Cold and A Product Saga

Today it's damned cold. It's not quite sub-zero, but at 1 degree F, it's really close. Yesterday's wind, if it's still blowing, is going to add to the low temp and make waiting for the gym doors to be unlocked an act of desperation and counting down the minutes. Ick! Still, it could be worse. It could be snowing, or even worse, raining. Since all of my hoodies are in the laundry for washing when my sweaty gym clothes are added to the load in three hours, I'm going to have to grab a regular sweatshirt to add to my clothes today. If I don't warm up, my post will be lots of typos from shaking hands. 

I'm going to be bundling up and using my scarf too. It's cold out
and I'm a Winter Weather Wuss! 

Have you noticed that things run in streaks? It's odd, but the universe groups things even when it seems impossible to have any gathering happen. This time the grouping revolves around thread - specifically thread that I sell - or used to sell - on 900 yard spools. Silamide, the thread in focus, is a sewing/beading thread that I used to carry in 900 yard spools in more than 30 colors. Then things changed and suddenly a common commodity became a rare one. 

I really love using Silamide thread, but for many of
my customers, it was too much thread length for
the cost. They switched over to other threads we offer
instead. Still, as I look to my left, I have two spools
of Silamide on my desk right now. It's my favorite
beading thread. 

The factory owner retired and sold the factory to a new owner who promptly decided to discontinue spools of all but four colors. I had a lot of backstock, and ended up selling almost all of it to a lovely Chinese man living in California over a period of two years. He would order 30-50 spools at a time from me. Finally I was cleaned out of colors and only had spools of white, black, pale grey and ivory. They still sold, but the pace was slower. 

Do you remember when all threads were spooled on wooden
spools? I still have quite a lot of wooden spools for my sewing
threads - spools I owned and spools I inherited from my mother's
stash. 

At the beginning of the month I heard from my Chinese customer once again and he ordered every one of the spools I still had remaining. I gathered them, boxed them, and sent them to him last week. Now I can no longer get the 900 yard spools, my distributor has changed to a 100-yard spool put-up instead. In the week or so since I sent off the last of my 900's and resigned myself to not carrying the thread any more (100 yard spools are too tiny for most of my customers), I've had three mail orders come through, wanting the 900 yard spools. *Le Sigh* Can't help them at all, and had to turn down those orders. 

A lot of my customers use Fireline as a beading thread. It comes
in a variety of weights and thicknesses, in smoke and
translucent white colors. I've never been a fan of the
thread. It's too stiff for my liking. But I sell a lot of it. 

My Chinese customer has said he would gladly take what I'm willing to sell of my personal stock of broken spooled colored threads, and since I own more than 24 of these in a variety of color, I'll probably take him up on that. He's a long-time customer, a delightful person (at least over the phone), and there's no way I could possible use 24+ 900 yard spools of thread over the next twenty years or so of my life. I might as well send them on. I'll try to take a quick inventory for him and let him know what I have. He can have them at bargain basement pricing, and I'll get more shelving room for items I can use and money in my bank account. It's a win/win all the way. The 900 yard spools are now extinct, however. Just like the Dodo bird. 

The 900 yard spools of Silamide are extinct now, just like
the Dodo bird. 

Have a wonderful Saturday and stay warm (or cool if you're one of my friends in the Southern Hemisphere). I'm fairly certain my state will stop operations at 3:00 pm while it holds its' collective breath for the football game. I should just close early - I doubt I'll get any customers while the Big Game is on. GO VIKINGS and have a happy weekend, I'll be back on Monday.