Remem­ber Tash from It’s A Tree? Not con­tent to rest on her lau­rels — or tuis, or flow­ers, badoom chish — she’s kept her­self busy in the world of wool, open­ing up Hol­land Road Yarn at 281 Jack­son Street, Petone. We thought we’d have a chat to Tash and see exact­ly what was going on…

1. So, you have a shop. What are you sell­ing?
Pri­mar­i­ly, yarn. The focus is on hav­ing a bal­anced selec­tion of top qual­i­ty New Zealand yarn and fibre along­side inter­na­tion­al brands that can be hard to acquire here. A lot of local knit­ters rely on order­ing over the inter­net — now it’s in a shop to be touched and fon­dled before com­mit­ting to a project. We’ve also got lots of knit­ting nee­dles, books, pat­terns, and a few spe­cial things from local crafters. To name a few names, we’ve got every­thing from Mal­abri­go to Cas­cade, beau­ti­ful but inex­pen­sive Vin­tage 8ply from Skeinz, and of course loads of hand-dyed yarn.

2. Your shop is on Jack­son Street, yet it’s called Hol­land Road. Where
does the name come from?

When I was try­ing to come up with the name every sort of yarn cliche ran through my head. I realised pret­ty quick­ly that I need­ed to stay away from knit­ting puns and set­tled on Hol­land Road Yarn Com­pa­ny. The name real­ly clicked and means a lot. I was in Lon­don in 2009 and found myself work­ing part-time in the most beau­ti­ful shop spe­cial­is­ing in hand-dyed sock yarn. It was there I knew I’d stum­bled across what I want­ed to do with my life. At the time I was liv­ing in a fan­tas­tic flat of trav­el­ers — on Hol­land Road. It was a place where friends became fam­i­ly; any­one that has stayed there for any length of time still fond­ly refers to it as ‘Hol­land Road’ — a place of fun, encour­age­ment and sup­port.

My Dutch her­itage also comes into play. Both pater­nal grand­par­ents came over from Hol­land after the war. Coin­ci­den­tal­ly the shop is just around the cor­ner from where they used to live, which I find real­ly won­der­ful.

3. Just who do you think you are? What’s your back­ground before
open­ing up the shop?

Haha I don’t know who I am! I’ve got an under­grad degree in Art His­to­ry and Eng­lish after spend­ing a year pre­tend­ing to be a fash­ion and tex­tiles design stu­dent. I dab­bled in trav­el, snow­board­ing and gov­ern­ment before decid­ing that yarn need­ed a more promi­nent part of my life. As a stu­dent I worked in retail, plus for the last year I’ve had the plea­sure of work­ing at Wan­da Har­land. Besides that I rely on my pas­sion and the amaz­ing sup­port of friends and fam­i­ly.

4. What inspires your shop? What kind of atmos­phere are you try­ing to cre­ate?

Hol­land Road Yarn Co is basi­cal­ly the yarn store I’ve always want­ed to shop at. Couch­es were a must — peo­ple have to feel they can sit down, knit and browse at their leisure. I hope it feels like your lounge away from home — a place to get to know peo­ple, learn new things and be inspired.

5. If we’re com­ing to Petone to vis­it you, where else should we check out?

Go Bang, for the amaz­ing grilled hal­lou­mi, Cul­tured for excel­lent cheese and Wendy’s hap­py smile, Wan­da Har­land for gor­geous design and, of course, Hol­land Road Yarn Com­pa­ny!