Craft Focus - December 2020/January 2021 (Issue 82)

48 Stateside success Jeffrey J Denecke Jr, chief operating officer of Knitting Fever Inc. chats to Craft Focus about the impressive choice of brands they look after and how they have helped retailers during the Covid-19 pandemic Tell us a little bit about the history behind Knitting Fever Inc. Where are you based? Who started the company and when? Knitting Fever Inc. (KFI) had its humble beginnings in 1974 when Sion Elalouf opened his first needlepoint and knitting store in Great Neck, New York. He was inspired by the beautiful and exotic nature of European and Japanese yarns and by the talented textile artists he met. In the early ’80s KFI gave up the retail business to focus on bringing these specialty yarns and fabulous designers to retailers across the USA. Over the past four decades KFI has supplied the nation with the highest quality yarn lines supported by the greatest designers the industry has seen to date. As a company, we now employ lessons learned as a retailer in service to our customers. This insight allows us to provide top quality and value in the most beautiful and interesting yarn and designs available today. How has the company evolved? How are you expanding worldwide? With the growing influence of the internet bringing the world closer together than ever before, Knitting Fever has expanded to become an international distributor. Starting in Canada, we have since expanded to service many countries across the continents – including the United Kingdom. What do you specialise in? Yarns for hand knitting and crochet, as well as patterns and tools for example, Lykke Crafts. Talk us through your current collections. We represent over a dozen brands (some we own, some we represent) – so many hundreds of products. It’s hard to talk about everything but here’s a quick summary of some of our proprietary brands: Araucania Yarns : Hand painted yarns made or inspired by South America. Ella Rae Yarns: Favourites like the Cashmerenos and work horse yarns. Jody Long: Our newest brand launched with designer Jody Long – yarns, colours, and designs selected by him https://www.jodylongknits.com/ Juniper Moon Farm: our high end luxury natural product line https://www.facebook.com/ JuniperMoonFarm/ Mirasol Yarns: A line of yarns from Peru, the sale of which supports the Mirasol School in Puno. The yarns are made by the mill that runs the school and sources the fibres from the flocks of farmers whose children attend the school. You can read the story here: http://mirasol.com.pe/ LYKKE Crafts: Named after the Norwegian word for happiness, LYKKE Crafts combine high quality materials and thoughtful design to produce beautiful, durable, happy- making knitting needles and crochet hooks http://www.lykkecrafts.com/ Noro Yarns: It’s best to allow his own words to capture the beauty of Noro. Eisaku Noro says: JMF_Beatrix LYKKE Mirasol Phullu