Yeah, OK, when do I not talk spindles and spinning on this here knitting blog? I actually have been knitting and promise the next post will be knitting content. Really. Until then...
Those of you who keep asking "Have you talked with Threadbear yet?" "Have you heard back from Matt yet?" "What's going on with Threadbear?" can stop asking. I found Matt on Ravelry (Gawd, I love that place! Did you know there's a King Knits group for Stephen King fans who knit? How freakin' cool is that?) last night, messaged him and heard back. Y'all can give it a rest now.
Speaking of Ravelry, one of the Michigan (MI) Knitter group members linked me to the Spindler's group last night. I thought I'd heard we had a Ravelry group but hadn't found it yet. Well, she didn't just link me to the group but to a thread where they were talking about Spinsanity Spindles. *blush* I'm all warm and fuzzy at the nice things people are saying.
In the thread was a link to the story of how I got started making spindles. And I've been sitting here thinking about the rest of that story...
Last April, I traveled to Gatlinburg, TN for a long weekend with my email list friends (our third annual gathering, the second in Gatlinburg). The year before, I went on the trip with very little extra pocket money. That was fine...we'd rented a cabin, the company was excellent and I'm not normally much of a shopper. But there was one place I'd wanted to go that I missed out on--Smoky Mountain Spinnery. This was still in my pre-spinning obsessed days but I hoped they'd have some nice yarns. Well, of course I couldn't miss it on my second trip. Most of the extra cash (I saved a couple hundred dollars in change over the year in between) I brought was exchanged for some lovely fiber (I'm still hoarding the cashmere/silk).
I really wanted to bring back a spindle. This trip was right in the beginning of my spindle-making. I had my original Kundert, a lovely mosaic from an Ebay shop (the one I taught Kai to spin on), the useless Ebay spindles and my own purty--but equally useless--original toy wheel (pictured in my Gatlinburg post). I wanted something really special. The only problem was...the store didn't have very many spindles. A couple clunky student spindles and some overpriced, unattractive ones, all arranged in a small basket. They had some beautiful wheels...but I didn't spin on a wheel. And my pocket money wouldn't have stretched that far anyway.
Fast forward to this summer's annual trip to the Outer Banks, NC. I posted about my sneakiness in getting in a trip to a yarn store on our anniversary. I don't think I clearly conveyed how freakin' excited Em and I were when we found a yarn store that had SPINNING SUPPLIES!!!!!! listed in the tourist book ad. Imagine how disappointed we were when, after walking around the entire store, we actually had to ask where the spinning supplies were. And were lead to the very darkest, very bottom shelves in the very back corner of the shop. To see a couple of very sad looking balls of roving. And that was it. We walked in all fired up about some "spinning supply" purchases and walked out with a few balls of Sugar and Cream Stripes.
Actually, while talking a bit about supporting our local yarn stores (remember that--support them or lose them!), the owner did ask if we happened to know any indie dyers who'd be interested in a retail outlet (She knew her spinning section was pathetic. If you've read this far and you ARE interested, let me know and I'll pass on her contact info). I also pulled out a couple of my spindles (to test spin an offered sample of her sad looking roving) and she was all over them. She wants to carry my spindles in a bad way.
And here is the point of this entire post...Do I really want to wholesale (I'm a knitter/spinner/grandma, not so much a business person--is that even the right language?) my spindles?
This all started when I went looking for something reasonably inexpensive, fairly light, and decent spinning for my kids to use. I opened up my Etsy shop after some urging from friends and consideration of a few "what ifs" (that doesn't look right, sorry Grammar Police, if I go try to find out whether it's really not right, I'll lose my train of thought and this is meandering enough already).
What if-- there are others out there, frustrated by the toy wheels and thinking they suck at spinning? (I've actually done a bit of low-tech testing on this...sent my spindles to a couple of frustrated wanna be spinners ...who are now thrilled to call themselves "spinners." Not to mention Em and I grabbing anyone who seemed the slightest bit interested at the recent show and teaching them to spin.)
What if-- there are others buying crap spindles from Ebay because that's what they can afford?
What if-- there are others who might really get into spinning, if a bright-colored design caught their eye unlike some rubber stamped sheep would?
So. Back to the wholesale question. And some what ifs...
What if-- there are others out there who visit L(or not so local)YSs (possibly with spinning in the name or ad) looking for options...maybe something a little special...and are disappointed, as Em and I have been?
What if-- there are people who aren't internet savy, never heard of Etsy and maybe never even really considered drop-spindling because they've not been exposed to it? (*gasp* yeah, I know...hard to believe it, isn't it?)
What if-- I can keep my spindles reasonably inexpensive, even at other's retail? (very important to me...it's more about sharing the obsession than adding to my stash enhancement fund)
I know I could pull out some more "what ifs" but the coffee's run out, the bathrooms need cleaning, Peter's on his way home from his weekly business trip, and I've thought out loud (in type?) long enough. What I do know is this...if I'm going to wholesale my spindles, I would rather do it locally.
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