The Woolly Hat Knitting Club

by Poppy Dolan

  ‘Argh! Dee!’ By the look of JP’s grimace, I’d be getting a dead arm now if he had any sort of flexibility. ‘I didn’t care about the stupid prints, I just…’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? Cute art girl. Brother in the prime of life. Ringing any bells? Or do you need it in an email?’

  Oh. Ohhh. ‘God, sorry! That was you chatting her up, then?’

  He puffs and fidgets on the spot. ‘Yes. No. Not exactly. I was warming up to it. I was finding an “in”.’

  I lean forward on my elbows, careful not to scatter a pile of invoices. ‘Dude, Rothko prints are probably not your “in” with a super-cool art girl. If you want my advice…’

  JP scowls. ‘I don’t. But what is it?’

  I walk around to him and gently lay my hand on his shoulders. ‘I don’t want to sound weird, being your sister, but to an art girl you are hot property. Just as you are. You are a bloke that crafts. You make stuff. You know the value of creating things. Most guys she meets probably scoff at an art installation made of Kinder Eggs but you could stare at that kind of thing all day, genuinely into it.’

  ‘Unless I got peckish.’

  I wag a finger. ‘Stay with me here. Just be yourself. Get her round to the shop, not just as a packhorse, but the next time you’re running a class. Let her see you in your element. And that way you can tell whether she’s really for you or not. Let’s face it, she’s got to be down with the yarn if she’s going to be a keeper, right?’

  ‘Hmm,’ JP narrows his eyes, ‘and you won’t interfere if I do invite her over? You nearly said my bloody name over there just now.’

  I clamp my hands over my mouth. ‘Shit. Sorry. Won’t do it again, Guides’ Honour. I will leave you to make your best moves in peace.’

  He eyes his arms. ‘Can’t really make any sort of move like this, so it’s going to be a right old slow seduction.’

  ‘JP! I don’t want to think about you groping anyone, thanks.’

  He tsks. ‘I would never grope! But knitting doesn’t deplete your testosterone – I still actually fancy girls. Now, if only there was a fancy watch shop round here where we could pick you up some loaded suit who can talk synergy all day, then we’d both have found our perfect types. Your hormones could do with a bit of a reboot, Dee. The last time I heard you speak to a guy you fancied on the phone it was to confirm what time you were headed to the sixth form leavers’ ball.’

  I flop down on the saggy sofa. ‘Well, if you believe the rumours going round Canary Wharf, I can’t keep my hands to myself these days.’

  ‘Eh?’

  I feel to check my bank card is still in my pocket. ‘Don’t suppose you fancy a late lunch consisting of Gordon’s gin, do you?’

  Chapter 8

  ‘Fuck a duck.’ JP gulps down some more of his double through a long straw.

  ‘I feel like Mum is halfway round the world, shuddering but not knowing why. But in this case, the language is pretty spot on.’ I chase the ice cubes round my glass with my green plastic stirrer. Three gins in and I’m not feeling cheered. Maybe I should have asked for a piña colada but that might have thrown Big Brian behind the bar.

  We’re pretty much the only people in the Witch’s Nose at three p.m. on a Tuesday, apart from Brian and someone’s grandpa doing a sudoku over a pint of stout in the corner. It’s the kind of dark, fusty pub that never seems to change and that kind of permanence is just what I need right now. Even if the chintzy carpets are a bit mossy in places.

  ‘So what will you do? I mean, you know you can stay with me as long as you want. And not just because I need you to butter my toast. Stan’s doing his best to teach me to do these things with my casts on, but any chance to be spoilt and I’m happy.’

  This at least makes me half-smile. ‘Thanks. I think, to be safe, I’d better find a tenant for my flat to cover the mortgage. I might need to see a career consultant. If my name really is as muddy as a rugby pitch in consultancy then I might need to… branch out. And careers consultants are not cheap. So I’ve got to watch my bank balance and think of a way to bring in some cash flow until I’m back on course. And to keep busy, to stop myself going on a murderous rampage with those super-sharp dressmaking scissors you sell.’ I let out a long, slow, Pilates breath.

  ‘I can deflect Mum for you, save her worrying too much and you going even more murderous with her ten missed calls a day. You’ve never been so lucky to have her in a whole other time zone.’

  I clink my glass against his. ‘Cheers to that. God love her, but I’m grateful for the headspace right now. And if she does manage to get me on the phone I’ll just change the subject to your poor broken bones.’

  JP licks his lips and nods. ‘Throw me under the bus. I can take it.’

  I turn my phone over from where JP relegated it to when we got here: hiding upside down, under a Smelly Goat beer mat. Just what I expected: five missed calls. But when I scroll through the list, only one is from Mum: there’s one from Clive and three from Ben. Well, that is just a flaming cheek. I open up his contact and quickly press Block. I’m not giving him the chance to gloat over 4G any time soon. But sweet of Clive to call – I must drop him an email tomorrow and reassure him I’m fine and all these rumours are a load of old toss. Maybe I can persuade him to drop a little salt in Ben’s tea, the next time he’s passing…

  But I’m not falling down that jagged rabbit hole again today – being angry just slows me down. It doesn’t butter any parsnips. It definitely doesn’t pay any bills. I need distraction. I need movement.

  I shake my head and hide the phone back under its beer-mat blanket. ‘Right, let’s talk about something else. Quick. Keep me distracted, little brother. I need my brain to be deep into something productive.’

  JP drops the straw from between his teeth. He’s getting quite good at managing to do things with two arms out of action. His teeth are like a Swiss Army Knife these days, picking things up, tearing open post, and he’s perfected pushing down a door handle with his behind, which is a sight to see.

  ‘Well, since you mentioned inviting Patti to one of my classes at the shop, I was going to ask… would you help me run one? I can still do all the talking, but I need a willing puppet to demonstrate things. And, weirdly, you being useless at anything crafty is a real bonus. Because some of my class feedback is that as a pro I make it look easy, and go too fast. You’ll do well if you complete a row without creating twenty new super-tight stitches and turning a scarf into a doorstop. Ha!’

  I kick him under the table. ‘Nice way to ask for a favour, but yes. OK. Whatever you and the shop need. I’m there. Can you handle another drink?’

  He shrugs. ‘Go on, then. Call it ongoing pain management.’

  ‘And I don’t have work tomorrow.’ I try to say this with a sardonic air but instead it comes out a bit mopey. Maybe three G & Ts was not my best call. ‘Hey, did you look at that email I starred for you, by the way? Before I got… before I left work, I spotted that email from MCJ.’

  ‘I’ve had too much booze to try and pretend I know what you’re talking about. Sorry.’

  I flick him on the forehead. ‘You should wake up every day overjoyed you have a sister as amazing as me to keep you on the straight and narrow. It’s an investment firm and they reached out to you because it seems they’re interested in making some small-scale investments in start-up craft companies. I know you’ve been going a few years, and you know what you’re doing, but a jolt of cash could help you take things to the next level, expand a little.’

  JP frowns. ‘I don’t know. That’s not my world, Dee – it’s all gibberish to me. That’s your gaff.’

  ‘I’m going to take that as a compliment. Well, shall I talk to them? Another distraction technique for me, anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever you think. Sounds good. You’re the money. Now, how do you feel about feeding me dry-roast peanuts in a public place?’

  * * *

  I might be the first person to ever dra
ft a business plan on a Costco bench.

  But something I was taught on a ‘Disrupt and Conquer’ working methods course in my old job was that if you want to break out of old, familiar patterns of thought, you need to break out of old, familiar places and practices. So Costco it is. And they sell a decent hot dog in their cafe, it turns out.

  I had to stock up on loo roll, teabags and Bourbon biscuits ahead of this class I’ll be running with JP. Who am I kidding? I’m running it as much as a poor little guinea pig in a lab runs the trial of lipstick it’s wearing. But nevertheless, I’m going to do my bit – for the good of JP, for the good of the shop. So that means making sure we’re ready to host eight keen but green crafters to learn how to knit a hat, keeping them fed, watered and cosy; hopefully these classes will soon run regularly enough to eat through all our biscuits and plump up the bank balance. There was a really quick response when JP posted a new blog after we got back from the pub a few days ago: he slurred out the words and I typed them up, not quite as wobbly as him but still feeling a nice level of numbness from plenty of gin. We also put a sign in the window with a big neon-pink frame, which certainly caught the eye. JP harrumphed that it was too girly but I told him to get real and respect his key demographic. Yes, some men do craft but the audience is 99.99 per cent female and I’ll eat my hat if another man turns up on the night.

  I ran through a stock check at the haberdashery, under JP’s careful eye, and pinged over a quick order to the supplier for the bits and pieces we needed: some 5-millimetre knitting needles and tapestry needles for sewing up after. I actually didn’t realize hats needed sewing up; I thought they were just made as one whole thing. JP scoffed at this and said, ‘You have years of work ahead of you before you’re ready for knitting “In the Round”,’ but I was too busy digging out all his carrier bags from under the sink to ask what that entailed. Sounded like a terrible knit-to-the-death joust with giant needles slung on your shoulder. And God knows I can do enough damage with normal knitting as it is.

  Mags very kindly drove me over to Costco this morning in her reliable little Skoda and since we’ve pushed the huge trolley round together and paid for our bulky bargains, she’s mooched off to inspect their range of potted plants while I whipped out the old iPad and started to put together a flow chart.

  After JP gave me the nod to get in touch with MCJ the other night, I replied to them, filling them in on how my brother and I were joint owners and, though I was the silent partner, I certainly knew my way around a profit-and-loss account and so any investment discussions could come through me. I want to plant my flag very firmly at their feet – I know business. Don’t think I’m a woolly wool fan that you can bamboozle into terrible terms. They came back almost immediately with renewed enthusiasm, so I’m impressed by how they operate. The woman emailing, Lorraine, asked if I could share our original business plan plus any updated headline stats on the shop, its retail website and the tied-in blog. Fair enough. They want to see what they’d be putting their money behind.

  The only dropped stitch in the whole enterprise (JP is having a worrying influence on my turn of phrase already) is that our original business plan was a walk around the park near Mum and Dad’s that JP and I took after one of Dad’s spectacularly huge Sunday lunches. We never wrote anything down, per se. JP was coming back to himself after his breakdown at that time, really enjoying his new crafty pursuits but floundering in the face of an uncertain future. He didn’t want to stay on Mum and Dad’s sofa bed for ever, but he didn’t like the idea of moving in with me because that meant a hectic city life again. He knew he wanted to keep exploring these new passions but he also knew he couldn’t shut out ‘real life’ for the rest of time: he needed to earn a living. As he spoke into the foggy, chilly air that day, I remembered a TED talk I’d had playing through my headphones on the treadmill once: if you’re at a career crossroads, if you don’t see the way forward, start with the things you love in your life. Build a career from those pointers. Love rugby? Ring up the national Rugby Federation, see if they have any marketing openings. Used to be a big tap dancer as a kid? Even stage schools need finance officers. Surround yourself with what you love. It might not make you a pile, but the happiness that follows is priceless. When I’d heard that talk, I’d shrugged it off as I was already in a career that satisfied me, but back then seeing JP wring his hands and chew on the ties from his hoodie, I saw that we had to create a new path for him, starting with what he loved.

  ‘If you could paint the scene of your perfect day job, crazy as you like, what would that look like?’ I’d asked him.

  ‘Being surrounded, like wall to wall, with amazing yarns. Maybe even learning how to dye my own? And being with other people who like the same stuff as me, who get me. Not an office. But lots of tea still. That’s essential. It wouldn’t matter if I was paid much, really.’

  When we got back to our parents’ and stamped the mud off our boots at the back under Mum’s scrutiny, I launched into a plan over walnut cake and instant coffee: I’d put up the money if JP, Mum and Dad could pool their know-how to get an amazing haberdashery up and running. Mum and Dad might have had to fold their own business years ago but they still knew everything about how to find premises, organize the running of a shop and, crucially, make accurate change. That was as far as our plan went back then and the rest of it grew organically, with plenty of trial and error but luckily avoiding any major disasters or acts of God. Unless you count JP’s falling off a ladder wrapped in chintzy bunting as a sign from Above that my brother needs to get out more.

  I decided to call on Mum and Dad to email through a rough idea of what we spent to start with, any mission statements they may have scribbled on the back of a cardigan pattern, and the rest we can fudge with jargon. This is my ‘gaff’, as JP pointed out the other day. But the real fun for me is this headline document. I told Lorraine I’d get something over to her in a fortnight, once I’d had time to review data, but what she doesn’t know is that I could write a kick-ass document standing in the Costco queue to pay for the 2 kilogram gross of Premium Chocolate Flavour Bourbon Biscuits. I need two weeks to just subtly polish the stats themselves a bit…

  I want JP’s hard work to be shown to its full advantage when these investors appraise him so they can see he’s someone to really get behind. With a solid investment, he could be set for the next few years. At the rate I’m going, I won’t be able to stand him another big cheque any time soon. And it is a great business, it’s just still in that chrysalis stage that any relatively new company is in: about to break out into the big time and show its beautiful self, but on the edge of something new and daunting. Plus, it’s both the perfect distraction for me and an ideal way to keep my business and consulting skills sharp, all the way out in the Shires. I can feel a trusty tingle of energy flow down into my fingers as I type, edit, annotate. This is going to be good.

  There are a few blocks in my flow chart: digital presence; bricks and mortar retail space; brand strength. Digitally, JP is already streets ahead of most other businesses like his because he has a well-followed blog and uses his genuine passion to reach people online. It’s a brilliant way to forge customer loyalty. But the skin of the blog and the shop’s site need a refresh; the design feels a bit tired and amateurish if I’m being blunt. Which in this case it’s my job to be. I’m sure I have a contact who could do this for me on the cheap, to expand their portfolio. I also need to make sure JP is planning his posts, so they’re regular and don’t repeat themselves. I’ll map them out on the nudie knitting calendar if I have to. Pulling knitting and sewing enthusiasts in via JP’s blog is great, but they need an easy digital journey over to the shop section so they can click away and add lots of lovely crafty must-haves to their cart. I unpacked a boxful of pom-pom makers the other day. JP reassured me they’re amazing fun and people buy them in all sizes to add to their stash, but the odd plastic curves looked like they could just as likely be sold by JVC to peel eggs, so I’m staying out of product
selection myself. JP’s been reluctant to get on to Instagram so far, claiming it’s all about avocados and perfect butts, but the number of users doesn’t lie – the future is Insta. I’ll get him on there and his account synced up with his other social media accounts for the shop. If I can get his Follows and Likes boosted in the next two weeks, not to mention the click-through rates of purchases in the online shop, it’s going to make him seem all that more appealing to MCJ.

  Now, my plans for the physical shop itself have less to do with my day job and more to having good taste. I love my brother, always have, always will, but interiors are not his thing. The shop has everything a craft nerd could dream of – but can they find it in all the clutter? And when you’re persuading people to make a non-essential purchase in a tough economic climate, the whole shopping experience should feel inviting, like a treat, something special they deserve to give themselves. The stuffed-full look of the shop at the moment can be overwhelming to newbies (I know from experience) and the bad lighting along with the dingy magnolia walls doesn’t exactly shout ‘boutique’. But that’s nothing some studious rearranging and a trip to B&Q can’t solve. Plus, with JP’s arms out of action, he can’t stop me introducing a new organizational system, even if he wants to! I’m going to go through his ordering system: see what products turn over most quickly and which are slow to shift. Those slow sellers will get a more prominent spot in the new layout. With a lick of vibrant paint – maybe a cool vintage turquoise – a few scented candles and those original 1950s knitting patterns framed artfully around the place, the shop will feel like a destination, rather than just a storage shed. And it will make for a much more relaxed atmosphere during the classes. When people are relaxed, they shop. And higher takings through the shop over the next few weeks are going to look great in my headline stats presentation to Lorraine.