Niqkita's Sock Journal

April 1, 2008, the long awaited storefront opens at noon
…and Sock Dreams will never be the same.

Nope, we’ll be better!
better than before, better than ever, better than I ever dreamed.

Although this is only our soft opening we’ve been spreading the word and have had a ton of positive, if not down-right giddy, feedback. When Meg from the Willamette Week stopped by to pick up a check for our ad she said she’d never heard so much excitement around their offices for a store opening! That is both hugely flattering and just a wee bit scary. Check this Wednesday’s WW if you’re local, Liz did a stunning job of adjusting our logo for the black & white format and turning it into an ad.

As you can see everyone here has done an awesome job of getting us ready, even those of us who have continued to focus mainly on the regular doings here. I have to say it, I have never been so proud as I have been these past days seeing it all come together and everyone working as a team to not only make this store look beautiful, but to do the normal every day tasks, and everything in between, every single person here has contributed hugely to this special dream we all share.

Now, this is just day one, every day we will be adding, improving, rethinking, restocking, and we’ll announce our Grand Opening soon…

so come back often because you can never have too many socks!

The legs arrived on Tuesday. And, although we didn’t think we needed them, I ordered some mannequins just for fun. Bsti & I put them together while Dara & Brigid toiled over the legs, setting them up and dressing them.

Yes, those are new Dreamy Knees!
…they’ll be ready for you to buy online Thursday afternoon.

We’re sure to change this around a few more times…

We had so much fun, the day flew by faster then we could believe.
And now, it is time for me to put on fresh socks and head back in…

Today I could hear the beeping as the cash register was programmed.
Soon the shelves will be full of socks.
We’ll arrange & rearrange til they look just right.
We’ll be adding and changing stuff for ages to come
…and next Tuesday we’ll be open for business.
Ready or not, here we go!

Light, bright, colorful and pretty, it’s all I see when I look around
right down to our newest Dream Stockings
a paired down Vertically Inlined in white
…knee high!!!

as pretty as these are, I’ve always secretly wished for a shorter version
and these pretty spring colors are too sweet to resist.
Upon my first wearing I wasn’t convinced though
too loose around the ankles and frequently creeping down my legs.
I’m happy to report that a warm machine wash & dry made them perfect!
These past two days they fit and stayed up fantastically.
Everyone around here has liked them so far, loved them even.
Hurray for spring!!!

It isn’t often I manage to fulfill a special request in little more than a week.
So these dragons must be part magic because it happened this time, with one small fault: the actual request was for knee high dragons and these are merely crew socks, high on the ankles but not quite to the knees. In their defense, they come in two sizes, “men’s” and “women’s” …I found them to be so very stretchy & soft that I think they will be very accommodating to your feet of all sizes, though they may be loose on smaller feets below women’s size 7.5. We put them on and trekked through our favorite forest of bamboo safely and silently with our little herd of new dragons following our every step.

…maybe someday we will have a magic sock machine that we can create anything we want on, including dragon knee highs.

There it is!
I shot this as they were tightening the edges…
As soon as the big truck arrived we were all up by the windows watching, except it was also time to pull orders so we had to go do that, then ran back as fast as we could, we were all so excited! I took a few quick shots, then Brigid suggested we have a photo contest for the person who submits the best shot of our billboard. I think this is an awesome idea, but we’ve yet to decide what the prize would be…
so, if you’re here in the Portland area and have a camera, come on over and take a picture & email it to us. All entries must be received by March 30…
we’ll announce the winner April 1st.
We’re sure to think up a great prize between now and then.

So, when does the store in the building below the sign open up for business?

Also April 1st. Even if we’re not fully ready by then, we’ll sure let you in so you can shop and give us your money. Of course, it is not going to have everything the site does, but will still have an awesome selection and will often include items that are not available on the site. I’m really excited to have a “test market” for some stuff and to be able to meet more of our customers (not that I will personally be working in the store everyday, but I will be there some of the time). More about all of this later this month, we won’t have a grand opening til we are confident everything is working as planned, but I’ll definitely be letting you know here as soon as we are open!

And about this elusive new site I mention every so often…
it is always just out of reach, currently looks like we should be testing around late May and might have it live in June. That’s the first phase of this which is mostly just getting the current site into the new design with awesome features to start being added right away when that is complete. So, that’s all I know for now…

Love and gratitude to all who’ve helped us get this far.
It just keeps getting better!