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Yes, parking is a major issue when choosing a location for a retail shop – and an issue I did not consider at the time I leased my spot in the San Rafael City Plaza in downtown San Rafael. After all, there are plenty of retail merchants in downtown San Rafael, and it seems like such a vibrant area.
It turns out that downtown San Rafael has a history of parking problem. Unlike many other downtown communitites in the area, San Rafael parking is metered rather ruthlessly. No “free two-hour parking”, which is common in other areas. No abundance of parking lots on every corner. Yes parking lots are scattered here and there (still metered, mind you). The fact of the matter is that local people in general loathe metered parking. “This is the suburbs after all, not a big city like San Francisco!” I know of customers that rarely visited the shop because they hated parking in downtown San Rafael.
Yikes, I wish I knew that before I signed my lease.
Next time: Garlic Fries and Cashmere do not mix well.
I started this blog way back in 2005 when I decided to open a yarn store. I used the blog as a diary of what I went through: the hoops I jumped through, the frustrations I experienced, the joys I felt. It was cathartic. It was fun. And it attracted quite a few readers.
Well, now the brick and mortar yarn shop is history. What’s left is the Marin Fiber Arts website that I hope will build into an amazing online place where people can visit who love to work with yarn. Kind of like the yarn shop. But before I blog about building an online yarn emporium and resource, I should take care of unfinished business and chronicle how one closes a yarn store.
Question: How do you close a 4-year old yarn store?
Answer: Painfully.
When did this story really begin? I can probably trace the roots of the store’s demise to a time before I ever opened Marin Fiber Arts. The root of the problem: my location. Awkwardly located in the back of a plaza in downtown San Rafael, it was just plain hard to find. If you didn’t live in the area, you probably had to call the store several times on the cell phone in order to find the place. We received many calls from people who were STANDING OUT ON FOURTH STREET IN FRONT OF THE PLAZA. “Hello? Where are you? Well, I’m standing out here and I can’t see you!” “All you have to do is walk to the rear of the plaza”, we’d say. “That’s right, I’m tucked in the corner! Yay, you found us.”
Of course, many people never got that far. In fact, my dear friend Bobbie (our Knit Doctor) says it took her over a year to find the store. She (and many others) kept driving by, looking for my sign, never to see it. Oh, right: San Rafael does not allow any signage on Fourth Street for us merchants in the Plaza. Yep, we have to stay hidden from the general public. Don’t get me started. I am not happy with the way San Rafael treats small businesses.
In addition to location, high rent was the sucker-punch. Oh it was so high, especially when you consider that there was very little foot traffic going past the store. Normally one expects to pay high rent to be located in a high-traffic downtown shopping district. It’s that old real estate adage: location location location. In my case, even though I was located downtown, the Plaza hides its merchants by facing them perpendicular to the street. The plaza is not inviting; it’s a barren expanse of paving bricks with a cool waterfall in the back. Very little seating, no shade, no grassy area for kids to play, no trees. Why would anyone walk in there?
A better question would be: why would I rent such a space to begin with?!? Sigh, hindsight is 20/20. I thought the location was good enough (downtown San Rafael), close to the freeway. It’s a vibrant downtown neighborhood, right? Well, Fourth Street might be vibrant, but not in the City Plaza.
Next time: but where do I put my car??
 Mitered Rectangles Throw Pattern I’ve been a busy little bee lately, sprucing up and adding content and products to the Marin Fiber Arts website. The Mitered Rectangles Throw pattern, pictured above, is a really fun blanket that I started quite awhile ago and have recently picked up again. The blanket is knitted all in garter stitch, and each square is attached to the one before it. Yes, no sewing! The blanket gets bigger and bigger as you knit. Pictured below is my progress. I am not using the yarn called for in the pattern (Ornaghi Filati Filtweed), I’m using what I had on-hand: Steinbach Wolle’s Eroica, a yarn I sold in the shop. The pattern is very easy to memorize and is quite addictive. Both the pattern and the yarn may be purchased by going to the Mitered Rectangles Throw page on the MFA website. Once there you can browse all the colors of Filtweed and figure out how to enhance your decor with this great throw!
Back when the yarn shop was open, there were a couple of simple scarves that people raved about. Here is one such scarf pattern, using a sport-weight yarn:
Cast On 24 sts (or an even number) with a US 5 needle.
Knit one row.
K1, *yo, k2tog; repeat from * across until the last stitch; k1.
Repeat this row until your scarf is as long as you like.
Last row: knit across. Bind off loosely.
Add some fringe if you like, and you have a soft, drapey scarf. Leave it unblocked for a more solid scarf, or pin it out and block it for a more open, lacy look.
Summer 2009 turned out to be a sad time because I had to close the retail yarn store located in San Rafael, CA. Operating costs were way too high and the economy was taking a toll. Moving day was very strenuous but I got through it just fine.
After closing the store I faced a choice: leave the yarn industry all together and go back to web programming full time or stick with yarn. My heart breaks every time I envision myself not surrounded by yarn! So here I am with a revitalized web store.
After taking about a month off to recuperate, I am hard at work making the Marin Fiber Arts shopping site better than ever! I have made special arrangements with certain yarn companies (Pagewood Farm, Mountain Colors, and Aurora Yarns to name a few) to be able to list a huge variety of yarns and colors on the website. I am literally adding items to the site on a daily basis!
I’ve also just created a category on the site for Clearance Yarns – products left over from the shop when I closed. All of this yarn is marked down 50% or more! If you love shopping for sale yarns, check out the clearance area often.
 Multi-directional Baby Socks by Lorna Miser I’m delighted to announce that Lorna Miser, teacher, designer, and founder of Lorna’s Laces is coming to Marin Fiber Arts on Saturday, May 16th to teach a 3-hour class on making her clever multi-directional baby socks as featured in her brand-new book “Faith, Hope, Love Knitting”. Cost for the 3-hour class is $30 and includes yarn. The class runs from 10 am – 1 pm.
Later in the day, from 2-4 pm, join us for a booksigning for her just-released book “Faith, Hope, Love, Knitting”. This heart-warming collection of patterns and stories reveals how Lorna’s faith infuses both her knitting and her life with warmth, friendship, and love. The projects are beautiful, and run from small accessories to women’s garments.
 Claudia Hand Painted Fingering Merino in Desert Dusk Lots of fun stuff going on in the shop these days. Pictured above is one of the lovely colors of fingering weight merino from Claudia Hand Painted Yarns which we recently received. Over 30 different colors are prominently displayed in the front of the store: semi-solids mixed in with multi-colors. This machine-washable yarn makes great socks as well as scaves, hats, and fingerless gloves.
I’ve also updated the web store with all the colors of Claudia fingering. Click the image above or here to be taken directly to the store.
The class schedule was updated today with three upcoming events in May/June: a clever sock class & book signing with Lorna Miser (founder of Lorna’s Laces), a knitalong and a crochetalong! Go here to read all about these special events. I’ll be blogging more about these events in the days to come.
Bobbie (out Knit Doctor) will be out of comission for the next several weeks while she a) recovers from a nasty virus, and b) has knee surgery. We all hope her the best of recoveries and look forward to her return soon!
Stitches West is over, and it makes me sad. Putting up the booth, stocking it with amazing hand-dyed yarns, and meeting old customers and new customers, seeing old friends and making new friends, was a complete blast for everyone involved. A big “thank you” goes out to everyone who said “hi” and especially to those who helped out during the weekend: Bobbie, Amy, Meredith, Sue, Steve, Elaine, Annie, and Lisa(sorry if I forgot someone), and Frederikka at Aurora Yarns. I couldn’t have done it without all of you!
Now for the exciting part: Stitches West is not over! We’ve unpacked all the yarn from Stitches and displayed it all around the front half of the store. All remaining stock from Stitches is on sale at a 15% discount! Believe me, there is a LOT of yarn left over. Here is a list:
Mountain Colors: Twizzle, River Twist, 4/8s wool, Winter Lace, patterns.
Fiesta: Baby Boom, Ballet, Flurry, La Boheme, Cottonista, Knit One Below kits, patterns.
Claudia: Fingering (100% merino), Fingering 55 (silk/merino), French Scarf Kits, a few colors of Silk Lace, patterns.
Pagewood Farm: Denali (wool/nylon sock yarn), Glacier Bay (3ply merino sock yarn), Yukon (DK weight camel/silk), patterns.
Autographed copies of Knit One Below by Elise Duvekot.
This special showing and sale runs until next Tuesday, March 10th. Stop in this weekend!!
We made it through Set Up (Weds and Thurs) and the Market Preview (Thursday 5-8 pm) in one piece! Set up went fairly well considering it was our first time. I was working with booth fixtures I was unfamiliar with – grid wall borrowed from a friend. But it all came together smoothly in the end.
The real challenge was finding room for all the yarn! As several people told me beforehand, a 10 foot x 10 foot booth is small, even if it’s a corner booth like mine. We ended up with a lot of yarn to spare, but we did manage to get every single color of every single yarn represented in the booth! The “back stock” is hiding behind the gridwall or hiding in someone’s car.
One minor gaffe – not enough room to display patterns. Some patterns were totally forgotten about, left in the truck. Oh well, tomorrow will be better!
We did a decent amount of business during the preview which lasted only three hours, considering that we are new to Stitches. People tend to go straight towards their favorite vendors first, make their must-have purchases, then slowly tour the rest of the market floor, many taking notes of what they like. Many people took notes in our booth… a good sign, hopefully!
It was great connecting with customers I haven’t seen in a long time, and with yarn industry people as well. More on that tomorrow – and I’ll hopefully post a picture or two of my booth!
Good night for now,
Warren
 Mountain Colors 4/8s Wool in Firestorm Stitches West is the ultimate in yarn-related orgies. It is a convention geared towards yarnaholics, held every year in February at the Santa Clara Convention Center over a four-day weekend. Classes taught by world-famous instructors and designers are part of the draw, but for many the main draw is the Market where vendors from all over the continent sell yarn, patterns, books, notions, gadgets, buttons, jewelry, lotions, olive oils… well you get the picture
For the first time Marin Fiber Arts will have a booth at the show, selling yarns specially shipped to us from four different hand-dyed companies: Claudia Hand Painted Yarns, Fiesta Yarns, Mountain Colors, and Pagewood Farm. We’ll have worsted weight wool, silk/wool laceweight yarns, cotton/tencel blends, plenty of sock yarns, and other types of yarns as well. We’ll have loads of patterns, too.
There will also be a bargain bin (more like a play pen, actually) filled with bags of deeply discounted yarns from the friendly folks at Aurora Yarns. You’ll find all sorts of goodies. I can’t say more because even I don’t know what will be in the bin!
We’d love for you to visit us at Booth 628 on the Market Floor. The show takes place at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Friday – Sunday, Feburary 27 – March 1. Admission is $10 at the door, but you can save $2 by purchasing your tickets online by going to the Stitches website.
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