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!