A Woman Owned Business / September 2005
Material Matters
 Jenifer Gaston and Gretchen Streeter |
By Pat Lawrence
Jenifer Gaston and Gretchen Streeter offer a warm welcome. Their cozy Williamstown store, the Woolen Willow, is chock full of wools and yarns, quilt fabrics and homespun creativity. Although the business started as a rug hooking store, it has grown to include period quilt fabrics and a variety of needlework necessities for traditional crafts like needle felting and punchneedle embroidery.
Although both sisters have enjoyed crafts since childhood, Jenifer was the first to catch the rug hooking bug. While helping out at a local quilt store in 1997, she was offered the opportunity to attend a rug hooking seminar. Filled with ideas, she immediately began designing her own patterns, started dyeing her own wool and soon was teaching sold out classes on a regular basis. Gretchen, in regular contact with her sister though she lived in San Antonio, was quickly ‘hooked’ on the craft. In Texas, she too began designing patterns and teaching classes and by 2000, the pair were producing and selling kits from their Internet website. Gretchen says, they shared the online business like sisters should, “We took turns filling and shipping the orders.”
It wasn’t long before they began dreaming of a store of their own. To test local interest, in September of 2003, Jenifer rented a room in a Marietta retail shop to to display and sell her rug hooking designs and supplies. “People were very excited about the hobby.” Their host shop suffered a fire, and then a flood. After a second flood, a move seemed in order. Jenifer says, “But, we really wanted to expand, too, to add other crafts and offer more to customers.”
They found a fine old 2000 sq. ft, two story house in Williamstown and Gretchen’s husband found a job in the area, so the family could move back ‘home’. The Woolen Willow opened in June ‘04.
Jenifer says, “Our goal is to supply the rug hooking community with the finest wools, most original designs and the best customer service in the business. We want to make sure that this hobby is affordable for everyone, while keeping the quality of our products second to none.”
Gretchen says, “We have the largest selection of off-the-bolt and hand-dyed wool in the area and a growing selection of fine yarns.” They also stock close to a thousand bolts of quilt fabrics, including a series of fabrics that feature patterns popular during the Civil War. They sell the patterns, tools and implements used for many of the traditional fabric arts and crafts and provide on the spot demonstrations.
The Woolen Willow is a family affair. Gretchen and Jenifer design all the hooked rugs, and their mother, Mary Falcsik, is the knitting and quilting teacher. Another sister contributes contributes artwork that includes original and print watercolors and one more sister sends handmade soaps, lotions and handmade candies from North Carolina. Their dad, George Falcsik, makes the display cabinets and helps run the store when the sisters leave for buying trips and demonstrations.
The sister’s handwork reflects their interest in Primitive décor, but many of the displayed items represent patterns and themes from early America.
On the second and fourth Wednesdays, from 1-3, the Woolen Willow welcomes fellow crafters to a Sip and Stitch. Gretchen says, “Everyone brings needlework or stitching. We have tea and talk.” Tuesday evenings, the store stays open late for Open Craft Night. From 6-9, “People bring whatever they are working on and work on it here. We have two rooms with tables, chairs and plenty of room. We share ideas, learn something new and enjoy the company of other crafters.” A daytime rug hooking group meets on the second and fourth Fridays at 10:30am. The Woolen Willow is closed Sundays and Mondays.
Jenifer says business is good. “Local crafters love the store. And, since crafters are curious tourists, we have a lot of out-of-town visitors that heard about us from the Welcome Center.” They keep adding unique items to the store, and have created their own recipe book for the dyes to make hand-dyed wool. New colors and new patterns are added regularly along with new flavors of their gourmet coffees. Twenty stores in the US, two in Canada and one in Australia handle their Woolen Willow rughooking kits.
Gretchen admits they can’t help their unabashed enthusiasm. “This is our dream come true.”
For more information, visit 447 Highland Avenue, Williamstown, WV, call 304-375-WOOL (9665) or visit woolenwillow.com.
Copyright © 2005-2006 A Woman's View. All rights reserved.
Femme Fair 2006
Top • Home • Subscribe • Advertise • Submit • Distribution • Contact
Support Our Advertisers • Organization Resources • Women Owned Business
Designed by Livewire Studio
Send an Email About This Article