18 Fire Island Avenue

After a particularly grueling summer of painting, building shelves, meeting with yarn reps, ordering inventory and knitting up samples at breakneck speed, we opened the Village Knitter in September 2006. Our tiny 400 square feet did not deter us. It's hard to believe now but initially we had all to do to fill the minute space. One day, like a miracle, a soft-spoken woman I had met through Knitters Review wandered in and offered her help. Little did I know at the time that Joy





was one of the most accomplished knitters on the planet! Her early encouragement and assistance was truly inestimable. In our first six months, we taught beginning knitting classes to nearly two hundred eager students! It seemed everyone and their sister wanted to learn to knit. Unfortunately, Joy's tenure here was short-lived as she awaited a teaching position that all-too-soon materialized. During the next six months, the shop grew in leaps and bounds, hosting charity events benefitting our local Care To Knit organization as well as a fantastic handbag workshop taught by none other than the brilliant Louisa Harding. Finally it seemed, my timing had been correct. I had all to do to keep up the excitement while learning the day-to-day intracies of running a busy yarn shop. The biggest problem (as any seasoned yarn shop owner will tell you) was never having any time to knit!