Good Fibrations

Ok - I have resisted the temptation for this long - you all know I would rather knit or weave than play on the computer.  But my daughter, who by the way is also my webmeister, suggested it and it has been rolling around in my head for a couple weeks. 

This blog won't be so much about the craft as it will be about the crafters - anyone who knows about my store knows that it has become this magical place where women and some others come to meet with each other, to draw strength for the difficult life journeys we are all on, from others who have gained strength from their own rocky roads. 

If you live in a small town, what on earth would possess anyone to open a knit shop.  No, I don't mean a local yocal wool growers shop, I mean a 1600 sf full service luxury yarn shop (we sell Lopi and stuff too I'm not just talking cashmere here).  Well my story is long, but in a nutshell, I opened this shop as my grateful contribution to a world that had given my daughter cancer at a young age and then healed her, and oh by the way healed me as well.  Yes I have a long family tradition in the fiber arts. but that year an a half in my daughter's life, gave me a new perspective on life - on risk - on dreams and on hope. 

So, four years ago, I took the plunge.  And what has happened in the last four years is so much more than a knit shop.  It has been my who would've thunk it yarn shop in the middle of nowhere, and is now Jo's bar - the place to be in community in this growing but still small community.  I will let Stephanie do the Yarn Harlot thing.  What I know more about is the good souls behind the needles.  And the way their lives intertwine around the living room of the store or over the classroom table, or while working behind the counter, as so many of my customers ultimately do.

Here's the deal - I want to share with the blogespere the real purpose of knitting, weaving, spinning, felting and dyeing, raising fiber critters of all kinds. And the purpose of doing it in your local knit shop.  The best yarn shop owners know what I am talking about.  You know the Shop on Blossom Street, The Friday Night Knitting Club and other books that are about what happens to the people in the knitting circle.  Well, I am a shop owner - like the hero in Debbie Macombers books, and the view from here is what I will talk about on this blog.  If you live anywhere near Edgewood, New Mexico, stop in and see us.  But if you don't, tell me about your local yarn shop.  Are they naughty or nice.  Have you experienced healing through your shop.  Have you been part of the story of someone else's life that you met in the shop?  Why do we need these little haven's in the retail desert these days anyway.  What you will find in my shop you won't find in Walmart - either the yarn or the atmosphere or the safe haven or the community or the inspiration, crafty and otherwise. 

So here's my stand and I'm stickin to it... Good Fibrations! is as much about Good as it is about Fiber.