"We're in a slow down"

The title of this post is courtesy of President Bush. I reckon "slow down" is a technical economic term.

Here's what I know: milk and gas are now almost the same price. My grocery bill has tripled and I'm buying less. Sam's Club and Costco are rationing rice. But the other day I ran across an even bigger concern:

http://www.dmc.fr/mjRS/3/doc/Communiques/en/press_release_24_april_2008.pdf

I can only hope that DMC is just taking a moment and restructuring their company and not going completely out of business. A friend pointed out that the store that shall not be named's no longer stocking of DMC might possibly have had a huge impact on the sales of DMC in the USA.

I don't know anyone that has stopped buying DMC because it's no longer available at the store who shall not be named but I do know that for me, instead of buying 10-20 skeins every time I walked in the door, because I always have a list in my purse, my purchases of DMC are now limited to trips to AC Moore or JoAnn's and those occur less frequently than my trips to the store who shall not be named and I still only spend my allotted DMC amount on each trip which is usually $5. So where at one time I was spending $5-10 a week on DMC(because it's really easy to sneak in a few extra dollars of DMC in with the groceries) because really I'm always kitting something up, I'm down to about $5 a week, if that, because DMC is 35¢ a skein at AC Moore and JoAnn's. So if I stay within my DMC budget I'm not only spending less per month on DMC but I'm also buying fewer skeins of floss. So even as dedicated a DMC user as me, someone who sees it as a weekly purchase if possible, my purchases are down. Not so much from a financial aspect but as an accessibility issue.

I do know that I am going to start stocking up on DMC like never before. I have several projects that I want to kit up so instead of waiting until I'm almost ready to start them, I will be hoarding up DMC just in case.

DMC is one of those constants in my life. It has never once crossed my mind that there might be a world without DMC. Are we going to be stuck using off brand floss, purchased in those multiskein packages? Talk about worst nightmare. If I can't afford gas or groceries, I always thought I'd at least be able to stitch-it's also one of the reasons I have never let go of aida, it's affordable, I don't want to be miserable stitching so the luxury of being a fabric snob is one I have never allowed myself, I can always afford aida(yes, I love linen, really good linen but aida, it's my friend). But the idea that stitching would always be an affordable hobby even in hard times, that's looking bleak now. My blame may be misplaced but now as I see it there's another reason to dislike the store who shall not be named. Will my town ever get their own Target so it's not the only game in town?

Let the DMC hoarding begin......