This is our origin story.
Some of you have been around long enough to know that Yarn Souq started with myself (Jocelyn) and Ruth. We met at one of our local knitting group’s weekend meet-ups in 2010, during Ramadan too! Over the years, we have grown into our knitting adventure and discovered that we both like pretty much similar patterns and types of yarns. To be honest, we were both yarn snobs, i.e. we prefer wool, silk, and hand-dyed yarn.
Fast forward to 2017-ish when a 165+ year old Dutch company, Scheepjes, launched their 1,000 meter, gradient, cotton/acrylic blend yarn, Whirl. There was no local distributor for the yarn in the UAE at the time. So when some of the members of our local knitting group heard of the yarn and wondered how they can get their hands on them, we decided to create a distributor account with DeBondt (manufacturers of Scheepjes) and organised a group order for the Whirls.
It was such a hit that, well, the rest is history. This history.
We worked on getting a trade license with a local sponsor, which is mandatory then if you wanted to start a commercial enterprise in the UAE. With that we needed storage space because, you know, yarn stash but on a larger scale now. We started out with the smallest space we could afford at the time at The Box, a now defunct storage outfit in Al Quoz. It was perfect because it was economical and you could pay monthly and it was a stone’s throw away from Times Square Center which is the venue of Dubai’s largest local artisan community, ARTE The Makers’ Market.
I had been an ARTE vendor in the past, hawking my hand-dyed yarn at a pop-up in 2010. But this time, it was all systems go. We signed up to do the pop-ups and were placed next to the community table where the local Rags to Riches group was making knitted squares in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest knitted blanket. We supported the makers by selling them the yarn and needles at wholesale prices. The blanket they put together did break the world record at that time so we were proud to have contributed somehow.
From then, we continued popping up at ARTE as well as growing our customer base starting from our local knitting group and branching out to their friends and then to people who found us at the market and then kept coming back until they became regulars. Soon, we outgrew our little storage box so we moved to a business centre in Media City. It gave us the breathing room we needed to organise a little better and top up our stock of warm-weather yarn. We have since added other brands to our repertoire including Urth Yarns, Malabrigo, West Yorkshire Spinners and more recently Wollmeise and my own hand-dyed brand, Dubai Knits.
And, as it sometimes happens with businesses, we had a parting of the way and Ruth left the company in late 2021. Around this time was when our website started taking shape. It took a lot of man hours to build the website but once it started working, it was a blessing! Our reach got a bit wider. Inventory took care of itself, mostly. At least we no longer have to rely on Google Sheets and handwritten notes to keep tabs of stock count and orders form customers. The website took care of that. Even today, the website and the shop are a work-in-progress. I’m always tinkering around with it, as you may have seen when recently the home page switched from your usual storefront to a blog!
Processing your orders are also now a little bit more streamlined after we moved the office to a location that is more easily accessible for us. Yes, we’re selfish in this sense but it makes packing up orders so much easier and we don’t lose time stuck in traffic getting to the shop.
We are still an online only shop, with the regular pop-up stall at ARTE in Times Square Center. But we are also keeping with the times because we have an app! In case you missed it, we have a shop app available on the Apple Store and the Google Play Store! Exciting times.
Today, Yarn Souq is a family-run business. I look after most of the admin and customer service. My husband is the muscle – local customers would recognise him as the one hauling all of our stock during ARTE markets. He also helps with your orders and keeping the stockroom organised. My youngest son is the Deputy Transport Officer and Order Fulfillment Assistant for when my husband is not available. My daughters are my sounding board, product testers and cheering squad; they are thousands of miles away from us so their virtual support means so much.
With the planned changes this year, we are beyond excited and cannot wait to tell you all about the new yarns we are bringing in. About that, don’t forget to check out our items on clearance. Once they’re gone, they’re gone so grab what you need for your planned projects now.