No pictures today, but we have made progress! We got in the last of the Green Mountain Spinnery order - very happy with everything we got from them, including...
Mountain Mohair - We got a bunch of this in some very yummy colors!
Sylvan Spirit - Fine Wool and TENCEL - We got some of this too, very neat stuff. Haven't knit any up yet, but it's on my list.
Cotton Comfort - The colors of these are wonderful, and we couldn't resist buying a bunch.
Yarn Over - This is cool stuff, made from all the left-overs. Comes in four colors, but each batch is different so you never quite know until it shows up
We got more, but I'm out in left field and can't recall everything :)

Andrew came up today and helped me put out a bunch of the Jo Sharp (DK Tweed and Rare Comfort Mohair) and Reynolds (Lopi and Lite-Lopi and Utopia) As you can see from last week's pictures, we got a LOT of Jo Sharp yarn, so much that it doesn't all fit in the cubbies, some of it ended up on top of the cubbies in some of the Knitty Purl Girl buckets.

We also have a bunch of ideas for the website, but they may have to wait a while until we can get open and get going on some other things first. Mom opens her antiques shop just two weeks after we open the yarn shop, I still have to figure out what the boys are going to do for the summer, and let's not forget my other job (I load up those brown shipping trucks in the early morning, like 4am early in the morning.) But there is a bit I want to do here, so expect to see a series of small changes over time.

Look at this - I have YARN! I have a YARN SHOP!!

Here's the cotton cubbies, with the start of the stocking. Of course I put all the yarn in, decided I hated the way it looked, and pull it all out and started over. More than once. Over a period of a week.



And here's the "flash cubby" where all the mohair, glitzy, angora, silk and so forth goes. I also pulled all this out and put it all back in over and over. And over.



And here's some of that flashy yarn now - some Artful Yarns and Jo Sharp.



And a mess load of other yarns. At this point I don't even remember what it is...



This is the Kramer Yarn! Kramer Mill is in Pennsilvania, and we're their very first wholesale customer - awesome stuff made by great people, you can't beat it!



Some the Kramer yarn in the cubbies - they go right up front with the glitzy yarns :)



The flashy cubbies, half-way through the week.



The second room, half-way through the week. It looks worse now...



Got Cascade 220? We do! Over 30 shades of it in fact.



And here's the flashy cubbies at the end of the week. Of course it may not stop here. The bucket up top are holding the rest of the Jo Sharp mohair, which I guess only somes in bags of 20.



And the cotton cubby, which is most likely going to stay the way it appears here. The stuff still bagged needs price tags before I can go further with it.



I still haven't been able to get a hold of the local paper, but I did call the credit card company. Of course I missed their call back, so I have to call them again tomorrow. And messure for the signs again. And I found the BEST Celtic patterns at Figheadh Just don't ask me to spell - or say - their name, because it's not funny when I stumble over words like that!

Finally, I got the camera working again! Here are some pictures of the Denmark Fiber Festival, a local fest the next town over from us.

This is a before and after in the sheep shearing world :)



This little ewe mom spotted in the pens awaiting shearing. She had normal romney wool on her back, long hair like fibers on her rump, and the white tuft on her head is SUPER soft and silky.



And another look at the ewe. I think her name was Cocoa, but I'll have to wait until we get the roved fleece back until I can be sure.



These are hard to see, but here's the ewe being sheared. They sit the sheep upright and it goes very limp and relaxes, almost like it's dozing.



Again, it's hard to see, but here the fleece is almost off.



Almost done!



Done! The ewe is helped over to her owner, still a bit sleepy.

And here's the fleece being put up on the cleaning table...



And being cleaned.



Can you spot mom in there?



This only took about ten minutes, but they pick the bulk of the veggie matter and the "barnyard windchimes" out.



Mom now gets to haggle, something she loves! She picked up this fleece for a decent price, and it's up at the mill being roved now.



And here's the now summer ready ewe, back in her pen and waiting for her friend to have her bangs trimmed too.



Finally, the inside of the fiber fest building!



Funny part is, we knew most everyone already :) Didn't stop us from buying tons of stuff anyway!



And there she is! My new spinning wheel!



I may try to buy the chair later, but right now just admire how pretty she is! And I can actually spin (sort of) already. It all came about like this -
Me - "Hey mom, spinning wheels for sale. Can we get one for the shop?"
Mom - "Ha!"
Me - "But mom, I can spin while I'm there..."
Mom - "No way!"
Me - "Ok. Can I use one of yours then?"
Mom - "Fine. Get the wheel, cause you're never touching mine!"

I'm in serious freak-out panic mode here!!!

3 weeks let until we open, and I'm in serious trouble because I'm no where close to being ready! Mom took off for Ireland last week, will be home for one day before she heads out to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. She comes back with FOUR DAYS of time before we open the doors. By the way mom, your rat dog Skippy had me out at 6am in the pouring rain today. Saturday. The one day the past two weeks I can sleep in a bit. Have I thanked you recently for leaving me home while you're off gallivanting through fields of (please let this be true if there is any justice in the universe) mud and sheep patties?

We have yarn now. Another 6 boxes this past week showed up, with 10 more on the way. And more being ordered. I've been asked a few times if we are carrying spinning supplies, so I've been thinking more about becoming an Ashford dealer (they they'll have us, everyone wants a contract in blood with a promise of your soul and various probes into your life before they will even look at your credit)

But back to the yarn... I have no where to put it all. We have three sets of cubbies, and we only need another 6 to fit everything. And the Irish stuff is SOL right now, there's no where to put that either! Have I mentioned the word "panic" yet?

We went to Lowes yesterday and bought 4 bookcases, hoping to stuff them in the second room for the Lopi and acrylic. And we still need to get the postmaster's desk up there for some of the smaller skeins of yarn (it has tons of small cubbies for mail, just right for some of the smaller yarns to fit into) I also got a broom for the front walk. I have this thing about the steps and sidewalk being sweep... don't ask, just accept my obsessive oddities and go with it. After all, at least something in my life will be cleaned by me!

So what else have I done? I set up the basic class and group outlines and got them on the website. I typed up the info on the sheep adoption, the Knitty Purl Girls, the Mitten Fence, the Charity Knitters... all on the front page - TheIrishEwe.com

I made a wall of cotton for summer knitting. The small set of cubbies to the right as you walk in is jammed with cotton yarns. Looks very bright and cheery. Wish I could be happier about it, but I'm too PANICKED to notice right now.

I made the Wall of Yummy Glitter. The large cubbies to the left of the door has the mohair and hand-painted and fancy-antsy yarns, as the 5 year like to say. Sad really, I had no room for the Jo Sharp stuff to fit out there. And that stuff is nice too. It's hard to decide what to put where, seems like I'm putting stacks of yarn into a cubby only to pull it back out a few minutes later to put it into another cubby. Repeat this a few (dozen) times and that's been my life this week.

I met with one of the two newspaper ladies. We're running a weekly or bi-weekly ad with her paper, and having an insert for the grand opening. And I hear our "opening story" in the second paper is out this week, but I haven't had time to even stop and pick one up. Have to grab a bunch to save before they sell out.

I know I've done more, but can't remember half of it right now. Oh, I did make it up to one of the local mills. She casually mentioned that her driveway is steep. I guess when I left Maine for a few years I had forgotten the undercurrent of implied impending doom that comes with the "casual tone" I ended up driving up the side of a freakin mountain! But it was so worth it! We're the only store to carry her bunny blend yarn (Angora, baby! Awesome colors!!) and she's willing to clean and rove not only mom's flock, but also to consider doing the Adopt an Irish Sheep fleeces as well. But that's for mom to deal with when she gets back.

What I have left to do -
*Put together bookcase, arrange in the second room, and have hubby shim them up to be level (remember, the second room's floor is wavy)
*Jam everything I can into those said bookcases. Hopefully when someone grabs one ball of yarn out of them, ten others will fall down into their basket. If this happens often enough, they may give in and buy them as it's going to be a pain in the butt to put them all back.
*Met with second newspaper lady and get that ad drawn up.
*Print out flyers and take to Staples to make loads of copies.
*Put loads of flyers up in strategic locations. At this point, I'm thinking where I can tape and/or staple them will work. You know, stores, offices, libraries, my forehead. Whatever.
*Get spotlights for bookcases in second room, and have Hayes put them in.
*Get a hold of my yarn guy in Penn and ask if he's got anything else new (love his stuff! And the fact that we're his FIRST (and only?) wholesale account is cool!)
*Get mom to email me on the Irish Ewe yarn info - she found a tiny (TINY!) mill who is willing to spin just for us! Irish yarn!!! (Can you tell I'm happy about this?!)
*Get window signs finished and installed.

The list goes on! THREE WEEKS!

This is one of the ads I came up with -

Well, mom is in Ireland now doing some serious shopping, as we're finally gotten our act together and set a date - we open our doors on Friday the 13th! At least no one will forget the date :)

We're a yarn and Irish goods shop in Norway Maine, about an hour from Portland, or 30 minutes from Conway and Lewiston. All the shop details - and blog - can be found at the website - http://www.TheIrishEwe.com - but here are some highlights...

Adopt an Irish Sheep - This is an Irish Ewe exclusive! Mom has found a herd of Irish sheep just for us! For a small yearly fee, you can adopt a sheep of your own, even name it whatever you please. You'll receive updates and photos throughout the year, and in the fall, we will import the fleeces, has them roved or spun and delivered to you! We're taking names for the waiting list, and mom should have photos for the first set of adoptee's when we open.

The Knitty Purl Girls - This is an Irish Ewe exclusive! Knitty Purl is what Grampy used to call mom when she was small, and she is our knitting expert as shown on the website. When you spend a certain amount, you get a KPG bucket and tag to fill out. Then on the first of the month, Knitty Purl serves up goodies to each bucket - buttons, yarn samples, free patterns, a newsletter, and loads of other little surprises! And one Knitty Purl Girl wins the monthly drawing for free yarns, kits, or gift certificates!

Irish Ewe yarn, Kramer yarns, and oodles of handspun/hand painted yarns - This is an Irish Ewe exclusive! (We have lots, can't you tell?) We have a farm in Ireland that spins their wool... JUST for The Irish Ewe! We have a mill in Pennsylvania that makes yarn and we are the ONLY shop in northern New England that carries it! And then there are the lines of Angora (milled just for us at a local mill), hand-spun alpaca and wool (by locals, and sold only by us) and hand painted (by locals and again, only sold by us)

Handcrafted needles, buttons, tools - Handcrafted knitting needles by master carpenter Brandon Woolley (mom's hubby... yes their name is Woolley and yes they raise sheep!) in exotic woods. Handcrafted, WASHABLE ceramic buttons from Africa (the story on these is incredible!). Handcrafted tools by Hayes Lilley (my hubby) like the wraps per inch tools in oak, rosewood, teak, and so forth.

And let's not forget the fine Irish goods - Want to visit Ireland and live as a local? Mom can set it up, from getting there to Irish football events (like American football, but with no pads!), cottages on cliffs to flats in villages to stay in, pub crawls to dinners with local families, she handles all the details to create a unique experience! And of course, while mom is there, she shops - Irish crystal and pottery, music and pictures, clothes and jewelry... whatever can fit in her suitcase or be shipped back. If it's Irish, she can find it - just ask her about the Irish sheep dog she brought back one year!

Tell us you found us here, and take 10% off your purchase too! Can't wait to met more KR members!

Dagny & Deb, The Irish Ewe
TheIrishEwe.com
333 Main St, Norway Maine
phone 207.743.6263

The first shelves are at the store! Now to get them mounted and filled. It still amazes me how much yarn we seem to have, yet it's not nearly enough for either of us to say we're ready. I don't think we're ordering any more though, but boy does it still shock me how fast it added up. Now to sell it all - 6 weeks left till we open!

Mom and I are back from the Fiber Market in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. It took us 8 hours to get there, and 5 to get to the Cape (we stayed a night at Hayes' parent's house, we were both too tired to drive much further by then.) Managed to find a few sources, and we each got a skein of very nice hand painted yarn, and some snazzy glass buttons. Can't wait for Stitches East now!

More yarn arrives each week, and the first of the cubby set-ups are done, and the mitten fence is being painted today. Getting closer!