Greetings to all from a very excited new owner-Karen!
One Planet Yarn and Fiber was opened about four years ago by Lis and Jodi. It has been a great success for them since the day they opened the website. They succeeded in supporting smaller independent fiber companies and designers.
Because I have similar interests and 30 years of business experience, Lis and Jodi felt I was a good match to take over the helm.
My husband and I have been self-employed since the day we were married. In our first business, we were Bureau of Indian Affairs licensed Reservation traders. We traveled 5 states and did four trade shows a year. We worked directly with Native American artists and crafts people.
Our next business we worked directly with artists and crafts people in the custom knife business. We bought and sold handmade pocket knives from artists around the globe. We attended 12 shows a year to purchase product.
The business after this we owned a retail fine jewelry store. Again we worked directly with artists and crafts people to create product for the store.
For the last three years my husband and I have run our own fine pen store. The store is called Scottsdale Pen. We are the only store of its kind in the Phoenix metro area. Again, we work with artists and crafts people, as well as manufacturers to supply the store. The store is doing great.
My husband has always asked me as we are getting ready to start new businesses what I would like to do. Since I always worked with him I told him that I would know when the right thing was when it happened.
Since I was a child, I watched my grandfather, who was a professional tailor, and my grandmother, who spent ALL her time knitting and crocheting. It seems I inherited their passion. I started crocheting and knitting as a small child. I learned to sew in middle school. I learned to needlepoint in high school.
I continued these things until my time was taken up with other things. Recently, because of my 18 year old daughter, I started to knit again. Then I decided to learn to weave and bought a rigid heddle loom and learned to use it. I posted what I was doing on Ravelry while I was weaving a beaded shawl and was asked to teach that to the rigid heddle group there. Pictures and all appear there. Then I decided to learn to spin.
Now I am in trouble. I had a wonderful teacher. She taught us to spin from the ground up. No kidding. I started with dirty fleece off the sheep. I learned to wash it, tease it, hand card it and spin it. So now I wanted to learn how to dye it. Natural dye class, very messy. I learned to use acid dyes. Lots of fun.
So now I have 2 fleeces and several pounds of sheep and alpaca that still need cleaning, dye pots and lots of yarn. I own three farm shares and help support and Alpaca rescue in Southern Arizona.
In come Lis and Jodi. They see that I really love this art form, have the experience to run and grow a business, and a husband who loves to see that I have such a great passion for the subject.
I have placed several orders in the last week or so. I just received my first box from LaLana Wool. I have ordered from Fleece
Artist/Handmaiden and Urban Gypz. I have placed inquiries with more of our current vendors to see what’s new.
I am adding in new vendors too. I have orders coming in from Lantern Moon. I just love their needles and notions. The Dye Studio from England is sending me some yarn. I also ordered from Philosopher’s Wool in Canada. If anyone has read the book “Fair Isle Sweaters Made Simple” you will know that Eugene and Anne have been a driving force in Canada to restart the Canadian sheep fleece industry for small farmers in that country. How could I resist ordering some of their product. There are several sweater and shawl kits arriving soon as well as beautiful wooden buttons that they import to support craftspeople in Africa.
Melissa is staying on as Artistic Director. Lis and Jodi are hovering in my background to offer support to me.
I am happy to be cutting the virtual ribbon today to reopen the store. One Planet Yarn and Fiber has a Facebook fan page, Twitter, a Ravelry page, and blog site that I try to update a few times a week.
The website is open 24/7 as usual, with an added benefit. You can reach me by phone 10:00am to 6:00pm Monday through Friday. 480-250-0188.
New features for the store include an MCommerce site. If you have an iPhone or Droid, you can use those devices to view the website, optimized for those devices.
I am happy to announce the One Planet Yarn and Fiber My Rewards program. From now until December 31, 2010 for each purchase you make, excluding tax and shipping, you will receive one point for each dollar spent. There is nothing that you have to do to participate in this program. Every dollar counts as a point. After 30 days the points will be released into your account for you to use. Once you reach 100 points you can begin to start redeeming points against purchases. You can let the points build up or you can spend them every time you reach 100 points. There is no limit to the number of points you can accrue. Once the program ends on December 31, 2010 for accrual, you will have until January 31, 2011 to use them up. After that point, any unused points will expire
One Planet Yarn and Fiber
Best Regards,
Karen
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