Karida of Neighborhood Fiber Co and I go way back. We started our businesses around the same time, having met at a local knit shop that we both worked. While Karida was writing her business plan for her DC themed yarn line, I was starting Knit-a-Gogo, Inc. and teaching classes all over the DC metro area. I helped her score a job at a local non profit that I had connections to so that she would have some steady income while expanding her business. My first yarn purchase for the company was from Karida. I bought some bulky weight fiber to use for my beginner knitting classes, and I kept her yarn in the trunk of my car, lugging tubs of it into classes for students to buy. I was a “yarn dealer” of sorts, meeting students on the side of the road at times to sell them Karida’s yarn, because so few stores had it.
I attended three national trade shows with Karida, helping her to set up and merchandise and sell to yarn shops. It was great experience for me to be on that side of things and I am really really grateful that I had already experienced the trade show by the time I was ready to open fibre space. Although organizing Karida is a little like herding cats.
Then Karida expanded really really fast…too fast for her to keep up with the demand from the many shops she sold to. She moved to Columbus Ohio to start over again right before fibre space opened. We met up for coffee in July and talked about her new business model and my new shop. She was excited about being in a new place and having a chance to get set up and dyeing again. But I never expected to see yarn this season.
Today the Fedex man arrived with this box of amazingness. Now if you know Karida, you know that even when she sent an invoice for the yarn and a fedex number, it still doesn’t mean that the yarn is actually going to show up in one piece. But it did! and I have two hanks of ten amazing colors of lace weight silk: Grant Circle, Cooper Circle, Kalorama, Sheridan Circle, Logan Circle, Ward Circle, Dupont Circle, Lincoln Park (my old neighborhood!), Georgetown and Shaw. I am really happy to be part of her business getting up and growing again and we are expecting more to arrive next month…cross your fingers! She even sent an Ishbel sample to show it off.