Wednesday, May 18, 2005

The Mannings

Yesterday I was browsing online and was trying to find a site that carried some of the patterns I wanted. I was looking for the Sunburst Sling Bags from Just One More Row, the Queen of Hearts shawl from Fiber Trends and the Diamond Poncho (child's) from Cabin Fever. My search ended when I stumbled across The Mannings. They have a huge selection of items. I used the search feature to find what I was looking for. Then I browsed through the available patterns and found the ones I wanted and also picked up a pattern for the Koigu Scarf*. Then I was looking around and saw that they had yarn as well. So I gave into my weakness and ordered three colors of the Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool that they didn't have at my LYS. (Two skeins of 018 chocolate, 1 of 016 Sienna/Mahogany** and 1 of 024 Claret.) So today I see the mail man drive up and walk up to my door. Now he only drives up if there is a package. I thought this was strange as I couldn't remember ordering anything. I open my door and there it is, the package from The Mannings. I was flabbergasted! It was here already and I had placed my order at 1pm the day before. (I know, I checked the confirmation email.) Wow. I know we are both in PA, but the store is about 100 miles away from where I live. That is fast delivery! Everything was packaged nice and neat as well. They also sent a printout of the order along with a register receipt. It's nice to have those for your records. Right now I am kicking myself because I never thought to look to see if they sold the Brittany knitting needles I have been wanting. All of my local yarn shops do not carry the 10" needles and a lot of them only carry the larger DPNs. I just went and looked at the site and they do carry both! ACK! I guess this means I will just have to place another order. Heehee. The only negatives that I have to say about The Mannings is their website. It could be ordered a little better. Some of the yarns are listed by manufacturer name while others are just listed under general categories such as "Wool Yarns". When I went to look for the Charlotte's Web pattern for a friend I checked under Koigu patterns then I clicked on Shawls, but it wasn't listed under shawls. For some reason it was under "Other". They also do not provide pictures of a lot of the things they sell. That makes it difficult to shop. My solution was to go there already knowing what I wanted to order. Then when it came to something such as looking up yarn colors, I did an online search and found a color chart at a different location to see what I was ordering. These are little things, but may bug other people. Me? For good prices (they don't over charge on items) and great shipping, I can put up with some idiosyncrasies. Has anyone else ever ordered from this store? Apparently some people online have visited it in person and say that it is absolutely huge. It makes it very tempting to drive the 2 1/2 hours to go and see it. But I would pay a heck of a lot more in gas. Shipping is much cheaper. Hmmm... Save money on gas and spend it on more yarn. Oh, it's a tough choice! *You see I bought 6 skeins of KPPM at the LYS on Saturday and the Charlotte's Web Pattern. Well, for the Charlotte you only need 5 skeins, so I have an extra. Just enough for a small scarf. I would take a picture of the yummy yarn for you, but that dern low battery light is blinking on my digi and I still haven't found the battery charger. Dang it! **Different online sites are calling that one color by two different names. The yarns themselves do not list names on the labels, just color numbers.

1 Comments:

Blogger Debi said...

Hi Cin- Thanx for visiting my blog and thanx for the compliments, Pumpkin thanx you too!
Hunny, with the dearth of LYS in Florida, I'M thinking of making the drive to the Mannings!! Make it a field trip!
Come back again any time...

5/18/2005 10:56 PM  

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