Wren and Purl shop owners Gretchen Lindenboldt and Wendy Dorn-Recalde spoke about some of their favorite yarns and products at the shop, as well as what they have loved about the shop at the adult speaker series at Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center.
The one thing that the shop has focused on since opening has been the creation of community. They host a weekly happy hour crafting afternoon every Friday afternoon where people can bring their own projects and beverages and spend time in community working on projects. They also have a monthly pizza and crafting outing and brunch outing.
One of the things they tackled when first opening the shop was getting their own website at wrenandpurl.com up and running.
“That was a huge labor of love,” Lindenboldt said. “It’s an easy to maintain space, and the web sales work with our cash register to help us keep track of inventory, while building our blog and calendar of upcoming events.”
Lindenboldt said with their connection with sites like Ravelry and other knitters, and social media platforms including Google, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, they’re able to get that information about their shop out to others as well.
“It allows us to stretch beyond our brick and mortar location and be more than just this small shop in this town,” Lindenboldt said.
One of the yarn producers the duo talked about liking was Brown Sheep yarn, a yarn they appreciate because of the color work that is done with the fabric.
“Their Lanaloft is a single ply, spun once yarn,” Lindenboldt said. “It gives a variety of thick or thin yarns, depending what you need it for. They’re grown and harvested in Nebraska and Wyoming, so it’s all American grown, and some within our region,” Lindenboldt said.
Dorn-Recalde used some of the Lanaloft for a pair of mittens she was nalbinding. Nalbinding is one of the oldest forms of fabric work, with it popping up all over the world in different colder climates. Traditionally, nalbinding only uses a single needle and is much more sculptural in style, similar to macrame, but without the tightening of fabric.
Scheepjes is another of their favorite yarns to stock. Lindenboldt said they appreciated the company because they were prominent in the resurgence of crochet, including featuring many patterns and yarns.
“Crochet projects usually take more yarn than a knitting project does as well,” Lindenboldt said. “What I love is their whirl style of yarn, with that gradient color.”
Dorn-Recalde said that they are one of the only companies whose blend of acrylic and wool they will stock on their shelves because they take the blend between wool and acrylic seriously.
“You get the lightness of something like wool, but also some of that strength of acrylic,” Dorn-Recalde said.
One of their other favorite brands of wool is Malabrigo, which features hand dyed wool. Because it is hand dyed, skeins can be different and varies in color.
Lindenboldt said she wanted to buy some of this yarn when she was on vacation a few years ago in South America, but they had none in shops in Paraguay, because their market was in the United States and Eurpoean markets.
Lindenboldt and Dorn Recalde said the one thing they had encouraged was to get the colors of yarn mentioned on their lables so it’s easier for people to find.
One of the ventures that the shop has made is in offering books from various authors and genres.
Dorn-Recalde said that one of the styles of books they’ve really loved to keep stocked are cozy mysteries from a variety of authors.
“They usually feature locales in smaller towns or communities, and the sleuth are people like shopkeepers,” Dorn-Recalde said. “Most of the violence or bad things are happening behind the scenes and not on the pages. They’re very escapist in fare, but fun reads.”
One of the authors there was Nicole Dieker, whose parents now reside in Mount Vernon, and she has done a few book signings at the shop.
When it came to children’s books, Dorn-Recalde said that the work of Michelle Edwards was one that has meant a lot to her family.
“Eve and Smithy: An Iowa Tale,” was one of their favorite books, and when she and her husband talked about moving to Iowa with their children, they were able to note the proximity to Iowa City as something they were familiar with as to where they were relocating about a decade ago.
“She’s probably one of the reasons it was so easy for our kids to think about relocating here,” Dorn-Recalde said.
When she first opened Wren and Purl’s shop and Facebook page, Edwards liked one of their social media posts one day. When it happened again, Dorn-Recalde reached out and they held a signing for one of her newest books at Wren and Purl in the past year.
The speaker series happens every Thursday from 1-2 p.m. at the Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center in Mount Vernon. A schedule of the speakers in the series for the rest of the spring can be found at theLBC.com, under the programs tab.
Gretchen Lindenboldt holds up one of the shawls that was created at a book and crafting event that Wren and Purl holds monthly. The pattern focused on bee hives and bees, because the book they were reading also had a focus on bees.