Yes we’re open come on in!
Don’t you wonder why people keep asking if you’re open even when the Open sign is on the door? I’m not being funny or anything, but normal shops feel.. well.. just a bit more shoppish.
What do you mean? Are you saying that Wild and Woolly isn’t a normal shop?
Hmm, let me think about that for about a nano-second. Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Wild and Woolly is not a normal shop. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t go a bundle on Normal. So I don’t mean it in a bad way. It’s just that maybe you need to tell the knitters what it is, so that they.. you know.. get it.
But hang on a minute.. What do I say? What is the shop?
Tell them about the yarns, and the classes. And don’t forget to explain about the support part.
Ok, Wild and Woolly is a wool shop that sells wool that me and Brontë love. It’s on the small side so we can’t sell all the yarns in all the patterns. We have to choose them carefully. Obviously we make sure that we’ve got all the different yarn weights (lace, 4ply, DK, worsted, aran, chunky etc..) covered, but beyond that our focus is on finding natural fibre yarns made by small producers in the UK and Europe, people that we respect for the way they take care of the welfare of the animals and people involved in the production, the environment where all that goes on, and the making of the yarn. And it turns out those people generally have really interesting things to say about their work so we also like hearing their stories and retelling them in this newsletter. The other thing is that we choose yarns because of the way that knitting fits into our lives (which is also about how the wool makes us feel).
How does that last bit work?
Ok, it’s like this. Every day has gaps in it – even if you’re really busy there are times when you’re sitting on a train getting to the place where you’ll be busy, waiting in a cafe for your person to show up, sitting watching telly after the others have gone to bed. That’s when we knit. In those gaps. It’s part of the day like meals and teeth brushing. And the wool we knit with is just so great that we are almost always wearing what we knit. The point here is that our knitting is real life stuff. It’s not a luxury hobby we do occasionally on a whim. And even though we know not everyone knits like us, we still think that REAL part is crucial, which for us also means affordable. We know what goes into making wool and how important it is to pay for it properly. But we choose to buy most of our yarns direct from the producers who make wool from their local sheep and generally we avoid super expensive luxury fibres. So we do our best to steer the shop along a reasonable mid-range price path with options for more budget yarns and a handful of special treat ones too. We’ve also got help-yourself Yarn Forward vouchers for low-no income knitters to help pay for their supplies, plus a Stash Depot drawer full of un-used balls of cast-off yarns going for a song (well £2 each which is kind of like a song).
Ok I get it – it’s real yarn for real knitters doing real knitting. But it’s also a workshop – right?
Oh Yes! We have lots of classes – real knitting means it’s for everyone! You can start from scratch with Sunday morning knitting and Monday evening crochet for absolute beginners. Then there’s next-step classes to add new skills likes socks and colourwork to your repertoire, and longer courses like the Thursday evening Sweater Club to get to grips with bigger projects. Plus we have more free-style sessions like the monthly Crochet Lates and the Late Night Knitty Lock-in where you just come with whatever you’re working on and hang out with others who are doing their thing, and get help if you need it.
But what about the sitting at the table without there being a class or any arrangement. Where does that fit in?
It just kind of happens – it’s what we’ve always done. Look, everyone gets stuck at some point. For some people it might be the cast-on, or the written instructions. For others, it’s working out why the numbers don’t seem right, or how to do the unfamiliar increases, or having a look to see if you’ve got the right gauge. That real knitting thing is also about really wanting you to get on with it. So we don’t mind where your yarn or pattern is from. What we don’t want is for you to fall out with it. Think of us as kind of relationship counsellors for you and your knitting. We’re really experienced knitters and we love solving knitting puzzles. Getting stuck is fine. Staying stuck. Not so much. So that table with all the knitters sitting there – I know it’s not normal and shoppish and doesn’t have a proper name – but it’s as much a part of Wild and Woolly as the yarn and the classes. Without it, the rest just wouldn’t make sense.
And all of that makes a viable business? How do you make it work?
By finding a way to operate within the market without being governed by its values. Our interest in profitability is about how it makes the sustaibability of the shop possible. It’s a circular thing which starts way beyond the shop on the hillsides where shepherds are raising the sheep whose fleece gets made into the wool – with each bit making the rest possible – producing the yarn, sourcing yarns for the shop, explaining how great the yarn is in the stories we tell, helping people knit their things so they can discover how great that feels, then going back to the producers to get more wool. It needs a lot of good humour and resourcefulness too. Mostly though I think it works because we love it. Did I say that already?