When Eden Scheans bought Blizzard Yarn and Fiber in 2019, she was hoping to stitch together a tight-knit group of crafters while her young child attended school. Now, like many other business owners amid COVID-19, her business is unraveling.
Hers is a business yarn that’s not unique. The U.S. Small Business Administration reports that approximately 62 percent of small businesses say they need to see consumer spending return to pre-COVID levels by the end of this year. But as the only dedicated knitting store in Vancouver, Blizzard Yarn could represent an especially keen loss.
The combination of state regulations amid the pandemic, family obligation and personal health considerations prompted Sheans, 41, to limit in-person shopping. “Closing the doors again after finally having them open was — oh God, it felt like a tragedy,” Scheans said. “It was like ripping my own heart out.”
Scheans, who worked off and on at the store for five years before taking over from the previous owner, said business was steady at first. She hoped to grow the store’s already inclusive community of knitters by updating the store’s website and improving the building’s accessibility.
Online sales have not been enough to keep the brick and mortar store open. She said that even if the physical store closes she will always be able to keep the online portion open at blizzardyarnandfiber.com.
Currently, the store is open for curbside pickup Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, but Dec. 23 will be the last day of business this year. Then she will close the store for the holiday, and maybe for good.
Pre-pandemic, 50 or more people would gather at the storefront on Northeast Fourth Plain Boulevard near Andresen Road. A community space takes up more than half the building.
Nancy Erckenbrack, a long-time supporter and past employee, said customers often turned into friends. “They would be young, they would be old, all in the same place,” she said. “There would be red-haired, pink-haired 20-year-olds sitting there with pink-haired 80-year-olds.”
Now the community space is empty.
On March 13, three days before Washington’s Stay Home, Stay Healthy order began, Scheans made the decision to close her store to the public. When the county won approval to let stores reopen June 5, Blizzard Yarn stayed closed. Scheans said she’s prone to lung infections, and that kept her from reopening for in-store shopping until Oct. 17. After seeing that some people did not wear masks in the store, Scheans announced on Nov. 27 that the store would be open only for curbside pickup and online shopping.
“I couldn’t feel OK as somebody who’s supposed to be having some civic duty to their community staying open, with people behaving that way,” Scheans said. “In general, my community is fantastic, but outliers definitely made a big impact and made me feel unsafe.”
Scheans bought the store from Irina Blizzard when Blizzard became too ill in 2019. Blizzard died Feb. 28.
Over the summer, Scheans said it took more than four months of sales to cover one month of rent, and she is still behind. She looked into pandemic assistance but discovered she didn’t qualify for much because a business had to have operated for at least a year. “And I was considered a new business, even though we’d been there for five years,” Scheans said. “That was a hefty blow, for sure.”
But closing the store won’t be the end for Scheans, who said she took out loans to buy the shop because she felt like the community was worth saving. “I’ll be in debt for quite a while,” she said. “I don’t really know how to proceed next.”
Scheans feels indebted in other ways, too. She credits the store with giving her new life more than five years ago. “I was really isolated, I was a new mom suffering from postpartum depression, and I had finally started to come out of it wanting to find something of my own,” she said.
She was nervous that she wouldn’t fit in and remembers taking a long time to get ready for her first knit night, she said.
“I walked in and I was shocked,” she said. “There were young ladies, there were older women, there were men, there was just a whole bunch of people gathered around this table, actually multiple tables, just sitting and chatting like they’ve known each other for years.”
She added: “I just kind of listened and observed and then realized that I wasn’t so different from them, and it was like I’d found my place.”
Customer and spinning instructor Carol Combelic was friends with the founding owner, and said that it would be really sad if Blizzard Yarn closed. Casting off in this way isn’t what the community wants, but it’s a decision many are making in the pandemic. “She’s got to keep herself safe,” Combelic said.
