Not just anybody goes to Blizzard Yarn & Fiber.
“If you don’t look for us or know somebody who’s been here, you don’t know we exist,” co-owner Jim Blizzard said.
Tucked away in a quiet spot a few blocks northwest of Fourth Plain Boulevard and Andresen Road, Blizzard Yarn is the only remaining brick-and-mortar yarn retailer in Vancouver after Urban Wolves Fibre Arts closed its doors and went online-only in November. And if you’re wondering how the store manages to keep up with a drove of online retailers and big-box fabric and craft stores, Jim and his wife and business partner, Irina Blizzard, will tell you it’s because of the community they’ve created at their bright little slice of Vancouver.
The store stocks a variety of yarn and other fibers that can’t be found in the big-box stores, Jim said. The Blizzards work with 17 vendors, including eight dyers and growers from local alpaca and sheep farms. In all, more than 90 percent of their inventory is locally sourced, he said.
“We try to keep everything here that we can,” Jim said. “We highlight the local artists and the local yarn.”
The Blizzards launched their business in September 2014, hosting dozens of crafters every Thursday for knitting nights in a room just off to the side of the sales floor. Soon, they’d built a successful and growing enterprise around word-of-mouth advertising and a culture of teaching and friendship, offering a range of classes and one-on-one knitting lessons. In 2015, they expanded into the space next door to accommodate their growing groups.
Teaching knitting came naturally to Irina, who also teaches advanced algebra full time at Hockinson High School. She’s been knitting for more than three decades, going back to her childhood in Russia, where she learned a picking technique that, once mastered, is faster and easier on the hands than the English and Continental knitting styles common in the United States. That’s been a hit among the store’s customers, especially those with arthritis, Irina said.
The Blizzards also sponsor teachers from across the country to fly in and lead one-day classes at their store. They usually find them at the Madrona Fiber Arts Festival — an annual event in Tacoma bringing together fiber enthusiasts, industry leaders and teachers for a series of small, informal classes.
“We try to bring the same teachers who go to Madrona here, maybe even around the same time, and make it affordable for our customers,” Irina said.
After the Blizzards moved to Clark County from Florida several years ago, Irina found friends among local knitters. But she quickly noticed they had no gathering place large enough for everyone to work on their projects together. Out of that realization came the idea to open her own yarn store. The Blizzards originally wanted to call it Yarn Barn, but friends urged that, naturally, it just had to be Blizzard Yarn. And so it is.
Jim splits his time between the store and their other business, Blizzard Repair, a lawn-mower repair shop in Hazel Dell. After practicing the balancing act for a few years, Jim said he’s established a reliable crew to manage each business whenever he needs to be somewhere else.
“I only sleep about four hours (a night),” he laughed. “And that’s all I’ve ever needed. I’ve done this all my life. I just go, go, go, go, go.”
In the past couple of years, Blizzard Yarn has become a place where people meet and end up staying connected outside the shop, Irina said.
“What this yarn shop gives back to the community is the friendships I see,” she said. “This place becomes this sort of beginning for friendships, and that’s what’s amazing to me.”
This community has become increasingly important for Irina during what’s become a tumultuous time in her personal life. She was proud to become a U.S. citizen in February, just three months after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Since then, it’s metastasized to her bones. Irina doesn’t like to talk about the disease at length, but she said the diagnosis transformed her outlook on life.
“In a way, it’s a kind of a blessing because I’m living completely differently now,” she said. “I just do things that I enjoy, like teaching. I really enjoy being with kids.”
At first, the Blizzards kept quiet about Irina’s illness. But when the doctor appointments piled on, they felt obligated to open up as her students’ parents began noticing she was missing time at school and customers saw her less often at the store.
Feeling overwhelmed between their jobs and the treatment, for a while the Blizzards expected the worst for their store’s future. But looking back now, they agree they made the right call on keeping Blizzard Yarn open.
“When she was diagnosed with cancer, my plate was full and we were thinking about just closing the yarn store, but this yarn store is so community-oriented, it’s not just a store,” Jim said. “And because of that, the store is still here and will still be here, even if things go downhill when Irina can’t be here.”
