Loose Leaf Notes

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on September 30, 2021.

Woolly Jumper Yarns owner Michele Morris announced on Facebook on Aug. 19 that the yarn shop would be closing at the end of September after 10 years of serving customers in two different downtown Floyd locations.

The closing “is not because of COVID or poor sales,” stated Morris, who reported that she was ready for a change and her next adventure, moving back to L.A. to be closer to her family in California.  A slew of well wishes and supportive comments followed the announcement.

Morris, who was born in Palo Alto, California to an aero-space physicist father and a librarian mother, came to Floyd with her young family in 2004 when her husband at the time, Rob Neukirch, became a restaurant owner of Oddfellas Cantina. She and Neukirch raised their two sons in Floyd.

In the weeks that followed Morris’s announcement, everything was “On Sale” at the Village Green shop. Customers flocked to shop for yarn and yarn crafting accessories and to wish Morris, who began knitting when she was 9-years-old, well.

“I’m really going to miss the customers. We have some great customers, just lovely people,” Morris said on a recent workday at the shop.  She fondly recalled the knitting group that has been meeting on Thursday evenings. “We talk about everything, discussions on politics, food, schools, cars, vacations,” she said.

“Our customers are the ones that saved us,” Morris said about riding through the pandemic.  “We have our dedicated Floyd regulars and, like any retail business in town, we have relied on tourism as well.”

A customer came into the shop for some advice on a knitting piece as Morris spoke. Another, who came from Blacksburg to shop, recalled that she discovered Woolly Jumpers during a regional “Yarn Crawl” event. Morris rung up the sale at the check-out counter, next to a large framed wall-print of Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist and early woman’s right’s activist who was born into slavery and freed herself.

When the shop moved from Locust Street to the Village Green a couple of years ago, Morris decided that she wanted the shop’s wall art to reflect people of color. “We’re in a town that has few people of color. I thought it would be nice to add some of that,” said Morris, who has been active in Floyd CARE (Community Action for Racial Equity) and was a member of the Town Planning Commission.

When she came across a print of Truth in a knitted shawl and cap with knitting yarn and needles in hand, she knew it was perfect. She also hung a framed print of two Peruvian women weaving.

Morris, who worked as an entertainment publicist for Showtime before moving to Floyd and has worked as a public relations and training coordinator for Wall Residences in the past, currently has a new job with a Philanthropy waiting for her in L.A.

“I’m lucky to be able to make this change at this time in my life and am looking forward to reconnecting with the old and experiencing the new,” she said.

Woolly Jumper Yarn’s last day of business was Wednesday, Sept. 29, at 201 E. Main St. in Floyd. __________Colleen Redman