Knitting Fashion From Britain

Dani is visiting London and Scotland. Here is her fashion report (hopefully, some pictures soon):

London - People aren't wearing much knitted, maining just really big scarves with chunky yarn.

Scotland - All the men here wear these striped scarves. Everyone wears peacoats, short trench coats or bomber/army jackets. All the women wear tights or skinny jeans with tall boots and thick chunky scarves.

Icing Swirl Hat from Ysolda's "Whimsical Little Knits"

Still Waiting.......

So, we are still waiting to finalize our lease. We have signed the papers on our end and submitted our deposits, but as of today, the landlord is still on vacation.

But, progress is being made! We have 14 boxes (BIG boxes) of yarn already and more on the way. We are talking Frog Tree, Manos del Uruguay, Malabrigo, Brown Sheep, Misti Alpaca, Crystal Palace, Universal, Wisdom, FibraNatura, and several more! It is like Christmas opening the boxes and seeing all the wonderful colors and textures.

The Yarn Market News Smart Business Conference in Seattle was fabulous! It was great to meet and network with some amazing speakers and shop owners. The yarn crawl was fun (5 shops), the reception at Julep (sponsored by DellaQ) was relaxing, the open house at Skacel was eye opening, and we even were able to squeeze in a shopping trip at Ikea!

The next challenges are getting all the inventory checked in, working on shop models and displays, and meeting with a couple more company reps.

Good News! 2/10/10

Our Letter of Intent to lease was accepted today! Final lease signing should happen next week, so now we can make some serious connections with the yarn companies. We have found a great location, with good parking, easy access, a large shop area, two bathrooms, and a huge "kitchen" area with 6 sinks (think fiber dyeing and felting), plus a dryer hookup! It is a little dark (gold walls), so painting and updating the lighting will be first on our "to do" list.

30 Shops!

Newport was gorgeous this weekend! Two more yarn shops were added to the visited list, Nestucca Bay Yarns in Lincoln City, and Yarn For All Seasons in Newport. The count is now at 30! Visiting so many shops has helped define the vision for Tangled Purls. We hope to reflect many of the positive qualities of the unique places & personalities that we have experienced.

Location, Location

We have made an offer to lease a space, and so far, it looks promising! We will know more on Monday, stay tuned!

Yarn Sampling

Spent the afternoon matching new yarns to patterns to do some sample knitting and swatching. It is amazing how each yarn knits up. Some look so beautiful in a skein, but look entirely different when knitted. Other yarns don't look so promising, yet turn out to look and feel lovely. Some pictures will be posted soon!

Logo Love

Our logo is finished and we love, love it! It was fun watching it all come together. Henry does great work! Our yarn crawl count is up to 28, adding Fiber Nooks & Crannys in Corvallis and Teaselwick Wools in Salem. I bought some great display stuff from Donna. After the basketball game last night, Chad was appalled to find naked female mannequin parts in the backseat of the car where he throws his bags! "What the ----!" I think he was happy it was dark outside so no one could see him get in the car with them.

Tomorrow is the day to check out a couple more options for places to lease. Hopefully, one will be a good fit.

Planning, Planning, Planning

We have been meeting with reps, exploring locations, tweeking this blog, and creating our logo (our graphics design guy is amazing to work with). Next step, getting the software and conquering the Quickbooks monster!

Shops We Have Visited

These are the 26 Oregon yarn shops we have visited in the last year or so:

Have You Any Wool (now closed)

Artistic Needles (now closed)

Rose and Ram

Purl District

Boersmas

Woodland Woolworks

Pacific Wool and Fiber

All About Yarn

Molehill Farm

The Stitching Post

Gossamer

Juniper Fiberworks

The Yarn Garden

Mill Ends Store

Abundant Yarn (now closed)

Twisted

The Naked Sheep

Kitt'n Kitten

Coastal Yarns

For Yarn's Sake

Knit Purl

Dublin Bay Knitting Company

Close Knit

Yarnia

Happy Knits

Make One