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PrintA Yen for Yarn
Warming up at Mountain Knits
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It was nearing the end of our too-short summer when I popped into Mountain Knits in Driggs to talk to owner Jo Warden. I’d been too busy gardening and swimming and otherwise enjoying the sunshine to even think about picking up my needles, but Jo’s enthusiasm is infectious and before I left that afternoon, I had new yarn and lots of ideas dancing around in my head.
Before we even sat down on the shop’s cozy sofa to talk, Jo had excitedly led me around the place to pet the newest cashmere, see the pattern she had her eye on for the next Knit-Along, and model a fresh-off-the-needles pink alpaca beret. I would never have pictured myself in a fuzzy pink beret—but you know what? It looked pretty cute. It was fun and funky and I wanted to make one immediately. Jo has that effect on people.
Jo learned to knit from her mother as a young girl in Tennessee. Turns out that’s how most people learn. Nobody in my family knit, so I learned at Mountain Knits from Jo. But historically, it’s a skill passed down to young girls by mothers and grandmothers and aunts. “Women have probably been knitting and teaching each other to knit since before Jesus,” Jo laughs. But like most young girls who learn to knit in an age when it’s not a necessity, she gave it up for the more interesting pursuits of adolescence, like music and boys. For decades she never even thought about knitting. It was an old lady hobby, after all.
Then an interesting thing happened—knitting became cool again. Women in their twenties and thirties were knitting on the subways and in coffee shops; actresses like Julia Roberts and Sarah Jessica Parker were seen knitting in magazines; Stitch ’n’ Bitch Clubs were popping up all over the country. Jo took notice, and when she was pregnant with her first son, she picked up the needles and started them clickity-clacking again. This time she didn’t stop. Pretty quickly she graduated from hats and scarves to blankets and booties, and before long was hooked on knitting her own sweaters.
“There was a knit shop in Jackson and one in Idaho Falls,” Jo says, “but nothing here.” That was a problem that needed fixing, given that her new addiction had a voracious appetite for yarn. “Going into business for myself was a complete impulse. But I had the feeling that if I didn’t do it, someone else would.” So, she started looking for a space.
Jo got a lot of early advice from the small grassroots companies that make and distribute most of the yarns she sells. One of them told her that, despite the fact that The Yarn Barn was indeed a very cute name for a store, she really shouldn’t try to sell yarn out of a dark, drafty old barn. Jo laughs, remembering her early plans and mistakes. “The thing you have to know going into a business like this is that nobody’s trying to get rich, so it’s a very easygoing and collaborative community.” She took their advice about the barn, and Mountain Knits opened its doors in the Dubbe-Moulder building in 2003. Two years later, she moved the business to its current location on Little Avenue, in what is affectionately called “The Estrogen Building” by the all-women business owners inside. (Don’t worry, men, you are not only allowed, but warmly welcomed. And the bathroom is very clean.)
Jo stocks her shop with an eclectic collection of yarns you don’t often find even in the biggest cities: hand-painted merino wools from Canada, German sock yarns, delicately beaded yarn made by a women’s collective in Africa, local hand-spun and -dyed alpaca from Driggs’ own Tom Cleary. She also carries a plethora of affordable cotton, wool, bamboo, and natural fiber blends. There’s really something for everyone.
From the very beginning, Jo believed in partnering, rather than competing, with other regional businesses in the same industry. “It just makes sense economically,” she says. “Especially now.” They may have similar merchandise, but Jo won’t carry the exact same yarns as the knit shops in Jackson and Idaho Falls. “If people are looking for something we don’t carry, we’ll happily send them to the other shops. We’re all in this together.”
