Creative Knitworks Offers More Than Just Yarn

Hillsdale resident Sharon Innocenti spent the majority of her professional career as an IP manager at J.P. Morgan Chase, but about five years ago she was laid off. Fortunately for Innocenti, she had reconnected with her lifelong passion for knitting and started her own business shortly before losing her job.

“I knit my whole life, and when I got back into it I dragged my husband around to yarn stores,” she said. “I was just extremely happy in a yarn store and I was like, I need to do this.”

Innocenti opened her yarn store, , in Hillsdale in 2006. Two years ago she decided it was time for a bigger place, and moved her store to Fairview Avenue in Westwood.

“I had no idea if it was a good business, but I opened and people came,” she said.

Her shop now holds more than 1,000 different yarns, as well as dresses, blankets, handbags, vests, scarves, shawls and socks. She also sells needlepoint, needles, hardware for purses (rings and snaps) and knitting bags. The back room is host to different patterns she also sells to her customers.

She also teaches four group classes and private sessions on a daily basis. Classes are Monday nights, Thursday mornings and nights and Sunday mornings. Private sessions are one-on-one for an hour and a half in knitting, crocheting or needlepoint. Innocenti said she has about 15 private sessions a week.

Creative Knitwork’s cozy atmosphere invites knitting and crocheting veterans and beginners alike to relax and work on their newest projects in the store. With a couch and circle of comfortable chairs, Innocenti encourages walk-in knitters at all times of the day. Her store has become a home away from home for knitting fiends all over Bergen County.

“Lately there are a lot of new faces because there was this store in Teaneck that closed and there aren’t that many knitting stores, and knitting’s a small world. They all know each other and they go to places together and they work on projects together,” Innocenti explained. “So when that store closed all of the people from Teaneck and Englewood and that area, are coming here now. Over the last month it’s exploded.”

In the yarn-selling industry, having a strong customer following is crucial. Customer service is a top priority for knitting store owners.

“It’s a strange kind of business. When a customer comes in I know their name,” Innocenti explained. “I usually remember what projects they are working on, and you build good relationships that way.”

People constantly come into Creative Knitworks for advice and help with projects they are working on, and Innocenti loves being there to assist them. But she said placing orders for her customers can be complicated.

“People come in that want to knit a sweater in a particular color and we’ll have to look at the pattern and see how much yarn they need,” Innocenti said. “I have a gentleman who knits and he comes in and he’s pretty big so he needs 2,000 yards to make a sweater. I generally don’t have that much in one color, so we have to pick the colors and then I have to special order it.”

Innocenti filled the store with knitted samples to help sell her yarn. She and her three employees make half of these, with the other half coming from customers and manufacturers. When she places large orders with manufacturers, they will send a sweater for free to add to her sample collection.

But these samples are not merely up for decoration – they are an advertising technique.

“They give people ideas. Like that blanket for instance, that took like a year to make and I sold it over and over and over again,” Innocenti said. “People have to buy the yarn for that which costs about $400, and then they need lessons on how to do it. So that’s what samples do, they sell yarn.”

Innocenti recently used Groupon to advertise her knitting classes. She sold packages of four classes for $49. That package usually costs $100.

“The whole thing about a Groupon, is you get people that haven’t knitted before and they go, it’s only $49, I’m willing to try it. And out of the 95 people, I’m willing to bet that about 60 percent will become good customers,” she said.

She also made a Creative Knitworks website, where her customers can buy yarn, along with a Facebook and Twitter.

“My personal business goal is to keep this store and make my online store bigger,” Innocenti said. “In eight years I’m going to phase into just the online and then I’ll probably sell it to somebody else. This is my second career, so I think I’ll be ready to retire by then.”

She said she much prefers Creative Knitworks and the laid back yarn industry to her former job at J.P. Morgan.

“Yesterday I was wearing shorts. I used to wear business suits. Here I get to sit with my people and there I used to have people yelling all the time,” Innocenti said. “But, there I made a lot of money, here I don’t. It’s not a big money making business but it’s a love.”

Come into Creative Knitworks at 300 Fairview Ave., Westwood or visit the store online www.creativeknitworks.com.