Heavy on photos, but light on knitting!


For all who were sending good wishes about our sale - we raised $18.900 plus small change! However, we are pleased with our efforts - tired and exhausted, but proud and pleased. This was our most productive sale in the 22 years that the Friends have been in existence. We are the only Friends of the Library on Vancouver Island that can raise these kinds of money for their libraries. We purchase all the little 'extras' for five libraries with our efforts.


There are two large libraries in our Valley and three small ones. We buy furniture, stands, micro fische readers, magazine holders, computers for the patrons, prizes and a party for the summer reading programmes, etc. When we buy furniture, we have to buy commercial grade, which can make a comfortable reading chair cost in the vicinity of $1,000.00 - we usually go with leather or a heavy woven fabric that can be cleaned once or twice a year. It is my main volunteer activity, so I give it my all - three days in a row of eleven hours each day and a few five hours days at the beginning and the end makes a knitter tired. However, every evening I did a bit of knitting. It is so relaxing and even though my hands are swollen from handling so many books, they can still hold the needles and twist yarn about!!


This photo is of Nathalie and I standing at the table for bagging and tallying just after the crowd has entered. We tallied each customer and then gave them a slip with their amount owing and then they moved up to the cashiers. paid and returned several times during the sale. We love return customers! That system seemed to work well and I know other sales of plants, books, fleas, etc. use this system. We had about six tally people on Friday morning and two cashiers. Friday we get folks who buy $200+ of books - they are dealers, but their money helps our libraries too! After the big push on Friday, you can get buy with one cashier and a helper or two to bag and tally! Yesterday, Sunday, it was simple - everything you could put in a grocery bag for $1.00 - many folk bought 15 or more bags!!

A view of the crowd - as you may have gathered, we held it in our gym (actually we used both gyms)! The Friends are easily identified, as we were yellow or neon green t-shirts!!
One of our local grocery stores sent us this tray of meats, cheeses, pickles and some crackers for the workers! Much appreciated! We also had lots of bottled water, apples, strawberries, bananas, cookies, homemade blueberry muffins and tea and coffee!
Another view of the crowd. We get boxes from our local dairy and stand the books with their spines up in them. It works well. Of course, with the children's picture books, we just stand them up straight!! We make good use of 'liquor store' boxes for packing away our books as we sort and also cut down smaller boxes for holding paper backs, etc.

Oh yes, in case I did not mention it, our children's books are 25 cents, pocket books 50 cents, CDs, videos $1.00, jig saw puzzles 50 cents and everything else (except specials) is $1.00.

This is why we have the sale and also why all our children's books are only 25 cents.


This is Charlie and he is just enjoying his new book! You cannot see his face, but you know that little boy will probably become a reader!










Thanks for the wonderful compliments on French Vanilla. Annie, I hope you enjoyed your visit to our beautiful province. Also, if you knit French Vanilla, I suggest you try what I did. Instead of picking up stitches for the button and button hole bands - add about 6 or 8 stitches to the fronts. Knit the left front first, mark the button spots, then knit the right front and place the buttonholes to correspond to the marks on the left side! I think it is easier and neater and I will certainly use that technique on more of my cardigans.

Sorry I have not always responded to my visitors lately, but the sale had taken over my life for the past few weeks. As you probably gather from my knitting - when I do something, I do it with gusto!