The Woolly Lamb, East Aurora, New York

The Woolly Lamb, 712 Main Street, East Aurora, NY

I visited this store on September 21, 2012.  The hours listed say the store was to open at 11 AM.   Believe me, I was there on time.  However, the owner (or whoever she was) was NOT!  So I decided to sit on a bench nearby for about ten minutes, and was going to leave if the store was not open by then.

It was!

I was greeted upon entering - as I would expect, so that was nice.  Some places do not do this, by the way.

My first impression of the store was that it was a bit on the sloppy side.  There were some areas where the yarns were piled on top of each other and in boxes and bags.  Nothing wrong with having extra in the bags, but it is nice to see them stacked nicely in my opinion.  I like to see a knitting shop that is neat and organized because it makes finding what I want much easier; also if a yarn is new to me, I am much more likely to check it out if I don't have to dig underneath another bag of yarn to get to it.

The shop has an excellent selection of yarn and a pretty nice selection of notions.  The woman who was there was very friendly and helpful.  I witnessed great treatment to another customer who had come in after me.  She was looking for a certain yarn that she had purchased before, but didn't have the ball band or something like that, and the shop lady was helpful in trying to find it for her.  I also heard the customer ask what time the store opened, and the shop lady said 11 but that she was often late.

This late bit I find kind of a bad business practice, but hey.  It isn't my store.  I am sure there usually isn't a line waiting for the place to open, however if your hours are 11 to whenever, then you should be there at that time.  I was ready to leave, and she would have missed out on my purchase.

At any rate, despite the few negatives I mentioned above, I would definitely go back to this store.  Good customer service far outweighs opening a few minutes late and being a little bit messy.  If you are in the area of East Aurora NY, I recommend stopping by The Woolly Lamb.  I even got an ink pen :0)


My purchase?  I got some Sublime angora merino - it was on sale!  So absolutely soft and wonderful, I can't wait to start knitting with it.

Below are a few pictures of the store, and the yarn I got.

Guest Post: Knit 1-2-3 Magazine

I invited my sister to do a guest post about a new knitting magazine that she spotted, as I have not seen it yet. There is also a crochet one. Since my sister both knits and crochets, she bought and wrote about both the magazines.
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I don’t normally look at the yarn when I am in Wal Mart because, quite frankly, 99% of what they sell is not to my liking and usually what few yarns they have that I might like well enough to use there’s always something that will prevent me from buying it. (Tangled up skeins, or FILTHY ones that look like they’ve been run over by a car a few times, things like that.) So I tend to just not even look. But today I decided to stroll down that aisle just for the heck of it.

Once I got to the end of the aisle, I happened to spot a couple new magazines – one for knitting and one for crochet. I simply assumed new issues of magazines I’m familiar with. But nope. These are actually BRAND new magazines, the first issues!

So, I had to get them. Don’t give me that look.

Both magazines have the same format. There’s a review section that gives short reviews of new knit/crochet books, yarns, notions etc., there are a couple articles and of course, patterns. I love that the ads are minimal in these. There are 23 patterns and 3 articles in Knitting 1-2-3, and Crochet 1-2-3 contains 24 patterns and 3 articles. Knitting 1-2-3 contains an article on adding color to your knitting in three different ways: stripes, 2-color slip stitch and fair isle. There is a series of articles called Gram & Me, and it’s about the author’s time with a granddaughter teaching her to knit. In Crochet 1-2-3, there is an article on crocheting in the round and then the same author of Gram & Me has a series with her granddaughter and crocheting titled Gram’s Hands. The third article in both magazines is an article about knitting (or crocheting) for charity, specifically for an organization called Warm Up America.

The web sites for the magazines are knit-1-2-3.com and crochet1-2-3.com (appropriately enough eh?) although the sites are small as can be expected from a brand new publication, they will grow quickly I am sure. The knitting one is not totally live just yet actually, but I would imagine it should be fully functional within the next few days. The release date on both magazines September 18th, though as is evidenced by my purchase, you might be able to find them now. I was the first one to buy these from my Wal Mart. I know because I had to open up the plastic wrapper on both stacks of magazines to get to them!

As you can see in the pictures, they are $4 each. If you subscribe, a one year subscription costs $13. This will be for six issues, as new issues of these magazines will be released every other month. I’m giving serious thought to subscribing to both!

Both of these magazines are available exclusively at Wal Mart. Or you can visit their web sites to subscribe. Again, Knit1-2-3.com is not currently fully functional but Crochet1-2-3.com is. I have no idea why one’s up and running and the other is just a ‘preview’ type page. But I am sure that within a couple days both sites will be fully functional and you’ll be able to subscribe to either magazine through their respective web sites.

Oh. And if you’re wondering… yes. Yes I do want to make several of the patterns from each of these magazines now.

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