Welcome

Hello all you amazing people out there!

Well, you might have heard our little sob story about our website development exploding in our faces. If not, here’s the rundown – we were working with a web development company and had to terminate our relationship with them for many reasons I can’t get into. Besides the tears and frustration over lost months of our (social) lives and business I was very disappointed that we had nothing to show you… and I know some of you are waiting patiently to hear from us. So I am happy to introduce to you the creation of the Sage Yarn Blog! I’ll start it now, and when we have a full website going I’ll just take it with us!

Some of you might have a few questions or are wondering what I'm going to do with this. I’ve tried to put together a list and answer some of them to get you on your way. Take a look through:

What is this blog thing, anyway?

A blog is a kind of online journal that has connected and created communities all over the world. Blog = Web + log

Is this all about selling me something?

In my blog entries, you will definitely read about the products at the Sage. The reason we stock the things we stock is because we love them. We LOVE, love them. So we talk about them a lot. But I won’t tell you what to buy or that you need to buy anything and I will also talk about things I like but we DO NOT stock. There is so much out there in the yarn world, we couldn’t stock everything even if we tried. Please don’t pick on me for mentioning a product I can’t order for you. If you want, I can always suggest a good place to order it from.

Though I will definitely profile new products that I’m in love with (I’m so excited to tell you about our new stuff!), this blog is not supposed to be an announcement board for the store – that’s what our newsletters and other sections of the website will be for. I will be answering questions, making and taking suggestions, showing off finished knitted/crocheted items, joking around about my Mom and David and the goings-on in the store, linking to fun things elsewhere on the internet and gushing about my favorite things.

How often will you blog?

If I commit to an entry/week number I can tell you right now I’ll never keep it, it’ll just stress me out (just being honest). But! I want to blog as often as I can – often enough to give you fun stuff to read, but not every day because that’s just overwhelming!

Is there an easy way to read the blog every day?

If you wish, you can mark this page in your “favorites” folder on your web browser or make it your homepage (the page that opens when you start up your web browser).

You can also subscribe to blogs, as well as other kinds of “feeds” like news reports, weather, and sports statistics. There are free blog subscription services available online to organize your subscriptions for you – they tell you when there are new postings on each of your blogs without checking them individually. I use Bloglines for mine simply because it was the first one I'd heard of and is pretty easy to use. There are a lot more out there, like Google Reader, so you can check them out and pick your favorite.

Can I contribute to the blog?

Please do! Comments are welcome and help us all connect to each other (at the bottom of each post, click on comments & leave one!). I also read and respond to the e-mail that is sent to us. Sometimes I’ll even ask specifically for feedback from you on certain topics or questions. Also, I can do all kinds of fancy, fun things like put polls on the blog that you can answer just by clicking!

Why do you blog, Jen?

I got into scrapbooking while I was working on my undergraduate degree. My roommate had books full of pictures and wrote paragraphs of fun anecdotes next to each one, making the most creative and fun book of memories. I got into it, as I do with a lot of hobbies, by buying all the fun supplies – the patterned paper, rubber stamps, 3D stickers – and putting together gift albums for friends and family.

Three years later I started a blog. It took over for my scrapbook in no time! It was quick – layout was formatted for me and I can type and edit faster than I write – and I could add photographs and links to other websites and even get feedback from my readers! Now, with YouTube and other file hosting sites, you can even add audio and video – something I could never do with my scrapbook.

So, while I still visit my 3D stickers and glossy photos once and a while, I am officially a Blogger. You can check out my personal blog, but please, don't stalk my boyfriend!