Baby Steps

So I skipped a week but I did say way at the beginning of taking over the blog that I wouldn’t guarantee consistency.

In the previous blog I hinted that I may be at the March 12 market at the LMC. While LorigamiVan managed to limp down there and back without incident, I can’t say the same for the trip down to the gas station a day earlier. That trip proved to me that even though the store was aesthetically ready it most definitely wasn’t highway ready.

I made one left turn, looked into my rear view mirror, and saw the shelving directly behind me (right side of the photo) leaning out at a 30 degree angle! I immediately pulled over, pulled out my bungees, and attached the top layer of shelves to the upper storage. I also bungeed the passenger side just in case. For the remainder of that trip, I know I frustrated at least a couple of drivers because I was driving just above a slow crawl around corners to minimize damage before I got back home. I couldn’t do anything until after the market so Saturday morning I left as early as possible and gingerly made my way down to the market.

The market was a roaring success! Even though I was the only outside vendor, I was rarely on my own and I often had 4-6 people in the store at one time :) Much as I loved the conveniences the motorhome offered, it feels great knowing that customers have access to ALL my yarn every week. I know you - my customers - appreciate as well.

After limping back home from the market, I set to work figuring out exactly how I could secure the display units to the wall without damaging the wall.  That is basically the reason you didn’t get a blog to read last week. We couldn’t start working until I had it figured out Monday morning. (And yes, we, because Mom loves to help with the tear down and setup of the store.)

Normally, for stability, I put backs on the lowest level of my black grid setup. That’s great for a brick and mortar setting where the store isn’t going though an earthquake every day (highway driving). So the first thing we had to do was dismantle the shelving units and put backs on every level of the cubes. I discovered that the window frames have a perfectly located metal lip that I could hook the back grid to. Great! But that created the gap you see at the base of that grid so I used one of my favourite building accessories - zip ties!

So. Many. Zip ties!

I didn’t take a picture of the zip tie placed directly below the securing hook but trust me, there is one below every hook. There is also one at every join. I took the picture to the left before securing the fifth join at the intersection.

Did I mention that I bought a package of 1000 Zip ties? Or that I used over half of them? Yep. Those display units are secure. In fact, the zip ties worked so well at securing the side displays that I was able to rework the back display so that it could hold even more product (!) so now there is space for all the colours and varieties of Sudz Cotton and the Macrame Braid and Macrame Twist have permanent homes too!

April 30 Lacombe Farmer's Market at the LMC (11-4), here I come!

written by Lori, the out-of-the-box-thinking TCL owner, who refuses to give up when faced with a challenge. I know that there will continue to be a lot of tweaking as the market season goes on but I'm hoping to have all the kinks worked out before the end of the season. Baby steps.