SHOPPING AROUND - A Man Knitting In Public

I come from a family of knitters. It wasn't, however, until the early 1980's that I decided to learn how to knit. I was working in an Art Shop in Barnet when a wool shop opened up next door. I bought a small introductory How To Knit booklet, needles and practice wool, then started to teach myself. This was in the days before You Tube tutorials, so you just had to get your head around how to do stitches from, frankly, not very helpful diagrams.

Once I'd begun, I found I instinctively knew how to do some of it. Having sat at my Grandma's knee, helped ball up skeins of wool, and watched her and my Mother knit. The first garment I finished was a truly gargantuan green mohair jumper ( it was the 80's ) This stayed stuffed in a bag in a wardrobe for years. I was so embarrassed by it I never wore it. The moths then got to - so I binned it. To this day, though I carefully do test swatches till my hands and eyes bleed,  I can never quite get my sizings exactly right. But I eventually did a passable Arran jumper, mastered a sleeveless bottle green cable jumper I wore endlessly for years, then progressed on to Fair Isle. 

In my lunchtime break I took to going to the nearest local park, found a quiet corner with a covered seating area, got out my needles and knitted. All went well the first few times. But then one lunch break a young urchin on a child's bike stopped and looked at me a perplexed. He said:-

'What you makin?'

'A scarf'

'Don't girls knit?

'Yes, but so do I'

'But your not a girl'

'Yes, that's true'

And with a

'Hmph'

he rode off

This was not to be the end of it. The young urchin may have left,  but only to find scruffier friends to tell them what he'd just seen, and return with them to witness 'a man knitting in public'. 

The gang was a mixture of ages, the young urchin being probably the baby of the outfit. There was also some sort of ranking, where the taller, older and grubbier one was. the higher up the leadership ladder one rose. The present leader approached me on his bicycle alternating between balancing on it and cycling backwards and forwards in a predatory manner, whilst he fired off questions at me.

'Why do you want to knit?"

'Because I enjoy it'

'Why do you want to do it here?'

'I come to the park to relax and have my lunch'

'But knitting is what girls do'

Oh here we go again, I thought, replying

'No it isn't, anyone can do it'

After a short pause for some thought, he found the question he'd really been searching for.

'Are you a poofter'

'Non of your business'

You are. Aren't you? You're a poofter. Poofters knit'

And as this descended into general sniveling, giggling and jeering from the rest of the group, I started to be nervous at the direction the conversation had now lurched. 

'Look, clear off and let me have my lunch in peace.'

'Your a poofter, cos you are knitting. A real man wouldn't knit.'

'Well, I do, so... fuck off'

I realised then that a sub group of older boys were pulling in closer and this wasn't so they could admire my amazing stitch tension. If I didn't make a move soon I'd be corralled by a phalanx of spotty teenagers on bicycles. I packed up my lunch box, made an intention to leave the park, and walked calmly away. Which I did. With the sound of them squealing:-

'Wanker' 'Poofter'  'Shirt Lifter' 'OOOwee'

as I walked away. I finished off my lunch on a bench near the High Street, without visible knitting. I never tried public knitting nor went to that park, or any park for that matter, to knit, ever again.

These days I knit in the shop quite openly. And most of the time that feels perfectly fine.  But there are days when couples wander into the Courtyard. Blokes give me the evil eye, when they see I'm knitting. Homosexual alert written across their eyebrows. I hear them mutter to their wives as they walk away:-

'Did you see that guy in there, he was knitting.'

Or aggressively pull their wife away from deep sniffing the wax melts, with a:-

'There's nothing we want from here Beryl'

Its as though male knitting were some strangely distasteful craft, like voodoo head shrinking. I've wondered how often folk don't come in the shop because they see a bloke knitting, sewing or doing crochet,and simply find that too challenging. One look at my yarn and needles, daggers are drawn, adjust their bandanna or Liverpool supporters football shirt. Hurrying the little woman along. Nothing to see here.

At other times a single women will come in and say

'It's good to see a man knitting'

Whilst I know they mean well, it does feel patronising, whilst not being clear why exactly it's 'good' to see a man knitting. They are just trying to be encouraging, and understand that a man kitting in public is still risking ridicule. Others more straightforwardly say:-

'It's unusual to see a man knitting.'

Which it is, but it shouldn't be. Men have always knitted, top designers knit, sportsmen knit, actors knit, fishermen used to knit and repair their Gansey's, men being seen knitting ought not to be thought that unusual. But it is. They say:-

'What is it you're knitting' 

'A facecloth'

And this for some reason prompts an outpouring of guilt, remorse and self recrimination about past or present failures.

'I don't get on with knitting, more a crochet person. Nothing too adventurous mind. I just don't have the patience. I can't find the time these days. But one day, you never know, I might have a surge.... of inspiration. Though I'm far too lazy really, no patience me'

One lady recently too a posed photo of me knitting, presumably to pass round their more  interesting friends.

'I found this very exotic animal working in a Sheringham shop, it was a man knitting. Very unusual. knitting a scrubbie, I think he called it, out of dishcloth cotton. Quite remarkable'

It is more than likely that they're taking the photo as encouragement to their husband- brother - son, whose a closet knitter, but really needs to get out more.

Come on Brothers! Lift up your needles in solidarity! Go Public! Break the Taboo.

SHOPPING AROUND - A Little Bit O Red

As is always the case with high street retail, there comes the time to hold a Sale. To be rid of all those stock purchasing mistakes, left overs, end of lines and odd hangers on, you are thoroughly sick of the sight of. We have found from experience that in Sheringham, its best to run our Sale in the Spring. Not in January when there is no bugger about. And so after all the kerfuffle of the Coronation weekend, and the Makers Market - which went very well 'thank you kind sir'. we put up our Sale after the second Bank Holiday weekend of May. To run until? Well, to whenever we think its not worth pushing it anymore.

The week after the Coronation was like death warmed up.  All our Bank Holiday visitors scarpered on Monday. Leaving us at the perilous unpredictable mercies of coach parties and the few who'd stayed on because they'd nowt better to do.  I knew the signs were bad on Wednesday as I walked across the car park, on my way to do my afternoon shift. There was a coach parked from Barnsley whose eventual destination was Great Yarmouth, which is the definition of the kiss of death for us. Had they been from  the Home Counties or North Yorkshire heading towards Holkham Hall, we'd have be on the money. As a consequence we had one of our worst days take this year. 

In our Sale was a small decorative glass panel with a wire hanger, made by the same makers as our range of very successful glass cards. Reduced from £6.95 to £3. A bargain you would have thought. A lady and her husband came in to the shop, they spotted the glass hanger. 

'You've not got anymore of these 'ave yuh?

'No, that's the last one'

'Only these are a much better idea than the cards, cos you can hang em up after'

'Well, yes, we thought so. But they weren't as well presented as the cards, so they didn't do very well'

'Oh..... mebe we'll av the cards then'

The husband went out to give them a second look, only to return empty handed.

'Ave just discovered they're made in Wales'

'Yes, they are'

'We like to buy stuff from where we been'

The wife returned to the glass hanger, picked it up and muttered disconsolately

'Pity its not more red though, I like red things, see.' 

She brought it over to the counter and sighed, stroking it gently as it lay there as thought it were an ailing animal on its last legs.

'If only it had just a little bit o red on it......  These ud make really good fridge magnets you know'

'Maybe, as they're transparent you'd have to find a way of fixing the magnet so it didn't show'

'Oh Yeh,..... I suppose so.

Followed by a very long pause, then another deep sigh.

'If only it had a little bit o red on it just here, or somewhere on it.......... I suppose I could buy it for miself '

She gave me three pounds, pushing them towards me with a slightly resentful implication. as if I'd made her buy it. I put the hanger in a paper bag. And she and her husband left, leaving behind a dark cloud of feeling that I and the shop, had somehow failed them in their not unreasonable expectations of us.

COTTONWOOD HOME ~ We're Open!

So we are finally open. Whilst we've been anxious in advance of experience about whether our stock would sell, it would appear we need not have exercised our worry muscles quite so assertively. The 1st of June was a hot day in Sheringham where most of the visitors headed for the beach, passing our now infamous sinkhole. All the other retailers in our courtyard said it was a quiet day as a result, but for our first day we felt it went really well. Though we didn't know what to expect, it exceeded our cautious expectations.  

I took these photographs at the end of the day just before we closed. We really did have customers honest, these weren't taken on slow exposure to eradicate all sign of human life, its just I didn't want to appear intrusive or inappropriate.

We've had lots of local people coming in just to see what the shop looks like and they've been very encouraging. Now we actually have a shop it brings renewed impetus to our making. Even when the shop is quiet we can still be knitting or crocheting something. There is a sense of something having lifted now we are no longer making items in a vacuum.

Jnanasalin 'a crocheting'

Lovely flowers from family

An offering of sweets and biscuits for our customers

The back of our window display

Jnanasalin closing our very high Velux 

COTTONWOOD SHOP REFIT ~ 4th Week ~ Countdown to Opening

FIVE
Our last day of shop fitting. Fixing up our feature display unit, card shelves and rack for wrapping paper. In a way its a bit of a relief to be finishing all this prep side, so tomorrow we can get on with the real business of a retail shop fit ~ the stock

FOUR
It took three car trips to get all the stock into the shop. Once we'd unpacked a few boxes you could hardly move for discarded packaging. For day one of merchandising we've done very well, the basic blocking of the stock layout has been completed.



We are beginning to get a sense of what works and doesn't work on our shelving. Less is more being generally the case here. We aren't high end but we're not bargain basement either. So giving stock enough space will be important for us to maintain.

THREE
It's obvious today that apart from cushions and the stock we've bought in, we have no back up stock for some items that we've made. One of our middle of the night anxieties about this retail venture is being able to make items fast enough to keep up with sales without sacrificing quality. But first we need to get a sense for what sells and how quickly. Still loads to be done. A window display, price labelling, setting up the till, jewellery stands to be made up, etc etc etc.

TWO
I spent the morning putting in the window display using our 'gansey styled' cushion range. The photographs don't quite capture how good it looks. Meanwhile Jnanasalin was setting up all the stock on the till system. After dinner I went home to do work in the workshop on frames for some lovely prints we have. I'm not a hugely confident framer, but I am very pleased with the quality of the results.

ONE
Our last day before we open to the general public. Almost ready, just pricing and final tweaking, plus all those little things that support the running of a shop that don't surface until you are almost there, or actually open, and you realise you need a cleaning and tool kit etc. The pricing went quite smoothly, and brings that finishing touch to 'a shop'. We've done our best but not everything in the shop has the best sales position on this time around, but we'll get there.

It feels great to finally get everything that doesn't need to be there, not just off the floor, but returned to home. Its been quite testing to my equanimity when I'm in the workshop and realise the tool I need is in the shop, or vice versa. It goes without saying, that we're both very pleased with how the shop looks. We've had a lot of appreciative and encouraging comments in person and online. If we let go of our anxiety there is a certain excitable air that takes flight about how it all will go on the 1st June, my god that's tomorrow.

Everything packed & ready to go home

COTTONWOOD SHOP REFIT ~ 3rd Week ~ A Shop Taking Form

After making the shop fit for purpose, comes the shop fittings. Lets just say a lot of unpacking and assembling has gone on.  We've both passed our IKEA Assembly Proficiency Level 4, so we found these relatively straight forward. The Till Counter arrived, followed on successive days by shelving and our signage created and installed by Graphic Edge. The shop has limited space for storage, so we've bought IKEA storage units. Always impressed by the ingenious nature of flat pack assembly. These ones required no bolts or locking devices and were simply pressed together in a matter of minutes

Signage being installed

'The Monolith' is no more. After the agony entailed in my making it fast became redundant once we re-thought our floor layout. All the messy meters, switches and wires are now hidden behind a 7ft high hinged door that we made, covered in a piece of stunning Scion fabric that we picked up in Matlock Bath for less than a third the RRP. Result.

By the end of next week we'll be open for business. We're already a bit nervous about how the things we've made will all go down in Sheringham, but lets just wait and see.

COTTONWOOD SHOP REFIT ~ 2nd Week ~ Grafting Requires Persistence

Week Two started with us a few days ahead of the planned schedule. Painting the walls with Farrow & Ball Pavilion Grey No242 began to give a better feel for the shop as a space. The interior paintwork has a fiddly detailed door and window structure, proving quite a job and a half. Endeavouring to cover its dark green paintwork required two coats of undercoat before glossing could even commence. We laid laminate flooring in and under the window. Lighting strips were installed for us. All bar one of our orders placed in Harrogate arrived and they all look as good as we remembered. I made a cover to hide some rather ugly meters which is now referred to as 'The Monolith'. Its been hard graft after hard graft, with us sleep deprived but indominatable. We finished the week with a day of clearing up and cleaning as next week the shop fittings start arriving. Woo woo!

Blue masking removed from windows

Stage One

Stage Two

Stage Three

The Monolith

COTTONWOOD SHOP REFIT - 1st Week ~ The Removal of Ghastly Things

The refit of our new shop in The Courtyard, Sheringham is progressing well. We are ahead of our planned timescale. We started painting walls at the end of last week before the May Bank Holiday. After removing dozens of raw plugs, filling in the holes and removing a ghastly strip of wallpaper, we have spent ages getting the walls to be an even tone of white. Plus acquiring neck ache.

Colour swatch for new wall colour