What a year it has been! The Yarnover Truck is one year old this week and we are spending some time looking back on everything that has happened in the last year. It’s been a crazy ride, but a wonderful one filled with so many wonderful people.
Here are some of the highlights from our first year in business…
1. The Launch Party
On March 23, 2013 the Yarnover Truck was launched. We held party in what soon became one of our favorite spots for pop-ups, Johnny Carson Park in Burbank. We had over 100 people buy tickets to attend the party and be the first to check out the truck. It was amazing to have so many people there to support us in our first public event!! 
There was food & drinks, a gift bag, raffle, silly “photobooth” pictures, and LOTS of yarn!
Everyone who came to shop, ended up sitting and spending the afternoon with us knitting, crocheting and spinning. It was our first introduction to many people who have become our regular customers. And the most important lesson we learned was that we needed to limit the number of people on the truck so that the steps wouldn’t break off! All in all though… it was one of the best days ever!
2. Yarn Crawl LA
Our real introduction to the LA yarn community came from the Yarn Crawl LA in early April 2013. Those four days were a whirlwind with so many new faces, well wishes and lots of fun!
The response to the truck was overwhelmingly positive! Unfortunately, Debbie had her first breakdown – which was NOT fun! But everyone was so understanding when we had to close a bit early on Friday to get her repaired. We also did some last minute yarn buying of our own from our wonderful suppliers to keep the truck filled throughout the long weekend. The photos of Barbra sitting on the side of the truck and tagging yarn is till one of our favorites!
3. Yarn and Wine
One important thing we have learned this year is how well wine and yarn go together!
Orfilia Winery in Escondido and Oak Mountain Winery in Temecula were the locations of our first partnerships with local vineyards. Both were beautiful afternoons where everyone who came enjoyed tasting the local wines and got some wonderful yarns from the Yarnover Truck!
We had trunk shows too from two of our favorite yarn companies: Baah Yarns and Ewe Ewe Yarns. Many customers who came through first and made purchases, then went to do some tastings and then came back again to shop more! In case you didn’t know, yarn is even prettier after a couple glasses of California wine!
Everyone had a great time, it was a wonderful weekend! We love going back to theses and other wineries throughout SoCal. We are also adding in breweries to our mix on Saturday March 23rd at Wolf Creek Restaurant & Brewery!
4. Business Innovation Award
A couple of years ago, our trade organization (TNNA – The National NeedleArts Association) started giving out an annual award for innovative business practices. When we saw the call for entries last spring, we felt that our little truck idea was very innovative and so we applied. Well in June, at the TNNA Summer Conference, we won that award!
It was an incredible night and we got to meet and get photos with many of our favorite knitting celebrities like Steven West, Cat Bordhi and Clara Parks.
Clara even asked us to come to her book-reading event in Pasadena a few months later!
5. San Diego Yarn Crawl
Since we opened, we seem to be going down to the San Diego area just about once a month so when we heard about the stores in San Diego planning their first crawl in September, we knew we needed to be a part of it. The other stores agreed to let us join in and we had a wonderful weekend.
We partnered with a different store each of the four days of their crawl and even spent one of the days on an Alpaca ranch. The drive to the farm was a bit much for our “Debbie” but she made it up into the hills and we had an incredible time! We are looking forward to taking part again this year, San Diego is always a blast!
6. Super Bowl Sales & The Wheel of Savings
In February we had our first big sale. We know that some other stores have special events for the Super Bowl so we decided this would be a good day for our sale.
We had a great selection of yarns at 40% off, plus if you were purchasing any regular priced yarns, we had the “Wheel of Savings” for you to spin to get a discount on those too. When you spin the wheel you have the chance to getting 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% or 30% off your purchase.
The sale was a big hit and since we are a mobile yarn store we thought it would be great to take the sale on the road. A few weeks later, we went to Irvine and San Diego and continued the sale there too. We have plans to make this an annual event going forward!
7. Stitches West
When we launched last March, we knew that we wanted to try and bring “Debbie” up north to Santa Clara to be part of Stitches West and we are so happy we were able to make it happen.
Stiches West was an amazing weekend for us. On Friday we broke our record for most sales in one day, and then on Saturday we broke it again! Read more about our adventures and see some great photos here. We will definitely be back again in 2015
8. Community and Customers
From the very start with our early fundraising campaign through our launch and now getting into the stride with our business we have received such amazing support from the local community and our wonderful customers. We have definitely had some great times and done some crazy things this past year, but none of it would have been possible without your amazing support. The Yarnover Truck is definitely a labor of love, but it is also a labor, and you help to make it all worth-while! Thank you for your never ending support, thank you for coming to find us at all our different locations, thank you for buying lots and lots of yarn, and thank you so much for joining us on this wonderful ride down the road with “Debbie”. We adore you all and we hope to see you again very soon!
Just wanted to say congratulations on a terrific 1st year. I adore little Debbie and all the beautiful fibery goodness she delivers. I know how hard you both have worked to make this a success and it clearly is a labor of great love. Wishing you all the best in year 2 and all the years beyond that!