Yarn Stylist

The following is an article I found in an online knitting magazine, KnitCircus. The minute I read it, I knew it described me and everyone at Wild Purls perfectly. I’ve always known our job was important, but this really puts it into words.

YARN STYLIST
By Kathryn Mayer
Originally published in “KnitCircus”, an online knitting magazine
Reprinted (so to speak) by permission

I am one of the few, the proud, the LYS employees.

Of course, I love and adore my job. I have been a LYS employee for three years and this job brings many things I expected and some surprising encounters.

One of the daily perks and challenges at my job are the customers. Now, you might think that this is true of any retail-type job. And retail job is really what LYS employee boils down to. You want yarn. I sell yarn. But in my varied retail experience, there is nothing like the service in a yarn shop. I know a minimum of 46 customers by first and/or last name. Yes, I had regular customers when I worked at a pet store. They came to buy mice and goldfish (I don’t need to describe how that ends), but they didn’t want me to share in their snake’s noshing achievements.

One of my yarn shop customers wants me to make sure that her lace shawl won’t pool horribly. Another bounces up to show me which Dream in Color they bought. (Wild Purls note: At our shop it’s which Lorna’s Lace they bought.) A third rolls her eyes with me about how her two sons don’t appreciate her finished Elizabeth Zimmermann sweater. Am I really just a clerk at my LYS, or something more?
I described the situation to my friend: “We don’t hang out outside the shop, go dancing, come over for brunch or anything. And yet I share in some of their biggest yarn triumphs. I’m there for the grieving daughter who needs really soft yarn and to unburden some pain. I’m there for the expectant mother who can’t believe she has to make blankets for twins. I help make color decisions, work through difficult parts of both patterns and life, we share coffee and laughs, I get to knit a few rows on a challenging piece, and then they go home and I dust the shop”.

My friend winked and put her arm around me.

“You are a yarn stylist.”

“Huh?"
“You know,” she continued, “Women at the beauty parlor, getting their hair done, chatting with the stylist, sharing parts of themselves. Month after month spending time with the same woman. Of course closeness develops. A stylist gets them ready for dates, a wedding, and then family pictures, and funerals. All the things that you help make projects for.”

And while parts of her idea sounded a bit stereotypical, I couldn’t help but feel the truth of this ideas bones.

I am your Yarn Stylist. I will find you a simple, soothing scarf project when a family member is ill, have just the right idea for a baby sweater, root for you to get a job even if you’ll move away and find a new LYS. I will be super-excited for your first scarf and commiserate when you pay $7 for a pattern that has never been edited. I will take your picture and put your yarn-y achievements online so our community can share in your triumphs.
Knowing that Yarn Stylist is my true title hasn’t changed what I do at work: take out the trash, dust, check emails, and sweep the floor. But feeling it has given me a different understanding of what I do for people. I am more important than a clerk or retail employee at the big box chain. When you bring me a finished object, I truly am excited for you. When you yell at me for not having the color you need, it really hurts. Your hair stylist is in your life to make you look good. I am in your life to make your knitting good.

I am your Yarn Stylist… what did you want to talk about today?

P.S. Tell your LYS person how cool she is next time you see her. You’ll both be glad you did.