Summer: Lovers and Haters I know that those of you are sad that the
heat of summer is coming to the end. But for I say HOORAY! We have had
the most horrible, hot, drought ridden summer that I can remember. One
night we even put on Ice Road Truckers just to see some snow and ice.
And for those of us that are crazy for knitting there must be something
in our 
deep
subconscious that enjoys it more when it not 98 and humid outside. We
are back from Stitches Midwest and getting ready to go to Stitches East
with, it seems, very little breathing time in between because so much
effort has been put on some other initiatives here.
If you could all only know the day to day of starting a business you would share the memories we have of setting up the first site and shopping cart. Honestly, as a buyer online I never had any idea what had to happen behind the scenes of any site with a shopping cart. We have always struggled to have a site that looked like the exceptional products we are selling, while trying to get it organized to handle all the thousands of combinations we offer. For the past several months, after finding a firm that seemed to be a good fit in the design phase, the back end of getting all the elements to work is in place. Of course it never goes smoothly and I know that Daniella was emailing at 11:57 one night saying they were just going to stop until another day. We hope there won’t be even a single glitch once you see it. But if you do find something that doesn’t seem logical or work right please email us at info@signatureneedlearts.com so we can look into the issue.
The other big project around here is getting the size 1 circulars finally finished. A very good sign is that the cards on which they are packaged are here. Please watch your email for that great news. It should only be a matter of a very short time. While I didn’t have that much hands-on (but plenty of “advising”) on the site or the manufacture of the size 1s there is one issue that I have had to wrestle with. As you know we have a 100% commitment to having all our products made here in America and we have to live with what that commitment means. We have had increases in utility, health insurance, and transportation costs which had made us look at our pricing. This means that you will see a small price increase on the new site. No one hates doing this more than me.
The
one fun thing that Kent and I did was to take our 2 grandchildren on a
driving trip to Niagara Falls. If you don’t look at the touristy junk
and just the magnificence of the natural wonder of the Falls you would
agree with 12 year old Jack who hugged me and said, “Oh! This is so
awesome!” We feel like the time when he and his sister would want to
take a trip with us may be short as their own lives develop so we really
treasure this opportunity. And the weather was only in the low 70’s.
Now that is a summer I can live with! I have lots of projects planned
for fall and winter knitting including some exclusive patterns we will
be having. So think SNOW!