In March 2020, we unpacked an A. Opie Designs trunk show.
The samples were beautiful. The yarn was ready. We had plans for customers to come in, browse, touch, try things on, and gather together as they always had.
The very next day, the world changed.
At first, we thought we were making temporary adjustments. We cleaned more frequently, canceled our social stitch groups, moved support sessions to Facebook Live, and offered FaceTime shopping and curbside pickup to anyone who felt uncomfortable coming inside.
Then, within a matter of days, the doors closed.
Erin and I were the last ones standing in the shop. For months, we stayed in each other’s bubble, coming to work every morning and trying to figure out how to run a yarn store without the one thing our business had always depended on: people walking through the door.
At that time, many small brick-and-mortar shops like ours did not have a true online presence. We certainly didn’t. Our operating system did not even have a website option built into it.
But suddenly, an online shop was no longer something we could think about doing someday.
It was how we were going to survive.
So we clumsily began building one.
Day after day, we entered yarns, inventory numbers, descriptions, prices, photographs, and categories. We tried to make sense of products that had always been organized on shelves and turn them into something customers could find on a screen.
We were learning as we went, and we did not fully understand what we were doing.
It felt never-ending.
For weeks, we simply threw products online as quickly as we could. We learned Zoom. We created virtual shopping appointments. We shopped with customers through a computer screen, wound their yarn, took payment over the phone, and carried packages out to their cars.
The class table became a studio.
The sales floor became a shipping department.
Facebook Live became our front door.
Curbside pickup became our new normal.
We taught classes online, hosted virtual trunk shows, moved our stitch groups to Zoom, shipped packages, applied for grants and loans, and continued adding inventory to the website until every skein we carried could be found online.
None of it was polished.
We were literally writing the playbook as we went.
There were so many pivots that it was sometimes hard to remember what business had looked like only a few weeks earlier. Each time we adjusted to one new reality, the rules changed again.
We were scared.
We were exhausted.
And we had no idea how long it would last or whether we were doing enough to keep Dances With Wool alive.
But every morning, we came back.
We entered more products.
We filled more orders.
We learned one more piece of technology.
We tried one more idea.
And our community kept showing up, too.
Customers placed online orders, booked virtual shopping appointments, sent notes of encouragement, and reminded us again and again that this shop mattered to them.
Our stitch groups even found ways to gather safely outside, setting up their chairs within view of the shop. Seeing them there meant more than they may ever know. At a time when the shop felt quiet and empty, they reminded us that our community was still present.
It had not disappeared.
It had simply found another way to gather.
There is one line I wrote during those early weeks that still captures exactly how I felt:
"The hustle and bustle of the shop is gone, and it has been reduced to just a space with yarn. It was never meant to be this way.”
That was the moment I understood more clearly than ever that Dances With Wool had never been created simply to sell yarn.
It had been created to bring people together.
And although we could no longer gather around the table, our purpose did not change.
We kept finding ways to connect.
We kept finding ways to teach.
We kept finding ways to inspire.
We kept finding ways to serve.
Looking back now, people may see the website, the curbside pickup, the Zoom classes, and the virtual events as the things that saved us.
They were important, but they were only tools.
What truly carried us through was the community we had been building since the day we opened our doors.
It was the commitment of a staff willing to learn, adapt, and keep going.
It was the trust of customers who continued to support us when our future was uncertain.
It was the strength to take one small step, then another, even when we could not see where the path would lead.
That year taught us that we could do difficult things.
We could reinvent ourselves.
We could be afraid and still move forward.
We could make mistakes, learn from them, and try again.
And when the doors closed, the heart of Dances With Wool did not.
We were still here.
Still stitching.
Still connected.
Still moving forward, one pivot at a time.
Chapter 4 video by Debbie Floyd