Interview: Karen Mortensen of Cozy
How/why did you choose the name "Cozy?"
One of the very first priorities for the shop's name was not limiting the name to any particular craft. I knit AND crochet AND spin AND weave--and so do others--so I needed a name that could apply to any of those things that you might do with yarn. And “cozy” is, to me, one of the best qualities of a yarn!
After I began leaning heavily towards “Cozy” as a shop name, I realized that “cozy,” as a word, can be a noun, an adjective, or a verb, and the grammar nerd in me is very pleased by that.
Could you tell us a little bit about what inspired you to open your yarn shop?
When we moved to Eugene I was hoping to find the kind of creative community that I’d known in other cities, and I didn’t immediately find that, although there really are a lot of very talented and creative people here. It seemed natural to try to create the kind of space I’d love to be in. At the same time, I could see that Eugene’s downtown is making a transition to a more community-oriented, vibrant commercial center, and I couldn’t resist trying to be part of that.
What is the most surprising thing you've learned about being a yarn shop owner?
Finding time to actually knit and crochet is hard!
What advice would you give to others wanting to open a yarn shop?
It’s difficult to carry everything for every possible person, so you have to carry what you believe in and let it reflect your own personality a little. People will catch on to your enthusiasm.
Are you a knitter, crocheter, or bistitchual?
Bistitchual. I learned to crochet when I was 7, and something about crochet just made better sense with my brain. To me, crochet is just so much more flexible than knitting--you can put that hook anywhere! You can build up your stitches like Legos!
I tried knitting in high school, and didn’t get it, and then in college, and didn’t get it, and then tried knitting one last time when I was around 25 and it finally made sense.
I don’t necessarily prefer one fiber art over another; they all have different purposes and suit my different moods.
What do you most enjoy about stitching?
I love playing with color and texture. Although I am usually too impatient to swatch for every project (dark secret revealed), sometimes I just like making a swatch for the swatch’s sake, to see what colors will look like together or to try to invent a stitch pattern. That’s when stitching is the most like Legos and the most fun for me.
What other arts/crafts do you enjoy?
Recently I have fallen in love with making resin buttons, but that mostly has to do with the use of glitter. Anything I can do with glitter becomes a favorite craft.
I love spinning, but of course that just makes more yarn in my life, and there’s already plenty of yarn!
What yarn(s) have your heart pitter-pattering lately?
We just started carrying a handspun-style BFL from Feederbrook Farms that is so much fun to work with due to the unexpected color transitions, and it is just a very satisfyingly wool-y wool.
Actually, any of the yarns with unexpected color transitions are my new favorites: any kind of Zauberball, any hand-dyed gradient cakes, hand-painted yarns with rainbow splashes… and sparkle. Sparkle always bumps a yarn up in my pantheon of favorites.
If you were to suggest a yarn base for a beginning stitcher, which base would you recommend? Why?
Wellll… like a lot of things, it depends… I believe that if someone loves the yarn with which they are working, it will be so much easier to stitch. However, I do concur that stretchier yarns are easier with the tighter stitches that beginners tend to make, so I usually recommend wool for first-time crocheters or knitters. My go-to is often Malabrigo Merino Worsted, because it’s a) soft, b) beautiful, c) relatively affordable, and d) has no plies to split.
When selecting books and patterns for the shop, what do you look for?
Since the dawn of the downloadable pattern, printed books and patterns are not as in-demand, so I try to limit our selection in the shop. If a pattern is trending on Ravelry, and it’s available in print, I will try to buy print copies to go with our shop models or for people who just love having that hard copy. Often even those come with a Ravelry download code.
For books, I try to order books that people have asked about or from designers that I know are popular with our customers. And then we also like to have a few “Learn to Knit” and “Learn to Crochet” books, which always become more popular for gifts right before the holidays.
When selecting dyers for trunk shows, what do you look for?
I try not to overlap too much with other local shops or events, so if one of the other shops in town is doing a trunk show with a dyer or designer, I don’t think we need to do that again within a close time frame. It’s nice to have dyers or designers that are local to the Northwest; there are a lot of talented artisans up here, and I think that a lot of local pride goes into people shopping with them.
What do you love most about hosting trunk shows?
Often dyers will bring in a much bigger selection of yarns for a trunk show than we could ever have in the shop on a regular basis, so knitters and crocheters use trunk shows as a chance to find THE PERFECT YARN for some project in their queue, and I love when they find it. It’s like seeing two people have the perfect blind date; there’s a “Happily Ever After” quality about some of those yarn purchases!
How does running Cozy add happiness to your daily life?
Yarn is fun. Creative people are fun. Color is fun. It sounds trite to say so, but I really love being at the space I’ve created. I do love my job.
What do you most enjoy about the fiber arts community?
The community is made up of people who love what they do and find joy in their hobby. Fiber arts can mean something different to each person: for some people it’s relaxation, for others it’s a social activity, for others it’s mental stimulation. I enjoy seeing people satisfied with and even joyful about their art and their activities. Art is the sprinkles on the cupcake of life, right?
There are a lot of changes happening within the fiber arts industry right now. What positive change are you hoping to see in the fiber arts world?
The positive change is out there, just not quite mainstream yet, I think. I would love to see more acceptance of the diversity of crafts and crafters themselves. There really are no laws (really really!) about what fiber artists look like or what they can make, but I feel like sometimes we have these rigid stereotypes about what is “real” or “right” or even acceptable. It’s like that meme going around: “Want a bikini body? Wear a bikini!” Any person who knits or crochets is a knitter or crocheter, and we don’t all have to make the same things or be the same kind of person. Making art brings me a lot of joy, and I think that we, as a community, should wish that for everybody, try to encourage that for everybody.
How do you incorporate a sense of coziness throughout your shop?
I try to make sure that I create coziness in my behavior; I want everyone who enters the shop to feel welcomed, and safe, and at ease. Beyond that, though, I’ve tried to make sure that even in a bright space like mine, there are smaller nooks: a couple of sitting areas, a computer for browsing Ravelry, a spot for kids to play. The presence of yarn takes care of a lot of the coziness for me, too!
What is one of your fondest Cozy memories so far?
My fondest memory is an amalgam of two events: the last two LYS Days, in April. LYS Day (Local Yarn Shop Day) is an event created and promoted by TNNA, the trade organization for needlework shops. It’s intended to be a day for stitchers everywhere to show support for their small, independent shops and for those shops to put on fun events for the knitting and crochet community. In Eugene, both years, we’ve had a citywide shop hop in which people can visit each shop to get a stamp, and both years the day has been like a “Greatest Hits” of all my favorite regular customers. Everyone is so supportive and appreciative that we are here, and there is just so much enthusiasm and energy in the air. People see crafting friends they haven’t seen in a while, they compliment each others’ projects, they chat about yarn, all on one whirlwind Saturday. It’s one of my new favorite holidays!
When you opened the doors to Cozy, what was your biggest hope? How have your dreams for Cozy evolved over the years?
Honestly, my biggest hope was that anyone would come! There were already two other local yarn shops in town when I opened, and although I knew I had a very different vision in mind for things I wanted to do or carry, I wasn’t 100% certain that there would be others who shared that vision.
Now that we’ve achieved three years, I just want to make sure Cozy evolves as Eugene’s knitters and crocheters do. I have already been able to see tastes and ideas changing (the popularity of speckles, then gradients, then tonal yarns; a new craze for colorwork; more interest in US-grown wools) and I want to make sure we continue to keep up with the community.
What yarn craze did you most enjoy in 2019?
It started over the summer, but there’s a big boom right now in ultra-thin, ultra-soft fuzzy yarns like mohair and extra fine alpaca, and I’m all in. I made two Love Note sweaters (https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/love-note) in August, and I’m already picking colors for a third.