A number of our customers and friends expressed interest in
acquiring this little web business to run for fun and profit. We
are close to finishing up the sale and transitioning to a new
owner. Most of the interested parties did not really want
the hassle and expense of the cross stitch portion of the
business, so we have begun liquidating the cross stitch supplies
so we can focus on our needlepoint and bulk products.
It's going to be business as usual until the new owner signs
on, but the changes are already starting. Keep checking
the site for great new discounts. More about that below.
Meanwhile, if you are interested in starting up a brick and
mortar needlework store in your area, we have some great
inventory that doesn't do well on the internet but is fabulous
for a full service store. Send us an email addressed to
sew AT discountneedlework.com (replace the AT with the @
symbol).
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As a result of the change in our business focus there are
huge clearances in lots of areas: kreinik braid, tapestry wool,
cross stitch fabrics, patterns and prefinished items, cross
stitch kits and all the handpainted canvases. Wow!
It's going to take weeks to get all the discounts posted and
when the items have sold, we have to manually remove them from
the web. Sometimes someone will order an item that has
already sold recently. If that happens, we'll let you know
and suggest an alternative.
To find clearance items, just click the link on the top menu
bar. If you want to get more sophisticated in your search
and eliminate categories that don't interest you, just go to the
Advanced Search page (more detailed instructions are on the
right side of this page). |
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The craft industry is going through some turmoil right
now. A number of needlework distributors have shut down
over the last year or so. Some manufacturers have either
shut down or reduced the scope and offering of their products
(most notably Candamar who we will really miss because of
their wonderful embroidery designs). The biggest change
in the needlepoint world is the closing of Yarn Barn of San
Antonio, a distributor of all things needlepoint for 35
years.
Yarn Barn has been our major supplier, shipping canvas,
yarn, frames and lamps to us or directly to our customers
often on the same day they got the order. Their prices
were just as low as the manufacturer's prices in most cases,
which allowed us to pass the savings on to our
customers. We LOVED the Yarn Barn. They closed
down at the end of February. There are now only a few
places to get persian yarn: the manufacturer and another
distributor.
We have investigated using the other distributor, but their
prices are a good bit higher on yarn. The extra price
more than exceeds the extra shipping cost, so we have decided
to keep our prices low by ordering from the
manufacturer. If you have a rush project and need
quarter pounds shipped straight to you from a distributor if
we don't have them in stock, we will have to charge a premium
price on the yarn to cover the extra cost. We have been stocking up on the more popular colors, but she's not
going to be able to anticipate all the unusual needs of our
customers.
Discountneedlework.com has been the cheapest and fastest
source of needlepoint yarn on the web for a long time.
This is still the case. No other store, brick &
mortar or otherwise, has the volume of yarn sales that we
do. Depending on what part of the country you are in,
you might find a store that can provide your needs a smidge
faster due to location alone. This change is NOT caused
by anything we did here, but by a major shakeup in the
industry as a whole.
The same problem that hit us with yarn affects our canvas
sales as well. We could stock 10-20 different sizes and
styles of canvas in the past because Yarn Barn would sell us 1
yard pieces. Nobody else will do that. Now each
canvas has to be bought in a minimum 5 yard roll and then cut
to size and stored until sold. This extra space
requirement and labor requirement is going to force us to
limit the types of canvas regularly stocked,
and it is more likely that a week delay may occur if she
suddenly runs out of canvas. We have always been the
BEST source for blank needlepoint canvas (many stores will not
stock it or even order it for a customer). This will
continue to be the case, but unfortunately the offering won't
be as good as it used to. We'll discontinue or reduce the mono
lights and darks, and possibly the 54" canvas as
well. There will be no metallics or colors as we focus
on keeping a good selection of the basics (40" mono and
interlock in 10, 12, 13, 14, 18 mesh as well as 10/20 penelope
in brown and white).
Please understand again that there is not much we can do
about this, as the situation has been caused by the closure of
the best, lowest priced needlework distributor in the country.
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