I love a sale. I pride myself on buying anything at full price as rarely as possible.
So when I heard Posie Row was having a big sale this past weekend – I got myself downtown as quickly as possible.
Posie Row is a funky gift and clothing shop in downtown St. John’s, which has recently expanded. Upstairs, the rooms are small micro-shops, rented to other local businesspeople. It’s kind of a cool little indie mall.
It’s where Cast On Cast Off, the knitting shop with the fanciest yarn in town, has relocated – to a scenic third floor space.
I headed directly upstairs to check out the sale at Cast On Cast Off. I also had a skein of yarn left over from a previous project to return for store credit.
Store credit in hand, I browsed the sumptuous shelves. What to buy? Struck with indecision, I surrendered to my woolly surroundings and let the yarn choose me.
A Julie Asselin, DK, merino and silk yarn, colour “kelp,” pulled me in.
On the main floor of Posie Row, I browsed through a sale dress rack and found a retro, black and white tweed shift dress, in my size, with a 75 per cent discount. Obviously, I snapped it up.
Home, I laid out my purchases and receipts.
I was thrilled with my spontaneous dress purchase. And I love the yarn.
But wait – I paid how much for that yarn?
At full price, obviously, the dress would have been way more expensive than the yarn.
However, on sale, the yarn was more expensive than the dress.
Ah, but I had a credit for the yarn, which means that I paid slightly less for the yarn than I did for the dress.
I know that dress will be in heavy rotation in my wardrobe. I’m wearing it to work this week. I can dress it up or down.
The yarn. There is enough of it to make one accessory item. I don’t even know what.
As I said to shop owner Katie while she rang in my purchase, “That yarn is speaking to me, but I have no idea what it’s saying.”
Katie nodded, understanding and enabling. “I hear you.”
So that’s where I am. I am willing to pay more for the raw materials to make a yet to be determined item of clothing than I am to buy a finished item.
It’s like paying more for the grapes than for the bottle of wine.
And, as you have read, I will go to great lengths (of yarn) to justify this to myself.
Yarn Cove 