This month I wanted to share love for the women behind the scenes who make fibre space continue to turn. The team and I lovingly refer to them as the “fibre alumni.” Each of them is a former yarnista who worked on the floor at the shop at some point… and then never really left the job successfully? (Here’s a reel of me talking a little more about the fibre alumni.)
Kel
My first love note is to the most OG of the fibre alumni – Kel. If you’ve been a customer since the day we opened our doors, you’ve likely met Kel many times. She was my first shop manager and the first employee of the business back in 2009. She was an enormous part of the creation of my business plan, my brand, and the shop’s evolution to a nationally known LYS. This post could be a multi-page dissertation on all the ways/stories/times Kel impacted this shop, but I’ll share just a small selection of the moments that stand out most to me.
In 2009 while doing the buildout for the shop, my brother died in an accident, and Kel built our fixtures and set up our systems while I was in Pittsburgh, burying him. I came back to a shop ready to open. She was the kind of employee who would happily pick out a fun bold paint color and then join you in painting the incredibly tiny disgusting old shop bathroom. Kel took “other duties as assigned” to a whole new level. She created so many incredible and creative displays, and is also the reason we no longer allow glitter inside the store…and why I know how to dissolve super glue from human skin.
After helping to launch Brooklyn Tweed yarn in our shop, Jared Flood recruited her to manage the wholesale arm of his new company, and Kel moved across the country to Portland, Oregon. But even from Portland, she continued to be my yarn and fibre expert, writing website content, contributing to our inventory choices, and generally just being there for me as someone with all of the historical memory of this business. Kel provided that soft landing I needed upon returning from Pittsburgh at one of the worst moments in my life. She was right by my side all those months, physically and emotionally building this community space. She may have moved far away but she never really left fibre space. Today Kel is still behind the scenes of much of the content you read in our newsletter or on our website, and I am grateful to still have her in my (our) orbit.
