Do I spend nearly £20 on genuine ink for my not-very-old Epson printer, as it won’t accept refills or copy cartridges, or do I buy a good quality brand new HP printer for £40 on special offer at eBuyer?

Darn those advertising emails.

Actually, that title isn’t quite right - it’s not that I’m a bad ecoknitter.  I’m actually a very good ecoknitter.  I’m just a ruddy bad  ecoblogger.  How on earth have five months just whizzed past without a single blog post to let you all know what’s going on in the land of Ecoyarndom?

Right, first and foremost, the most exciting thing on the horizon is the series of workshops I’ve somehow managed to fall into running.  It’s a long story (when is it ever a short story round here?).  I was lucky enough to be taken under the wing of CIDA, the creative industries folks, when I first started out on this yarnie adventure, and they paired me up with a brilliant business mentor by the name of Anne-Marie Logan.  She has by turns goaded, encouraged and bullied me into doing things which I’d never have even thought of.  And these workshops have sprung out of the last two conversations with her.  I can’t call them meetings, as that’s far too official.  We tend to sit and talk practically non-stop for between an hour and two each time we meet.

I’m also running a series of ten evening classes at Doncaster’s Hayfield FE centre from September, Knitting for Beginners. (the website is due to be updated with the new term’s courses shortly).  That was booked first, and Anne-Marie suggested I do a couple of ‘taster’ sessions at this little place she just happened to know in York…  So that’s where you’ll find me, on Monday 13th and 20th of July, from 12pm till 1pm.  If you want to book, go to the Ecoknits Workshop page and you’ll find all the details there.

On the yarn front, hurry over to the Manos del Uruguay page, where I’ve got some of the hard-to-get colours of Silk Blend in stock.  That teal/green/blue 7325 Pisces tends to fly out just as soon as it comes in.  Not surprising really, as it’s pretty gorgeous

At least, that’s what they say.  In fact, so far my January has been anything but quiet.  Which is a good thing.

First off, my advert appeared in Yarn Forward Issue 10 and it looks great!  Ideal placement, on the top right hand side of a right hand page.  Absolutely perfect - go get an isse and have a look!  Never mind the fact that there are some lovely patterns in there - and they use some of my yarn.  The teen sweater Fusion can be made with Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend, which is a wonderful alternative to Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK (and is quicker to type…) and the lovely Orchid tank uses the Manos Clasica wool (scroll right down to the bottom of the patterns page to see it).

Second, I’ve had some wonderful new customers who are full of enthusiasm for the yarn they’ve bought, and thank you if you’re one of those who’ve sent me happy feedback by email - it makes my day all warm and fuzzy.  Ecoknits has taken on a life of its own and I love hearing about what you’re making with all this amazing yarn.

And third, speaking of amazing yarn, I’m very priviledged to announce the arrival of the most delicious naturally hand dyed yarn from Finland, called Riihivilla Aarni.

It is produced by a lovely couple called Jouni and Leena Riihelä.  The Finnsheep fleeces are bought directly from the farmers and shepherds at a premium price.  The fleeces are then hand sorted by Jouni and Leena before being sent off to a local mill to be spun.  Then comes the best bit - Leena dyes all the spun yarn by hand in very small dye lots, often using what she grows in her garden and finds in the woodlands around her home, including the most amazing looking mushroom!  She also uses cochineal, madder, Japanese indigo and tansy andthe mordants alum and cream of tartar.

I’m very lucky to be stocking Aarni - barely a day or two after Leena and I had agreed that I could stock it, Riihivilla was featured in an online knitting magazine.  Within a week, she had sold nearly her entire stock and had been approached by a handful of other shops wanting to stock her yarn.  But as she dyes only a kilo or two at a time, she’s turned them all down.

Slight errata in the last post - I’m interviewed in Issue 11, not 10.  But I am mentioned in two separate parts :)  Talk about fifteen minutes of fame.

Apologies for the gap in posting!  Goodness, it’s been a wee while since I put anything up on here.  I have been a tad busy though, and don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about part two of the business start up blog.

However, for now, I thought I’d let you know just why I’ve been head down and other wise occupied.  I’ve decided to take out a proper advertisement in a real magazine.  Yarn Forward is a fabulous new knitting mag that comes out mid month, and it’s very different from all the other magazines.

For starters, it’s more ‘grown-up’.  It’s not plastered with neon text and exclamation marks, and the pictures on the front aren’t garish and wince-inducing.  It talks to you like you’re an intelligent adult, and also, from the point of view that you can already knit, as you would’t be buying a knitting magazine if you couldn’t, right?  So there aren’t pages of ‘how to cast on’ or ‘how to purl’ at the back.  But there are articles on the more advanced techniques, like colourwork and how to design your own knitwear!

Plus, they have nice green credentials too - Yarn Forward isn’t wrapped in layers of plastic, which is good not only from an environmental point of view, but it also means you can pick it up and flick through it in store.  That and they can’t fill it full of dozens of advertising flyers either.  Added to that the fact it’s printed on recycled paper and paper from managed forests, and they make a donation to a tree-planting scheme for each subscription that’s taken out.  Very nice indeed!

They limit their advertising to ten pages of targeted ads as well.  Knitters want yarny adverts, right?  Not ‘find a friend’ or conservatory blinds ones.

And they do plus sizes.  Instead of stopping at a 38″ or 40″ size, they go up to 50″ chests.  Good for those of you who are blessed in the bra region.  And nice for me as a yarn retailer, because bigger sizes need more yarn!  Actually, that’s a plus from the knitter’s point of view too - more yarn is good for everyone!

I’m in the next issue, number 10, so keep your eyes peeled!  Yarn Forward has been spotted at WHSmiths, Tesco and Borders as of late.  If you find it anywhere else, let me know!

Kris x

Last week, I did a show at the Doncaster Dome.  It was a Business Enterprise event, and all the small businesses that Success Doncaster and Business Link had helped set up in the past twelve months were invited to attend, allotted a table and it actually turned into a very enjoyable day out.

I set my table up and it just looked so yummy to have all that luscious yarn out on display in baskets that I had to take a couple of pictures. 

Ecoknits stall at the Dome

Table display

And yes, that is a small green Land Rover sat on a pile of patterns.  My small boy was present for part of the day, and had to bring x number of small wheeled objects with him.

Ok, I’m here. Slightly late, but that’s pretty much the story of my life. When did I set this blog up? Ooh, who knows? August, I think. And it’s what, November? Ho hum.

But I think it’s time to make a start. If nothing else, I’m going to need a record of what I’ve done and when, to jog what’s left of my memory. This Ecoknits thing happened so damn quickly, I’m not quite sure how it all really started, but I do know I blame Sarah for a large portion of it. We were chatting one night on MSN, as you do, and got to talking about business and websites and making a few pounds to offset the cost of raising small children. And then we got onto the work/life balance that so many people get so very wrong, and how we didn’t want to do that. And how you need to do what you love, because then that stops it being just work and makes it a job you genuinely enjoy. What did I enjoy? What do I love to do?

Pretty much anything that involves yarn, to be honest. Now that gardening is out of the picture (long story, worthy of another couple of blog posts come spring), my one true passion is for knitting and all things yarny. My house is full of the stuff - in everyroom there’s at least one cotton shopping bag with a project in, and my kitchen corner is piled with bags and boxes and padded envelopes containing wool, needles, books, patterns… anyway, you get the picture. I might even post a picture if I can figure out how you do that on Wordpress.

But where was I? Ah, beginnings.

I’d been looking for some organic cotton a while before this conversation, and had bemoaned the fact that the lovely organic, ethical type yarns were few and far between. You could get his yarn from this seller and that yarn from another seller, and where were those lovely needles to be found again? Then it hit me - all these threads could be neatly tied up if I put together my own little website selling ethical, organic, fair trade, sustainable, natural yarns for the discerning knitter and crocheter. (we’re not toolist around here - I don’t mind if you use a hook instead of pointy sticks to make your thing. Bi-stitchual, we call it.)

I umm’d and ahh’d over whether I could actually do it. Sarah poked me a number of times on line and then James (aka himself, DH, the kids’ dad) grumbled that if I bought any more knitting wool, I needed to start selling it as we were running out of room in the house. This coming from a man who buys Land Rovers for the fun of it. What takes up more room, I ask you - a dozen balls of yarn or two old knackered Discoverys? Hmmmm?

Sorry, I digress.

That kind of cinched it though. I would start my website. So on 15th April 2008, I bought www.ecoknits.co.uk. Found a host, letshost.ie, through James, that ticked all the boxes. Not that I had many boxes. Whilst I’ve been surfing the internet for the past, ooh, 13 years (!) I’d never figured out how anyone actually put all that information up there for my delectation. It just, well, was there. And if it wasn’t, I knew it wouldn’t be long before someone added it to the great library in the ether that is the World Wide Web. I’m doing it again, aren’t I? Where was I?

I did something daft and placed a big order for wooden needles from India on 2nd May. Well, hell, I thought, they’ll take a while to turn up…

I did a little online course starting May 7th. That was fun. In the middle of that, I spent many an hour online trying to find a shopping cart because I absolutely loathe OSCommerce. I’d tried it, and it just hadn’t worked. It looked, well, like OSCommerce. Apologies to those out there who use it and like it, but I didn’t have the wherewithal or the know-how to change the appearance sufficiently to prevent it looking like a zillion other websites out there. I wanted simple. I wanted clean lines. I didn’t want to have to click nine different drop down menu lists to get to the page where you could click ‘add to cart’.

We found Mal’s Cart. (We being me and Sarah - my invaluable assistant. I did resolve to teach her to knit so I could repay her help with yarn… but more on that later). Mal’s cart offered me pretty much exactly what I wanted - a simple bit of form code that I could drop under each item on the website, that took you to a secure cart held on their server. I could do multi-choice forms, for needle lengths and sizes, I could do radio buttons for “or” selections, or square ones for “and” selections, and it was simple, straightforward and most importantly of all, free! Tick that box.

I spent May and June emailing various suppliers, including people in Ulan Bator, Mongolia; South Africa; companies that imported stuff from Peru and Uruguay; found needles from the USA. But then my conscience started to prickle me. I was supposed to be Ecoknits. The “Eco” was an important bit of my name. Just how eco was it to be importing stuff from halfway around the world? Think of the air miles! Think of the carbon footprint… I baulked at the South African stuff, as although it was gorgeously soft bamboo, machine washable in a myriad of wonderful colours, it would be coming from the bottom of the world. Via plane. I couldn’t do that, could I? I may yet change my mind if I can get them to send it surface. I should ask, actually…

But I did find two British companies that sold Peruvian yarn. And I decided to stock them for a number of reasons, which I’ll cover in another post. I found some yarn from Uruguay. And then I found my English yarn. Lots and lots of lovely English/British stuff, produced by artisans and small businesses with love and care and attention to detail and no air miles involved. Perfect!

I dug into savings, and ordered. Oh the boxes that started arriving. Then I had to buy other stuff, a daylight bulb for taking photos with, packaging materials, storage boxes to keep the kids and the puppy out. Someone mentioned Inland Revenue and accounts. Um, you mean I have to do this properly?

Ok. Tune in next time for the great saga of “Officially Starting a Business”. It’s nowhere near as hard as you might think!

Insert gratuitous picture of delicious fair trade sock yarn here…

I got a blog.  Better think of something to write in it…