LAHARPE — Mulberry Merino. Dragonfly. Baby Bunny. Kudo and Thick and Quick. Specialty yarns have come a long way from silk and mercerized cotton. Whimsical Wool features all these and more.
Colors to rival spring flowers line the walls of the warm and rustic shop, open now a year and a half at 606 S. Main St. in LaHarpe.
Proprietress Elizabeth Dinkins wants her store to be a place where spinners and knitters can come, hang out, have a cup of tea and a treat and spend hours socializing and doing needlework. Crocheters are also welcome, and will find the Red Heart yarn they love, Dinkins said. She also carries a wide selection of needles.
Being tucked away in LaHarpe, though, means she doesn’t get much walk-in traffic. So Dinkins is having an open house Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be sale prices and door prizes and lessons given away. There’ll be teas and coffee and pastries to munch, as well as new spring yarns that are a wonder themselves.
“Self-striping” yarn allows you to create socks that look as though you used four or five yarns to make them. There are yarns that, during the knitting process, create patterns even though you don’t change your stitch. Washable merino that won’t shrink or pill, even after being tossed in the washing machine and dryer. Yarns that look like confetti, or fur, or fallen autumn leaves. Yarns with names like “Eyelash.”
Dinkins sells them all.
Baby yarns are super-soft, Dinkins explained. Yarns that look like tufts of feathers can be used as accents in scarves, she said. One yarn looks like strips of confetti, playfully poking up from the twisted core. Each appeals to a different kind of crafter, for different kinds of crafts.
An Iola woman knits bags sold in the store using some of the specialty yarns. One is bright as an Easter egg, another is camouflage-colored.
All are whimsical.
Dinkins has high hopes for her little corner of the world.
On Saturdays, she will host a “knit together,” where women can come and share conversation, techniques and comraderie. Dinkins is happy to share what she knows.
“I’ve been knitting 17 or 18 years,” Dinkins said. She bagan in her 20’s “because a friend of mine was doing it, and it looked cool,” she said.
“I’d love to have a spinning circle,” she said. “We own this little green area next door.” The space is more like a small town park, landscaped and inviting. “On a summer evening, we could sit under the big trees with a breeze blowing,” she mused. “Spinning is great, you can do it and talk at the same time. Your hands work automatically.”
Dinkins uses a modern spinning wheel, and sells the washed and carded wool that hand spinners use. She’d be happy to offer lessons to those with wheels, or can order in wheels for those who are interested.
Her 100-year-old building has warm brick walls and comfortable chairs. Smiling sheep peek out from the corners. A large wood table begs you to sit down and open one of the many books Dinkins sells about the art and craft of knitting.
“It’s amazing how popular knitting has become,” Dinkins said. “There are knitting podcasts and knitting Web sites and books and magazines. You can follow your favorite knitting author on Twitter,” she said, referring to the latest Internet social craze. “Did you know that there are knitting conferences?”
Dinkins came from a world where needlecraft’s popularity was apparent. She lived in Santa Cruz, Cali., and could easily find knitting clubs, sculptural knitters, spinners circles and the like. She has taken classes form cutting-edge knitters like Debbie New. “I took a class from her and it strained my brain,” Dinkins said. After such a life, LaHarpe had been a change of pace. “It’s like pulling teeth to get people to come out here,” Dinkins rued.
Dinkins moved to Kansas because of her mother-in-law, she said.
She moved to California as a youth, she said, but her husband was even more parochial. “His whole life was centered around one block in Mountian View, Cali.,” Dinkins said. But his mother was from Elsmore, and when it came time to retire, she wanted to move back home. “It’s a lot cheaper to retire here,” Dinkins observed.
Her own family, which included her husband Jeff and two children, found themselves outgrowing their home “in Capitola, a small town next to Santa Cruz,” she said. “We were looking at $800,000 to $1 million houses that were fixer uppers,” she said.
“We came out to Kansas for a fmaily reunion. We were joking about it, the housing prices here, but then we said, ‘Why not move to Kansas?’”
“Jeff works for Sun Microsystems. He was willing to quit his job to come out here. Instead, they made him a telecommmuter.”
Dinkin’s mother-in-law Shirley bought the building in LaHarpe that houses her business and “a 2,000 square foot apartment upstairs.” Shirley lives upstairs, while her family purchased a home on 25 acres outside of Iola.
“We really like it here,” Dinkins said. But, “LaHarpe needs more business” Dinkins said.
“Our Wal-Mart stopped carrying fibers,” Dinkins said. “All Wal-Marts are going to stop carrying fiber sometime this spring,” she said.
Dinkins pulled out a map. It shows the next nearest yarn stores in Southeast Kansas: Pittsburgh. Madison. Lawrence. Kansas City.
“There’s really this huge gap where I am it,” she said.
If you don’t wnat to travel that far, go to LaHarpe. Take a right at the Diebolt billboard and continue to the large brick building with the small park on the right. Regular store hours are Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“Come visit,” Dinkins said. “I have tea, I have comfy chairs, I have snacks.” And she has wool.
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