We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Laurel Taylor a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Laurel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Winter of 2010, I was a happy – but very lonely – newlywed. I had moved from Alaska to Oregon to marry my now husband, but as many of us know, making friends as an adult is a challenge. I was job hunting, but winter is the slow season for many tourists towns, like Hood River, so the wait was making me stir crazy.

That Christmas season, I knitted everyone their gifts. Partly to save money, but also to keep myself from going insane. I had learned to knit a few years previously, but hadn’t given it much time. Now that I had nothing but time on my hands, I found myself falling in love with the craft all over again.

After a few months, I found a job at a local coffee roaster and cafe, but continued to knit. Eventually, I started doing local craft shows, selling a hodgepodge of assorted handmade items. Cards, recycled t-shirt scarves, decor, and knits. Not surprisingly, the knits sold the best. Friends and family were starting to ask if they could buy my creations. I decided to focus my energy on knitting, and improve the quality of my products. I haven’t looked back since.

Alabaster Purl wasn’t born overnight. Not even the full idea! We’re talking a 5 to 10 year timeline here. My initial name for my handmade goods business was Twiddles Treasures. How embarrassing is that! After two years of selling at shows and online, figuring out that I needed a niche, I focused on the knits. February of 2016, I rebranded to Alabaster Purl, and started a dedicated knitting Instagram account. 

At the time, I was living in Hood River, Oregon. It’s a town that embodies the shop small / support handmade mindset. I was lucky to have a community around me that was cheering me on, and happy to buy my products. For my markets, I started small – like 20 items at a holiday show, which was a small assortment of only headbands and infinity scarves. Customers started asking for beanies, so I pushed myself and started incorporating those as well. (They’ve now become my best seller!) Year after year, I did the same three-day holiday show in early December, and each year I pushed myself to have more and more inventory.

Fast forward to 2022, this is now my full time job. I knit year round in preparation for my busy season, September through December. I am doing shows as often as I can, as well as product launches, releasing knitting patterns, and fulfilling custom orders.

Alabaster Purl was born out of necessity. I needed something to occupy my hands and my mind, and through it I found pride in my work and confidence in myself. It’s been 10 years of knitting, selling at shows, branching out into designing and selling knitting patterns, a move to Texas and taking the leap of leaving the security of employment into the independence of self-employment.

Laurel, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m Laurel, the owner and maker behind the knitting company Alabaster Purl. I specialize in hand knitted accessories, giant merino wool blankets, designing knitting patterns, branded wholesale for small businesses, and educational content for knitters or other small business owners.

I’ve been knitting since 2008, and turned my love of the art into a small business in 2016. I started small – the classic side hustle that grew into something more. It’s now my full time job, even if it is seasonal work. I’m passionate about taking an old world skill and incorporating it in a modern day and age.

It started with just selling high quality knits (hats, scarves, headbands) but has branched out into other creative outlets. Knitting patterns now bring in just as much income as selling physical items. I’ve been selling at markets for over 10 years, and have started incorporating more educational content to give other makers the right tools.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I started selling handmade items in 2012, it was a hodgepodge mess. Cards, recycled tee shirt scarves, upcycled home decor, and knits. I called my business Twiddles Treasures (named after my childhood nickname lovingly given to me by my mother) and sold items under that name for 4 years. Unsurprisingly, my knits sold the best, and I only improved the quality of them over time. By February of 2016, I knew that I had outgrown Twiddles Treasures, and needed to rebrand and shift – focus on the knits. Sometimes a business outgrows a space, and naturally pivots. Those are easier transitions. A harder pivot happened later.

When I started Alabaster Purl, I was living in the Pacific Northwest. Selling warm, cozy beanies and scarves made sense! Each winter, my business was growing – it was beautiful. But in the spring of 2019, my husband and I moved to Texas. Starting to build your clientele from scratch is hard enough, but now I had to sell wool items in a hot climate. Thankfully, that winter I had a handful of successful shows, and knew I could continue my path here. The markets here in Texas are a completely different experience than the ones in Oregon – I couldn’t just copy/paste my experience and hope for the same results. I’ve had to adjust some of my sales tactics, styles, and marketing here, as I’ve learned a different culture. Where you are – physically – affects your business, and not just because of the item you’re selling, but because of the mindset of the culture. I learned not to dig my heels in. If you refuse to adapt, you fail.

Do you have multiple revenue streams – if so, can you talk to us about those streams and how your developed them?

Yes! In 2017, I did something that absolutely terrified me – I designed, wrote up, and published my first knitting pattern. It was not an overnight success. In fact, it was a bit of a disappointment that I nearly gave up the idea altogether. Pattern designing and writing is a lot of work, and I wasn’t seeing the return. But I had pattern requests for a few other designs I had posted on Instagram, so I gave it another shot. I’m so thankful I did. I’ve now published 13 patterns, and have several more in the works. In 2020, I published the Hope Shawl design, and it absolutely exploded. The funny thing is, it’s one of my easier knits – I almost didn’t write it up because I thought it was too simple!! It’s been my best seller for three years. It has 6 times the amount of sales of my next best design. Digital content is the way to move forward, being able to sell the same content over and over again is irreplaceable.
I had lofty goals to pursue YouTube and try to make passive income that way, but life happened. Thankfully, Instagram is now monetizing Reels for certain accounts, which is right up my alley! It was already a tool I was using to grow my business – the Bonus Plays is literally that for me, a bonus!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/AlabasterPurl
• Instagram: instagram.com/alabasterpurl
• Facebook: facebook.com/alabasterpurl
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfPAjeQq7Cqy7kFVTaUjS_Q

Image Credits
-photo of me wearing pink sweater, knitting with the grey yarn taken by Jesse Larvic / Larvic Media All other photos are my property, either taken by myself, my mom or my husband.