IPurl's Shop Philosophy

We are getting many requests from knitters to stock a certain yarn. I will probably ask you how often you knit with that particular yarn and what you knit with it; then make note of your request. A yarn shop must have a plan in place while working to stock what the majority of customers are asking for.

Quality Over Quantity - It is our belief that a yarn shop must stock the basics - a good 100% wool for knitting and felting - worsted, DK and chunky weights, a great cotton and cotton blend selections for our climate, a varied selection of the best sock yarns/sock weights, lace weights in various fibers, alpaca, cashmere, the requisite baby yarns and the current "popular" trends that come and go. Along the way, high- end specialty yarns will be added such as expensive beaded yarns with minimum yardage. Sales of all stocked yarns are being closely monitored to see what is selling and what is not. The yarns that are not selling will not be restocked but replaced with something else. This process doesn't happen overnight, it takes time.

Knitting needle selection - we stock Crystal Palace Yarn bamboo circular needles (a personal favorite). They are the only circular (that I am aware of) with a cord that rotates on the needle. Addi Turbo is the metal needle of choice for most knitters and we stock those in the Lace version. Kollage Square needles are super needles with great points. Their 5" dps are perfect for socks and handwarmers/mittens so we are stocking those. I believe the small (8" to 12") circular is invaluable for many knitting projects so we have a selection of those also. Most knitters are using circulars now. With that in mind, no single point knitting needles will be stocked.

I love knitting bags! There will always be a selection of small project bags, baskets and larger knitting bags of excellent quality.

We aren't going to stock knitting books. I am sure you have noticed, the printed book industry is in the midst of a major change. I have watched knitting friends go into a yarn shop, look through a particular knitting book to see if they like it and go home to order it from Amazon and/or Kindle for less than half the price yarn shops sell them for! I first noticed it with the Kindle and the industry has continued to race toward the ebook. I feel compelled to buy the books I want to have in print now before they are no longer available! I get VOGUEknitting by subscription on my iPad along with a couple of crochet magazines. Patterns are easily purchased and instantly downloaded from the Internet. Ravelry is a must for every knitter and crocheter for this reason. You can buy knitting books via Kindle - download them onto your iPad which can easily be put in your knitting bag! As you can see, it is not profitable for a yarn shop to stock knitting books. I think knitting and crochet magazines are not far behind. IPurl has fast wifi so everyone can access the Internet for all their books and pattern needs. We do have patterns for specific yarns that cannot be purchased on the Internet.

There are no plans to ever have weaving or spinning products or equipment. I don't have an interest in it and don't have the space to stock those items.

In time, we hope to have a great yarn shop, stocking the yarns and equipment our customers want.

Our website is currently undergoing a hosting change. This means we are creating a new website adding all the products we currently have in the brick and mortar shop. The new website is attached to our shop software for processing sales and maintaining inventory. When the new website has enough products, we will shut down the old one. We are still processing orders from the old website (just shipped NORO to The Netherlands) but not adding new merchandise. We hope to make a smooth transition very soon.

Classes - Several of us have our heads together working on a class schedule for September. We are hoping to email it out in a week or so. We are planning several project classes and KALs.

As you can see, there is a lot going on with iPurl. When I have time to knit, it is for a shop display or something for an upcoming KAL or class. Currently, I am working on a small Wallaby. The Wonderful Wallaby will be the subject of an upcoming post.

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