In today's episode, I share some feedback about last week's episode on sourcing yarn inexpensively to your yarn-related business. I also talk about doing some "spring cleaning" on social media accounts. You can find the show notes for this episode at http://creativeyarnentrepreneur.com/35 More Tips for Sourcing Yarn (and Fleece/Roving) Inexpensively Two listeners shared some great feedback on last week's episode. Lindsay Lewchuk (@KnitEcoChic), the owner of Knit Eco Chic, was a guest in Episode 26: Eco Conscious Knitting & Niche Marketing with Lindsay Lewchuk from Knit Eco Chic and Episode 12, where I interviewed the organizers of the Indie Design Gift-a-Long. Lindsay shared some great advice for designers using yarn support from a yarn company: "...I also suggest keeping the yarn company who provides you with yarn support in the loop with the progress of the design. This is especially true if you run into any hick-ups during the process, but also for designs that are running smoothly & on-time. I included the latter as it gives the yarn co a chance to give a heads-up to their social media coordinator & yarn audience on your upcoming release featuring their yarn!" This is definitely a great way to stay on the yarn company's radar and may lead to some excitement about your pattern. Carol Densmore (@CrossWindFarm) from Cross Wind Farm stepped in to fill my knowledge gap about how/if spinners are able to source materials inexpensively. Carol says: "...I am a spinner and raise a flock of sheep... there are places where you can find discounted fleeces or roving (clean, ready-to-spin wool). Many fiber festivals have wool (or fleece) competitions. After the judging is finished most of the fleeces go on sale. This is where many fiber artists get their wool if they don’t raise the sheep (or other fiber animals) themselves. From there they take it to a mill and have it processed into yarn or other items. Also at fiber festivals many vendors sell fleeces and roving. Various vendors will have ‘bargin bins’ or ‘show sales’ and one can get things at a discounted price. Spinning guilds occasionally have sales as well. The only way that I know of to produce yarn from raw fleece (other than hand spinning of course) is to obtain fleeces from fiber festivals, farms, or vendors and take it to a mill and have it processed into yarn. I do that for the yarn that I sell and use. Overall it ends up being less expensive compared to a retail price but the initial financial outlay could be hefty because you have to pay the mill, but that yarn could last a knitter/crocheter/weaver a long time. Some mills have a minimum amount of raw wool they will process, other mills don’t so a person could have one fleece processed into yarn and then go from there." Thanks for sharing that information, Carol! I'm sure it will be helpful to other listeners! Updates I will be presenting at the BlogHer ’15 Conference in New York City along with my friend and fellow solopreneur, Carlota Zimmerman from the Creativity Yenta (who was a guest on Episode 16 and Episode 22). We will be part of a workshop on Friday, July 17, 2015 called Social Media Bootcamp: Lightning Lessons in the Latest: LinkedIn, Google+ Hangouts On Air, and Twitter. If your blog is a major part of your business income (or, you’d like it to be), I hope to see you there! If you haven’t already registered, you can take advantage of our friends and family discount for 30% off the Blogger Rate by registering through the link at http://creativeyarnentrepreneur.com/35 In last week's episode, I talked about Smiley's Yarns, a New York City shop that sells discontinued yarns. Right after the episode, I learned that Smiley's will be closing its brick-and-mortar store on May 23, 2015. Their online store will remain open and they will continue to hold their Manhattan yarn sales. Social Media