Sunday, October 23, 2005

Socks

I haven't been posting for awhile, and I've been working on several different projects for Christmas and other things. I must have ADD because I seem to go from one thing to the next alot. Right now it's socks. I'm in the mood for knitting socks. I've finished one sock and I'm over halfway finished with the second sock in this pair. I am loving this sock yarn. It's Opal Lollipop sock yarn and the color is 1010. I love the way the color stripes evolve as I'm knitting.

I love Opal sock yarns, but none of my local yarn stores carry that brand, so I have to order them over the Internet. You can go to this site and see almost all the shades available in this yarn. I especially love the Lollipop, Brazil, and I just ordered some yarn in Petticoat and Fish in the Rain Forest Collection. I really wanted to order some more, but I already have quite a stash from some sock yarn that I have bought at my LYS. They have a pretty good selection of self-striping yarns, but I wish they would start selling Opal. I know there are some other good ones out there and I would love to try them sometime.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Yarn Shop "Frequent Buyer Card"

Reading Willa's blog entry prompted me to let off some steam about my LYS's "frequent buyer card".

I understand her frustration about the frequent buyer card. My LYS has one too. I didn't know about it until one day when I was in the shop and the lady who was checking me out asked me if I had one. I didn't, so she gave me one and punched it for my purchases that day. Later on, I read in their newsletter that they charge $1 for the card, but I didn't have my receipt from that day, so I didn't know if they had charged me for the card or not. The card attaches to my key ring and has 10 places on it where it can be punched. Every time I make a $25 purchase they punch it and when it's full, I get $25 credit. So, that basically means that I have to spend $250 to get $25 in free merchandise.

The next time I went in I bought some things that didn't quite come to $25, but did once the tax was added. I was informed that it had to be $25 "before" tax. Another time I went in and bought some sale items and was told it didn't apply to "sale items". Another time I bought a kit that was $55 before tax, and I was on my lunch break and in a hurry, and realized later that I forgot to ask them to punch my card. I took my ticket back and explained to them and they said that they don't punch "after the fact" and said, "See it says it right here on the back of the card."

Now that's just wrong. I don't care if you forgot to ask them to punch it, and you have to ask them (because they "never" remember to do it on their own), but as long as you have your receipt I don't understand why they can't punch it after the fact. It's not like I stole the merchandise from them.

I soon realized that they are not going to really give anything away free that they don't have to. They are in it for the money, after all. I'm considering just taking the card back and telling them to keep it because it's not going to help me any since it has so many stipulations attached to it. If I had another yarn shop that I could go to, I probably would, but since I don't, I don't want to become the bad customer.