There’s a lot going on right now at JP Headquarters. Jordana is in the midst of her newest creation; it’s so exciting to be a part of it! There are drawings hung up all over the office. In a word: Awesome.
We’re also getting ready for Stitches West. Come say hello and check out the Crafter’s Tool Butler at booths 731, 733 and 735. It’s always a great time to meet new folks and say hi to old friends.
Last year we met someone who recently opened the yarn store Stash in Corvallis, Oregon, and we’re happy to celebrate with her by featuring it as our latest Store Showcase.
Sonia, the self-described Chief Stash Enhancer, took some time to answer questions about yarn, cake (yes, cake!) and even hooked us up with an awesome tutorial for that fun paper heart garland in the window.
(Notice what else is in that lovely window display? The Knitter’s Satchel is really feeling the love!)
JP: Your shop is relatively new. Congrats!! How did it come to be?
I have been knitting (and thinking about knitting) pretty constantly for the past several years. After moving to Corvallis in 2010, I was amazed at the amount of creative do-it-yourselfers in town.
There is also a lot of fiber-related stuff happening in the area, from heritage sheep breeders and spinners to weavers, dyers, crocheters, felters, and knitters. I was seeing so many beautiful and new-to-me yarns at the local fiber festivals and wanted to curate a shop filled with such treasures.
JP: What can we find in your store?
Stash’s main focus is on small, independent dyers and artisans, with an emphasis on yarn and fiber from the Pacific Northwest. In addition to the yarn and fiber, we have hand sewn project bags, handmade wood, ceramic, and fabric-covered buttons, handmade stitch markers, shawl pins, and of course the gorgeous knitting bags from Jordana Paige! We also have a gallery wall featuring different local artists.
JP: Tell us a little about the local art.
Our gallery wall features a different local artist every 4-6 weeks. From painters and photographers to fiber artists, I am enthusiastic about helping to promote the work of up and coming local artists. Currently on display is the work of painter Isabella Vickers.
Rachel Urista's work hung at Stash in October and November.
JP: What project are you working on right now?
At the shop I’m knitting the Hado Slouch Hat by Olga Buraya-Kefelian in Shibui Staccato as part of a shop knit-along, as well as Wooly Wormhead’s Slable in Baah Sonoma. At home I’ve got a a Madelinetosh affair going on in both the Hooray Cardigan by Veera Valimaki and the Hitchiker Shawl by Martina Behm. Something for every mood! You can see my Ravelry Projects page for more info.
JP: How many employees do you have?
Including myself there are 3 stash enhancers working at Stash.
JP: Aside from your awesome employees, is there anyone that has reallyhelped you with the store?
I could not have gotten the shop in shape without the help of friends and family. Before opening we hosted a Labor Day work party and got all of the Ikea shelves assembled and the whole shop painted in about 5 hours. It was amazing!
JP: What sort of tunes are playing on the speakers at Stash?
We usually play standards like Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Michael Buble. If I’m feeling zesty or need a pick me up in the afternoon I put on Florence and the Machine or Katy Perry, my current guilty pleasure favorite!
JP: What did you do before you were an LYS owner?
In my previous life I was a classically trained pastry chef, working first as a chocolatier then later as a cake designer. Most recently I was proud to be a stay at home mama to my now 2 year old daughter.
The cake designer bit might explain these tempting photos on Stash's Flickr Stream.
JP: What is one of the biggest surprises about owning the store?
One of the first big surprises came in the form of a complete knitting mental block. There were just too many delicious yarns and patterns to choose from that I didn’t cast on anything new for a month or two. Fortunately that has passed and I now have 4 or 5 projects on the needles!
JP: What’s your favorite knitting time?
My favorite knitting scenario is home alone with a steaming cup of tea or coffee and a new knitting podcast to listen to. Bliss!
JP: What products that you carry from the Pacific Northwest are you particularly in love with?
Right now I’m particularly infatuated with the luxurious and cheerfully dyed yarns from Knitted Wit in Portland, OR, as well as the rich, saturated colors from up and comer Baah! Yarns in California. I’m also pretty excited about our newest selection of hand-carved reclaimed wood buttons from Wooly Moss Roots, an Oregon family business.
JP: You’re a superhero; what’s your super power?
Flying or being invisible. And be able to knit while doing housework, of course!
JP: When did you start carrying Jordana Paige bags?
After meeting Jordana and buying my L.J. Kaelms at Stitches West last year, I knew they would have a place at Stash. I love that I can fit a couple of projects, my Addi Clicks, notions bag, patterns, iPad, and wallet in the bag without a problem. I’m also loving the new Tool Butlers.
JP: If you could eat or drink anything with no consequences, what would it be?
Mmmm….chocolate cake, carmel corn, dill pickles, really strong coffee, and red wine. Not necessarily at the same time, though I would do it if forced!
JP: Coffee or tea?
Coffee in the a.m. Tea in the p.m.
JP: What’s one of your favorite outdoor activities?
Knitting outside ; ) I also really enjoy working in the garden, taking walks with my 2-year old daughter, and playing at the beach.
JP: What’s one of your favorite parts of owning Stash?
I love seeing what my customers are working on! It has been so inspiring seeing different points of view and attitudes toward ones creative work. I also enjoy looking at yarn all day and knitting whenever I want (which doesn’t happen as much as I’d like during the day, oddly enough!).
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Thanks so much Sonia! You can catch Stash on Ravelry, like them on Facebook and check out the store blog, which is where that killer tutorial resides.
Know a shop with personality? Do you just love a LYS you think should be featured? Email us or tell us in the comments!
Not every woman has back and neck problems, but if you’re one of the unlucky ones who do, your handbag is something that requires major consideration. I know; an injury a few years ago sidelined several of my favorites. I had to reconsider my entire style.
One thing I learned quickly was that because women carry loads of stuff in our purses, the weight of a purse when empty is really important. Oprah’s chiropractor says we shouldn’t carry more than 10% of our weight in purse. Some handbags can weigh more than 8 pounds (3.6 kilos)!
When I first started, Jordana told me that many people commented on how light her bags were. And after toting around the Rio and Bella for awhile, I decided to weigh them all because she’s right! Compared to my other bags, I felt like I was forgetting something they were so light and I’m carrying knitting now.
Every one of Jordana Paige’s bags is under 3 pounds (1.36 kilos), and three styles are under 2 pounds (.9 kilos). To give you an idea, here are a few things that weigh under 3 pounds:
Thank goodness for Jordana Paige bags! They’ve kept me out of the world of style-less fanny packs and they’re chiropractor approved (by mine anyway) as long as I don’t load them up with soup cans or anything else super heavy. Yarn’s so light it doesn’t really count, right?
I’m not exactly sure why, but socks have really been on my mind lately. Maybe it’s the cold weather. And I just ran into a link for an article about darning socks from a completely non-knitting related site.
So when the Spring 2012 issue of Sockupied arrived, I wasn’t surprised. But I was delighted to see the L.J. Kaelms highlighted in the “Must-Have Supplies for Socks.”
If you haven’t checked out Sockupied, you can get it here. There’s some great stuff in there. Remember our Knitter Profile about Donna Druchunas? She wrote a great article about Balkan textiles: Did you know the shoes were so flimsy they wore two pairs of socks? They’re so beautiful and intricate, I don’t know how they could bear to cover them up!
(She also raves about her L.J. Kaelms: “I like it so much that it’s now my go-everywhere travel purse.” Thanks Donna!)
And of course, there are some of the most beautiful patterns for socks, which means if I decide socks are my next project, I’ll have some tough decisions to make.
One of the big reasons we have our Knitter’s Profiles here at JP is so we can learn more about the people who love the craft and Jordana Paige’s bags. I have a confession though. I also love the profiles because I get a chance to ask quirky questions and most times I get an answer.
When we chatted with Susan of With Pointed Sticks, her answer to the question about how she likes her eggs cooked was just brilliant. I’ve been asking that question a long time (as a waitress and journalist) and this is the best answer, hands down. Read on and enjoy our latest Knitter’s Profile.
Susan and her brand new L.J. Kaelms
When do you enjoying knitting most?
I do 90 percent of my knitting on the train to and from work. I have a two-hour commute each way, so I put on a podcast and settle in with the uninterrupted knitting time. It makes complicated projects easier, because I can’t get distracted.
How did you find out about JP?
I’ve known about her as long as I’ve known about knitting. I can’t remember the very first place I saw her bags and patterns, but one of my first knitting memories is seeing the Starsky cardigan in Knitty. It looked so cozy and so out of my realm of doing. Knitty was the first place I saw patterns I might actually want to knit, rather than the sweaters I saw in my grandmother’s old knitting pamphlets, and Starsky was one of them. I also seem to remember seeing an ad in Interweave for JP bags, and thinking they were gorgeous, but at that point I didn’t think I’d ever be good enough at knitting to warrant a purse designed specifically for carrying projects.
If you could eat or drink anything with no consequences, what would it be?
I really. Like. Eating. All things. It’s so hard to think about this. Most recently, my fiance and I took on a Bloomin’ Onion from the Outback, and it was so disgustingly perfect, but goodness gracious I never wanted to eat again after that!
What project are you working on right now?
Oof. Still Christmas knitting. After that, I’m planning on some complicated lace shawls, since I was on a stockinette kick for a long time. I’m ready for a change.
What’s the one knitting project you’ve always wanted to try?
I’d love to try beading, but it seems so fiddly that it makes me nervous. I also don’t know if it’s something I’d actually wear. I might try a lace-weight, long cowl with beading at some point, because cowls are fairly non-committal.
How do you like your eggs cooked?
In cake.
You just got your first JP bag … congrats! Tell us a little about that.
Ahhhh! I know! I’m so excited about it! I made a decision a few years ago to only buy cheap purses so that I could replace them as soon as I got sick of them without feeling bad. But after a particularly awful Target purse, I was ready for something that would hold up for awhile. L.J. Kaelms was the first bag I thought of, because I’ve been drooling over it forever!
Susan reviews her L.J. on her blog
Coffee or tea?
Coffee. Always coffee.
What inspires you?
As far as knitting goes, I’m most inspired by Fall. My mental queue starts at the end of August, and I’m always so inspired by the upcoming Fall that I come up with enough projects for the entire year.
Most recently, I was inspired by a woman I saw knitting on the subway. She was blind, and came in with a seeing eye dog. She sat down, pulled out her knitting, and started knitting faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. She had a huge smile on her face the whole time she was working.
How did you learn to knit?
It wasn’t one of my finer moments actually. For my thirteenth birthday, my grandmother wanted to get me a “Teach-Yourself-To…” kit, but didn’t know which one. My grandfather decided I should learn how to knit. It had plastic needles and acrylic yarn, and I was SO BAD at it. Which shouldn’t be a big deal, but when I was in middle school, I couldn’t handle being bad at anything.
I ended up throwing the needles and deciding never to knit again. Both of my grandmothers teamed up to teach me how to knit and purl after that. I stopped for a few years, then when I was 17, I got a random urge to start knitting again, and I haven’t stopped since.
What was your first knitting project?
Aside from the standard garter stitch rectangle everyone’s supposed to knit, my first real project was the Alexi scarf from Berroco. It was made of Caron Simply Soft, and took me six months because there were so much cabling and seed stitch. It’s not especially functional, because it’s not long enough to wrap around my neck, just drape over my shoulders, but I was so proud of it that I wore it to school all the time just so I could look at it periodically during the day.
When I went to a real yarn store (that is, not Michael’s) for the first time, I was wearing my scarf, and I told the store owner that I was scared of knitting a sweater because I didn’t think I could handle sleeves. She looked at my scarf and said, “well, if you can knit that, you can knit anything!”
Forget knitting ... she's on to designing these days.
Have you ever knit a JP pattern?
Currently I haven’t, mostly because I love her sweater patterns, but up until recently I’ve knit maybe three sweaters my entire knitting career. I just finished college, so dropping a sweater’s worth of money all in one go was overwhelming. After calculating the time and money I spend on small projects, though, sweater knitting might just be more economical, in which case Starsky is on my list. It’s one of the first patterns I remember seeing in Knitty, and there’s a bit of nostalgia for me in those patterns. It’s nice to remember the things that initially inspired you!
What’s one of the strangest things you’ve put in your JP bag so far?
It’s so new that so far there hasn’t been anything out-of-the-ordinary in it. I have, however, been able to fit a strange amount of things in it. I was at my LYS the other day (Windsor Button in downtown Boston), and the woman asked me if I needed a bag for my *many* skeins of yarn.
I looked at the yarn, then down at my new Jordana Paige bag, and said I thought I could handle it. I put my bag on the counter, and she said, “ooh, is that a Jordana Paige? I’ve never seen one in the wild!” I stuffed yarn in it, on top of the several projects that were already in there, and I said, “YES! I love it! I can fit so much crap in it!”
What’s one of your favorite outdoor activities?
I went to Cape Cod with a few friends two summers ago, and we went kayaking in the ocean. It was the first time I ever did it, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. We also spent a good chunk of time screaming songs from the early 2000s, so that could be why I enjoyed it so much.
Do you have a favorite type of knitting project?
It changes all the time, depending on the season and what’s in my yarn cabinet at the moment, but currently I’m in a fingering-weight shawl place. I tend to run hot, and they’re the perfect layering option when cardigans are too warm.
Do you do any other sorts of crafty stuff?
I sew a little, crochet a little, make jewelry now and again, and I had a brief stint with collages. I have a lot of things I try out, but knitting is the only thing that sticks. I just started spinning a few weeks ago, and I’m hoping that takes. It very well could because it goes with knitting so well. I’ve also always wanted to make mosaic tables, which is a weird one, but I’ve had an urge to do it for several years now.
Do you prefer to knit alone or with friends?
I’m almost certain I would prefer knitting with friends, and I’ve tried to teach a whole bunch of mine, but none of them liked it as much as I do. I started a podcast last week, in the hopes that it will give me the opportunity to talk about what I love, and talk to other knitters as well.
If you’d like to be featured in our knitter’s profile, we’d love to hear from you! Email or leave your info in the comments and we’ll make it happen! Don’t worry, you don’t have to submit photos of yourself if you’re not into that (but we do want to see your knitting and your bags for sure!).
Partnering with Stitch Red and The Heart Truth®, the event promises to be a one-of-a kind experience, and we don’t doubt it. A historic bus tour, champagne, beautiful dresses and a silent auction designed for knitters. Among the items up for bid: an original Nicky Epstein painting, a bound leather case of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s own needles and a trip to Scotland and Iceland on the 2012 Vogue Knitting Tour featuring Alice Starmore and Ysolda Teague valued at $6,000.
We’ve donated a Rio as part of the auction, which will benefit the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in support of The Heart Truth® and women’s heart health education and research.
Have you seen the latest Knit ‘n’ Style? It’s got a really cute sweater design in it called Getting Ready for Spring by Sandi Prosser. And what else is in there? The Rio in blue lapis!
The Rio does know how to pose for a fashion shoot. Thanks to Knit ‘n’ Style for the love: “fashion-forward” and “gorgeous” are very nice compliments indeed! Who knows? Maybe I’ll be toting around the yarn for the Getting Ready for Spring sweater in a Rio soon!
But really, our bags have more stamps on their passports than we do! We just shipped a full selection to a LYS in Iceland and the L.J. Kaelms just made its way to New Zealand for a review from entangled.
Entangled has some great things to say about the L.J. Kaelms, in particular about the construction.
“I have to say I’m quite impressed with the quality of the materials used. The red faux leather of my L.J. Kaelms has a nice pebbled effect with a matte finish … The findings (zips, buckles, etc.) used are very solid and obviously good quality – these make or break a bag in my eyes.”
It’s great to hear feedback on things like that, because Jordana puts so much time and effort into designing these details; it’s good to know it gets noticed!
You can read the rest of the review and the magazine by subscribing here. It’s a great issue, with an article about high fashion hand knit design finding its way into patterns we can knit. There are also loads of pictures and stories from places like England, India and New York: more places for us (and our bags) to travel!
There’s a phrase that goes, I’ll know it when I see it. When it comes to buying something online, seeing isn’t always believing because colors can look different on monitors, and although Jordana does a nice job of showing us what’s inside with her product videos, you don’t get to hold or open the product.
That’s why having our products in LYS across the country (and the world) is so important to us. And just in time for the holidays, 3 Kittens Needle Arts in Mendota Heights, Minnesota is hosting a giant cash and carry trunk show of Jordana Paige’s handbags. From December 2-23, you can see the exact colors of our bags, open and close them and envision yourself knitting fabulous things with your spectacular bag.
If you’re anywhere near the Twin Cities, I highly suggest checking this out, and not just because I’m a extremely biased JP fan. When I head back to Minnesota, 3 Kittens is definitely on my short list of LYS to visit.
I adore their Desperate Gifters series for Knitters and Crocheters, and members of their loyalty program, the 3K Club, get 20% off their retail prices at trunk shows. Check out the blog for what’s “mew” and follow them on Facebook and Twitter.
But most importantly, head on over to the shop during the trunk show December 2 through December 23. When it comes to finding the right JP bag for you, you’ll know it when you see it.
There’s nothing like the feeling of a job well done, especially when you get complimented on it by someone else. That’s part of why it’s so nice to read reviews about Jordana Paige products — when someone likes a design and writes about it, it’s like a giant pat on the back.
Glenna over at Knitting to Stay Sane recently posted a review of the Rio, complete with empty and full photos. We love that because it shows just how much you can carry while still being organized and toting around your knitting.
“Even when the bag is stuffed full, it still sits on my shoulder comfortably. That is pretty darned cool … This bag is not fooling around.”
You can read more about Glenna’s experience with her Rio and while you’re there, check out some of her other blog posts. There are so many good ones, but check out her greatest hits listed on the right.
And don’t forget to leave a comment if you’re compelled. Every good pat on the back deserves another. Thanks Glenna!
While there is something so wonderful about the process of knitting, as far as I can tell, one of the most satisfying parts of the project comes from giving the gift and seeing it worn. And in the case of Kristie, her gift just kept on giving.
She knit this sweater for her daughter and entered it into the Celebrate Color contest and won! The sweater and the color are amazing, although her daughter completes the package.
You can see more photos on Kristie’s blog, as well as some other really great stories, like where she teaches her children to knit.
Congratulations to Kristie, who has won a Jordana Paige Rio, among many other fabulous prizes! You can read all about it here. Enjoy your bag Kristie: may it help you knit many more wonderful gifts!
We’re also getting ready for Stitches West. Come say hello and check out the Crafter’s Tool Butler at booths 731, 733 and 735. It’s always a great time to meet new folks and say hi to old friends.
