the really rich need more places to shop.
Closing yarn stores? My guess is that knitting is still way hot, but the previous increase in yarn stores resulted in knitters building scary-big stashes, so they are now buying less, hence yarn stores closing.
Mind you I have no evidence for this.
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