We recently connected with Katy Turbeville and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Katy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Once upon a Time, long ago, 2007 to be exact, I met my husband while in college and we set out to be on an adventure. What is an Adventure? Well Webster defines it as:

: an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks
: the encountering of risks
:an exciting or remarkable experience
: an enterprise involving financial risk

Our first adventure after getting married was to take a road trip together for our honeymoon. We set off on a 29-day journey across the American West in a two-door car, and a budget of about $100 per day. We ended up camping about half the time and getting to experience so many new things.
We figured out that we really loved to road trip and travel with each other and that really guided the next few years of our lives. I learned to knit in 2010 and quickly realized that while I enjoy knitting, I LOVE yarn and fiber even more. The opportunity came that I was able to open a brick and mortar yarn store and enjoyed that life for a couple of years but quickly realized I hated being tied down to one space because the adventure was out there and we needed to live it. So after a cross country move, another small business where I taught fiber Arts related classes, and then covid; we realized that it was time to embark on our next adventure. I wanted to be back in the Fiber Arts business but I also didn’t want to be tied down to any one place. In our discussions about starting our yarn truck, which is a local yarn shop on wheels bringing luxury yarns and hand-dyed fabulousness to yarn lovers, we talked a lot about going on adventures and I quickly realized that this was the ultimate “Yarn Adventure”
A yarn adventure is a journey each artist takes as they engage with fiber, yarn, a project, and, eventually, a finished piece. It’s about taking risks, enjoying the familiar rhythm of stitches, and of course snuggling with a completed object. Yarn Adventure was created to share my grand adventure and help other embark on their next fiber journey!
Now that we live full time on the road and in our converted RV to Yarn Shop, everyday is truly a yarn adventure!
Adventure is out there, don’t forget to take some yarn with you!

Katy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Have you ever had that dream where your local yarn shop is suddenly on your street and stocked with hand-dyed Yarns from small businesses across the US? I had that dream and decided to make it a reality. Yarn Adventure is a mobile yarn shop that travels the country, bringing small batch, hand-dyed Yarns and bespoke notions and accessories for fiber crafters. I started knitting in 2010 and dove headfirst into the fiber community pretty early. Starting with visiting yarn shops on road trips, then teaching knitting classes, and eventually a brick and mortar yarn shop. Having an everyday shop taught me two things; that I loved fiber arts, and I loved traveling with my husband, Dean. In 2017, we moved back to Arkansas and I got out of the brick and mortar yarn business. By the time 2021 rolled around, the ideas for our mobile yarn shop, Yarn Adventure, were taking shape. We started off in an airport shuttle bus that we had stripped down and outfitted as a yarn store. We then filled it with luxury hand-dyed yarns from more than 30 Independent dye studios, as well as handmade bags, knitting needles, fiber notions, enamel pins, and stickers all from US based small businesses. The yarn truck was very full when we first set out on the road. In the first 3 years we traveled more than 80,000 miles, attended dozens of fiber festivals, yarn shops, and local pop-up events with fiber guilds and groups. This spring, my husband left his job and joined me full time on the road in the yarn truck. We have converted an RV so that we can live and work in our space year round. We often get asked if we’re like the ice cream truck for yarn and I have to say yes, but we don’t play music driving down your street (although there are speakers on the outside of the truck now). You just have to look out on Instagram, Facebook, or our website to see where we are heading next. We cover quite a bit of ground. For example, this past weekend we went from Denver, to Wisconsin, and now are in Iowa. Next week we’ll be in Michigan but one thing’s for sure, we’ll always be full of hand-dyed beautiful yarns, bringing luxury fibers right to you, and supporting small businesses across the US.

How did you build your audience on social media?

In just over 3 years, Yarn Adventure has grown a social media presence from zero to more than 3,500 followers on both Instagram and Facebook. We cover a very large market radiating out of Arkansas throughout the Midwest and now Coast to Coast. Our growth has been pretty steady as we have traveled from fiber Festival to Fiber Festival, but we definitely see an increase when we use targeted advertising through those social media channels. We also have done a couple of campaigns where I have done daily videos using multiple platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. What we have found is that people love to see our story, and us, so we feature our journey with road trips, stops, setting up the truck, and picking our amazing artists that are featured on board the Yarn Adventure truck. We collaborate with our makers to talk about custom projects and their processes. Most recently we have started a weekly live chat where Dean and I sit down and talk about new projects, where we are, and how our fiber friends are doing. For those just starting, I would recommend putting yourself on your channel, even if it is uncomfortable for you. I have found that people, especially in fiber arts, really want to engage with YOU. Getting your face out there helps people connect with you on a more personal level.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

There are two things that have helped build our reputation at Yarn Adventure, uniqueness, and the support of dozens of other small businesses. Yarn Adventure is one of about eight yarn trucks across the US, but each has its own flavor. We stand apart by traveling further and wider than any others. We cover a large area of the US, and travel even further now that my husband works with me full-time. Our biggest reputation builder is the way we work with dozens of other small businesses to create our own retail small business. We carry 35 small batch yarn dyers on the truck, from all areas of the country. This gives us a unique selection of hand-dyed yarns that you can’t come close to finding anywhere else. It allows our customers to shop a selection of yarn from Cesium Yarn (based in Virginia) while we are in Denver, Colorado, and check out yarn from Bashful Armadillo Fibers (based in Texas), when we visit a festival in Maryland. In addition to being one of the true joys I get out of having a traveling yarn shop, working closely with dozens of independent dyers gets our brand out there in a way that would not be possible otherwise.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.yarnadventuretruck.com
• Instagram: @yarnadventuretruck
• Facebook: @YarnAdventureTruck
• Youtube: @YarnAdventureTruck