From the Caledonian-Record, January 2, 2010...
Not every fiber store owner is so bodacious as to bestow upon themselves a title, but Miriam Briggs, the proud proprietress of Wool Away, has done so.
On radio ads across the state, she has a confident promise to would-be shoppers about her inventory, declaring her store is the most complete yarn
and fiber arts shop in the Northeast Kingdom, saying, “I know because my name is Miriam, and I am The Yarn Lady,” she proclaims.
Well, The Yarn Lady and her shop are off and running, across the street in St. Johnsbury, in the midst of an exciting expansion, Briggs said Wednesday,
from her back space at Uniquity where she has “tucked in” her inventory the past few years. By today, Jan. 2nd, she will be mostly moved into a shop all her own
across the street in the former Indigenous Skate Shop attached to Kingdom Outdoors.
On New Year’s Day, Briggs said, friends and family were going to conduct a “shopping cart brigade,” and go back and forth across the street with wool-filled
shopping carts until the inventory was all moved into her new space.
Briggs said she planned to be open today, Jan. 2, at her new space at 446 Railroad Street, at 9:30 a.m., understanding the plan is “ambitious,”
but she said she intends to open, even while finishing up the move; she said she’s keeping her old space through January, so not every
skein needs to be out, but she hopes to have it together enough to have the doors open this morning, she promised.
Briggs is an accomplished knitting designer, having had patterns published in two books, 101 One Skein Wonders, and 101 Designer One Skein Wonders, which, naturally, she stocks.
Briggs is generous with her knowledge, willing to stop what she’s doing to help a customer learn something new or help them where they are
stuck in a pattern, and has a passion to jazz people about handcrafted products. Briggs’s shop also participates in efforts to benefit local charities,
including helping to stitch together donated knitted and crocheted blocks which are then donated as completed blankets for people receiving chemotherapy
at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in St. Johnsbury.
“I’m expanding directly across the street. When you are standing with your back to Uniquity’s door, it is literally directly across the street,¨ said Briggs.
Briggs had a shop on Eastern Avenue for about five years starting in 1995, and when her son, Quentin, now 10, was born, she closed it, and moved some
yarn and merchandise into a part of Uniquity.
Later, in the winter of 2007, she expanded to an independent space at the back of Uniquity, so she has been there almost three years, and now is ready once again
for a standalone store, with her own storefront.
Not only does Briggs have a title she´s given herself, she also has a mission statement, ¨I entice, I educate and I excite…To excite the fiber person and entice the
non-fiber person, and educate everybody about the wonders of fiber. That’s the mission statement,¨ she said.
The name of Briggs´s shop comes from an old sheep shearing term, she shared Wednesday. ¨When the shearer is done shearing, they cry out, ´Wool Away!¨
and that means: I’m done, bring me another sheep, so someone comes and picks up the fleece and takes away the sheep and brings the shearer a new sheep.
That´s where the name comes from,¨
Customers should watch for an open house to be held during the annual Slidewalk Sale in January, said Briggs. She said
she is planning a seating area, some offerings such as books and non fiber related things, as well as a hot and cold beverage
station in her expanded shop.