If you need to catch up here’s Part 1
Whilst Lil and V had to take a back seat for personal reasons, Helen and I agreed that we would meet at my house every Thursday to work on setting up a shop. We wrote a business plan, conducted market research and trawled the city for potential shop units. Our initial enthusiasm saw us through the first few months, however after nearly 6 months of trying to find suitable premises we began to realise that it wasn’t going to be possible.
So what next? We had spent nearly 6 months trying to open a shop and put a lot of work into trying to make it happen. It seemed criminal to let all our work go to waste but what could we use it for? I came up with the idea of a yarn festival. It seemed like a good idea and we could use most of the work and research we had done for the shop to inform the festival. I also had over a decades worth of experience working at music and film festivals and putting together my own projects and events.
I talked the idea over with Helen initially and she agreed it was a good idea. We then had a meeting with all four of us to discuss the idea further. We knew from the start that we wanted our festival to be different from other festivals. The fact that our team spans different backgrounds, upbringings and ages, helps us achieve this as we all have different perspectives, opinions and views.
And so, Yarningham was born. Yarningham has continued to grow and evolve with the help of family and friends, some of whom have been willing to help out in return for cake!
stitches and hos blog 