New in Our Shop
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We have new blankets, loveys, and sets in the Sheep Dreamzzz shop. The set below is just one of them. You can see them all on our New Arrivals page.
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Sale this Week
Through this Friday (July 14) all blankets are 15% off. This includes already on-sale and clearance blankets. This is an automatic discount; no discount code is needed.
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We're doing this to clear space in our warehouse... er.. that would be the closets of two bedrooms in our small house in Saint Augustine. Frankly, sales have been slow and we need to reduce inventory. Read more about future plans for Sheep Dreamzzz below.
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The State of Sheep Dreamzzz
As most already know, Sheep Dreamzzz is part of our 501(c) (3) charitable organization Sheep Not Goats. We added it in 2018 to provide an income source for women in Malpaisillo, a very poor rural town in Nicaragua. Sandy trained them to knit and they are now experts producing beautiful handmade baby blankets. We've had as many as 24 knitters. Some have left for other jobs (we love it when that happens), some had to be weeded out, and some just stopped. As with any other employment.
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We're down to 8 now. Here's the current group:
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Sales have been slow in 2023; blanket production has exceeded sales for too long, so we've had to slow down. We have suspended knitting the first week of each month since June. We have also made our final yarn purchase unless things turn around and won't make it to the end of 2023 with what we have.
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The knitters receive a monthly bonus based on sales. They receive it the week before the week off from knitting. The last one was less than $11. That's in lieu of what they would have earned for knitting a blanket that week.
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When buyers check out, they are asked if they would like to donate $5 (or a multiple thereof to supplement the ladies' pay). We add that to the monthly bonus. In June and July less than 10% of buyers opted to donate.
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Our blankets, loveys, and sets are all priced right about break-even, which is why we don't normally do sales. $59 for a 100% hand-knitted blanket that also helps a poor family is (we think) a compelling deal, but we're to the point of taking more drastic actions.
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When someone buys an on-sale or clearance blanket, we can't include it in the bonus calculations, and on the current 15%-off sale all of that has to come from the bonuses.
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We are up against a hard wall here. We hope it's really obvious why we need your help in not only choosing Sheep Dreamzzz for a baby gift (perhaps even stocking up for future gifts) and also recommending us to friends and family. One might even gift some of our blankets to a women's shelter - it's been done before.
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