That Dreaded Inventory

It's that time of year again when we take a day to conduct a complete inventory at Grandma's Attic. That means we have to count every single thing that is in the shop--a feat that could take forever if we didn't ask our family, employees and friends to participate. This year, Georgeann served as our team leader. She broke us up into teams of two and sent us to various areas in the shop to get the job done. This first photo is a picture of Georgeann at the front counter. She stays available so that when we find an item without a price, or have a question about something, she can remedy the situation.

I also asked Michael and Jeremy to help me in the back room organizing and counting all of the Calico Hills Farm patterns and putting them into new storage containers. This is a picture of Michael with his clipboard and sheets for counting all the patterns. He's still smiling so the job must not have been too bad!

Out front, each team was given an area of the shop to count. Charlotte and Cheryl got the task of counting all the skeins of DMC Floss and spools of thread. Tiffany and Kelly were over in the notions department counting buttons and rotary cutters and other notions.
Teams that worked with fabrics, including Melissa and Carly, had to count all of the wraps on each bolt. This photo is a photo of Melissa recording fabric while Carly counts it. The best way for a team to count fabric is for one person to count and the other to record the results. When you are counting fabric wraps, it is always a good idea to use a knitting needle to help separate each wrap. Every two wraps is a yard of fabric. This is also good information if you are purchasing fabric and want to know if there will be enough fabric on the bolt for your project.


Here's Michael and Jeremy counting the Calico Hills Farm patterns. In all, there were 22 of us taking inventory. We got it all done in just one day, even though we stopped mid-way through to enjoy six large pizzas from the local pizza parlor. Yummy!

Now, all that's left to do is to count up the inventory sheets that were created and do a little straightening of shelves. We're good to go for another year!