If you are as concerned as we are about knowing where your tools and materials come from, you would know how hard it is to come by sustainably made tools that are also beautifully designed. Karen Templer, owner of Fringe Supply Co. store and the Fringe Association blog, understands this struggle too well and two years ago, she decided to do something about it. She left her full-time job to focus on creating aesthetically simple and elegant knitted objects, and building a store full of high quality supplies for other makers. Karen cares not only about the look and feel of the products she carries in her store, but she believes in knowing how they are made and creates personal connections with the people behind these tools and notions. We chatted to her about how she got started and her passion for well-designed objects.
1. Tell us about your background.
It’s a nice mixed bag. My degree is in graphic design, and I worked for many years as a print designer and then web designer, mainly in editorial design, before spending several years as a freelance book editor (food and decorating) and photo editor. I’ve worked in and out of technology and publishing over the years, largely at Salon.com and my own now-defunct site, Readerville.
2. How did you get started with Fringe Supply Co. and Fringe Association?
I learned to knit in the fall of 2011, and it literally changed my life. I quit a very good job toward the end of 2012 and started focusing on building the knitting blog and shop that I was yearning for and couldn’t quite find. I have a bricks and mortar store in my head that I’d like to open someday, but for now I’m happily concentrating on my webshop and having a booth a few choice shows, because it’s lovely to meet readers and customers in person — even though I’m able to have a lot of personal interaction with my customers through my blog and Instagram and so on.
3. How do you pick the products you sell?Is there a background story to each one?
I either design and make or find and sell the things I personally want to use. For instance, when I first started knitting, I wanted a beautiful little leather pouch to keep my stitch markers in, so now we make that and sell it. I had an idea for a Yarn Pyramid spoof of the old Food Pyramid, so I designed it along with my illustrator friend, Leigh Wells, and had it printed by a mutual friend who does beautiful letterpress work. I wanted chic project bags and a killer tool pouch — and I’m always on the lookout and/or in production for those things. And I wanted prettier tools. I love the tools that knitting involves — it’s an intensely sensory and aesthetic experience, knitting — and want them to be as pleasing to the eyes and fingers as the yarn is. And I care very much where they come from and who I’m supporting with my business. So I sell notebooks made by a second cousin of mine in Kansas City, and rosewood needles from a wind-powered plant in India, and organic linen and cotton project bags sustainably made in California and Toronto. Right now only a few of the things I sell are Fringe Originals, but I have new goods in the works. And those items are also sold wholesale, so they’re available at yarn stores and cool fiber-conscious boutiques around the country and the globe.
4. Do you see yourself setting an aesthetic standard for tools and supplies?
It’s strictly my aesthetic. I’m really designing or shopping for myself and hoping others will want the same things I do. The beauty of selling online is that I can find customers like me wherever they may be. And fortunately, they’re out there! But it’s clearly as important to my readers/customers as it is to me that I’m selling what I genuinely love and use myself. If I were to try to sell things I don’t care so much about but think others might want, it wouldn’t work. So I just keep focusing on what’s missing from my own knitting life and filling those gaps — and my lovely customers thank me vociferously for it!
Photos courtesy of Karen Templer.