The Scottish Yarn Festival | International Growth
Following the award of a Beyond Scotland Market Development Grant in 2023, Eva Christie has successfully launched her Scottish Yarn Festival Wool to the American market.
Lifelong knitter and passionate advocate for traditional crafting, Eva Christie, set up the Scottish Yarn Festival in 2016. Since its inception, the event has gained a cult international following with attendees from over 20 different countries making the trip to Scotland each year to meet the makers and to stock up on high quality yarns and fibre from independent UK producers and hand dyers.
"The event began life as the Perth Festival of Yarn,” explains Eva, “but we rebranded in 2022 to better reflect the broad range of makers and producers, and to appeal more to the international audience we were attracting. It also allowed us to stand tall after Covid and to showcase our resilience in the face of change.”
Based in Perthshire, and running for two days each September, the event itself is a celebration of all things yarn. Welcoming businesses from across the UK to their thoughtfully curated marketplace, as well as offering a series of lectures - speakers have included industry kingpins such as Amy Palko, Di Gilpin, and Jeanette Sloan BEM - books signings, gala dinners and fashions shows, Eva has created a must-visit destination event for lovers of both crafting and fashion.
"People come to us for the sense of community and connection we have created around our events; many attendees practice textile crafts alone, whether at home or in a studio, and although online marketplaces are fantastic, nothing beats getting up close to the products to really experience the colours, textures and quality.”
In 2021 Eva expanded to include the Scottish Wool Producers Showcase, an event she describes as her ‘passion project’. With a focus on heritage, artistry, and sustainability, this smaller and more bespoke event is an opportunity for enthusiasts to meet mill owners, shepherds and small-scale producers within the Scottish Yarn Industry. The event has sold out twice with attendees arriving from as far afield as Japan specifically to source Scottish provenance wool.
“Sadly, there are still farmers burning and burying fleece and we know from our main event that many attendees are keen to support the small independent producers who are ensuring the wool by-product from farming doesn’t end up this way. The main Yarn Festival is really a consumer event and I wanted to find an outlet that would champion all aspects of the wool production chain.”
This led Eva to create her own yarn brand - aptly named after the event that started it all - which she launched at The Scottish Yarn Festival in September 2023. Working with a mill in Yorkshire, she uses raw wool with a Scottish provenance, and has it spun and dyed into fourteen unique colours, inspired by Scotland.
“It really was a labour of love creating this range. I wanted something that was uniquely Scottish and of a superior quality.”
Alongside bringing her exciting new product to market, Eva successfully applied for a Beyond Scotland Market Development Grant to attend the Rhinebeck Weekend in upstate New York, the following month.
Securing £2,150 of match funding, Eva’s goal was to promote both her events and yarn, and to ignite interest in Scottish Wool amongst the sizeable US market.
“The Rhinebeck Weekend brings together all the key players in the independent side of the global yarn industry including influential designers, store owners and tour operators. Just being there has placed us firmly on the radar of some prominent industry stalwarts and as a result, we have doubled the number of American tour groups to our event in September 2024.
“We know from anecdotal evidence that international attendees and tour groups build itineraries around the event and will stay in Perth for 2 or 3 days, up to a couple of weeks. We attract around 1500 unique individuals to our festival – many come for two days – and typically, people will spend around £200 to £300 at the event itself. However, when we consider accommodation, food and drink, and other activities, the economic impact for the local area is far greater.”
Eva’s trip to New York also resulted in a route to the American Market for her yarn brand.
“We are now selling online through two UK and four US stockists, including the Woolly Thistle, the leading online platform in America for Scottish provenance wool. We have been so well received by their customers that we quickly sold out many of the colours and blends and are waiting on the next shipment from the mill to fulfil wholesale backorders.
“We are in bricks and mortar shops in Chicago and Boston and closer to home, Amy Palko, a Scottish knitwear designer and influencer has chosen our yarn for her recent beautiful cowl design – which has also been picked up in kit form by a tutor who runs workshops in California.
“As a small enterprise, having the Market Development Funding made all the difference when making the decision to go to New York but the results speak for themselves. I’m now planning our next trip to the Nash Yarn Festival in Nashville and look forward to putting Perth, our Festival and Scottish wool, on the map once again.”
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