Skeinz the store has only been in existence for a handful of years, but its conception runs longer and deeper in the world of yarn, knitting and craft. Skeinz is the retail face of Design Spun Ltd. Design Spun is one of just two worsted spinners remaining in New Zealand, making top-quality New Zealand yarn for knitting, weaving and textiles.
With the closure of more and more mills, retail craft and yarn stores, and increasing demand from knitters to have local, natural fibre products, a direct-to-market option for knitters was inevitable. So Skeinz was born.
Skeinz is the culmination of decades of spinning experience. Initially a family-owned business, the Design Spun stakeholders had special skills vital to the longevity of the mill in the uncertain economic climate.
At a time when mills were disappearing and manufacturing was heading off shore, Design Spun saw the opportunity to take 30 years of spinning experience, inject it with some fresh faces and radical ideas, and completely change the traditional way yarn was sold from mill to consumer.
Now, Skeinz gives yarn consumers the choice to buy premium-quality New Zealand yarn at dramatically reduced prices onsite or online from skeinz.com.
Claire is the glue that holds the Skeinz team together, she keeps all the systems running like a well-oiled machine. Claire has been with Skeinz for almost a decade and spends much of her time keeping Maree in check and making sure all her hair brained schemes come to fruition.
Heather is our resident MacGyver. When she isn’t crocheting or listening to true crime podcasts, her happy place is creating, fixing, sorting and making stuff work in the Skeinz Warehouse and shop. Heather is also the Skeinz practical joker and if you bring a puppy into the shop, Heather will be yours forever!
Veronica is the smiling face you see most often when you come into the store. She is a lifelong knitter and just loves helping match the perfect pattern with the perfect yarn. She has the patience of a saint and when she isn’t helping customers at Skeinz she’s busy helping her own whanau and local community.
Eliza is our little Dutch pocket rocket! Eliza is a passionate crocheter and along with Heather, Eliza is the one who gets your orders out in the quickest possible time. Eliza is a professional Chef by training, and if you do some web searching, you can find her on the Dutch version on Top Chef!
Shani has been one of Skeinz most loyal local customers and recently became our newest recruit. Shani helps the team out on Saturdays and during sale time and puts her extensive knitting knowledge to work helping our customers navigate patterns, projects, yarn and the occasional stuff up.
No one really knows when Maree started, she appeared rather stealthily at the mill and years later her retail passion and occasion social media viral accidents have become legend in the yarn industry. Maree is the face you see every week on the Skeinz Diaries and bombards poor Claire with plethora of crazy ideas. When she isn’t creating mayhem at Skeinz she’s busy as director of the Knit August Nights yarn retreat & a host of her own radio show on Reality Check Radio.
Brendan has been with Design Spun since 1989 and is the man that keeps the business marching forward in the right direction. Brendan is a foundation member of the Design Spun team but still stoutly refuses to learn how to knit, preferring to spin a yarn instead of stitching one.
What Peter doesn’t know about milling yarn can fit on the back of a match book. Peter started working in the mills of Yorkshire and is one of the foundation team at Design Spun. He is the point of contact for contract and commission spinning and is dab handy on a knitting machine!
Ian came to New Zealand to found Design Spun by the way of Northern Ireland and has a Yoda like relationship with the vast mill machinery, not a lot is spoken, but greatness of yarn is made. He is attempting to spend more time traveling and on his boat and has past his vast knowledge onto protégé Matthew August.
It’s often said to get a job done you need to go to a busy woman, in Design’s Spun’s case that woman is Yvonne. Yvonne has the unenviable job of stitching all the process elements of the mill together so the magic of transforming fibre to yarn can happen smoothly. When she’s not doing all that she can be found participating or fundraising as an endurance walker.
No one really knows when Maree started, she appeared rather stealthily and years later her knitting needles, loud music and dog are a constant fixture. Often found lurking online in social media, she’s the one that answers your Facebook and Ravelry posts and is the guru for all those tough knitting crisis and questions. When she isn’t creating mayhem at Skeinz she’s busy as the creator and host of the Knit August Nights yarn retreat.
If you need an injection of energy, then Wayne is your man. Wayne is the man that helps the Skeinz management team work “on” the overall business strategy and bungees in to help shake up our paradigms, keep us challenging our goals and strive for total yarn domination.
Skeinz has been helping our local community since our inception in 2009. It started in earnest with our penguin sweater project in 2010 where the thousands of dollars raised and donated to NZ Forest and Bird, Cape Sanctuary and the Aquarium of New Zealand after the sinking of the Rena in Tauranga through to our recent Cyclone Gabrielle fundraising and which saw us raise and donate over $30K to Cyclone relief and hundreds of yarn care packages delivered to charity knitting groups and rest homes in the affected areas.
We still have ongoing yarn and charity support with The Kiwi Family Trust and Red Cross Napier and ensure we have natural wool yarns priced to be the most competitive on the market to allow the thousands of crafters nationwide to be able to afford to knit, crochet and weave for their charities of choice.
If you use yarn for charitable works, make sure you sign up to our Skeinz Newsletter to receive the latest offers to help make your buying power go further.
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