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

Magdalena, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Even though the decision to open a yarn shop was made in a very quick time frame I did not start from zero. The dream had been brewing in my head for at least five years and I had also been hand-dyeing yarns for sale for several years prior. Immediately after making the decision I spent several weeks (with lots of sleepless nights) making more concrete plans. From planning how I’d have to scale up my yarn dyeing to deciding what yarns I would order to create my initial inventory. I began meeting with a friend, Caroline Hegwer who had owned a yarn store in Wilmington in the past. She had shared an enormous amount of knowledge with me. From how to curate my first yarn collection, layout retail space to what services were sought by customers. She boosted my confidence and encouraged me to follow my intuition and allow my personal style to guide my decisions.

Immediately after deciding to open a brick and mortar store I began searching for retail space. This proved much more complicated than I initially anticipated. I quickly found that there was a very limited pool of rentals in Hampstead. The only retail spaces I could find were either off the beaten path or very large and outside of my budget. This was the main reason I initially decided to locate my business in a small studio space at Art Exposure. Even though the location was outside of Hampstead I was hoping to benefit from existing foot traffic.

Once I had finalized some administrative hurdles like opening an LLC and purchasing business insurance I began working on my website and logo. Nobody prepared me for how much I’d have to go outside of yarn related matters and focus on subjects that I had little to no experience with. Soon purchasing a website domain, bookkeeping, inventory management, and taxes were taking up most of my time.
I had finally opened the doors on May 14th, 2022. I was very pleasantly surprised by the warm welcome I received from the local fiber community. The clientele was growing and I was quickly outgrowing my 225 sq ft studio. Thankfully in November 2022 I received a call from my real estate agent who informed me that a rental space became available in Coastline Station in Hampstead. Even though the rent price took my breath away I quickly decided to submit an offer. The location was absolutely perfect, the size of the space and the overall appeal of the other businesses sealed the deal for me. After Christmas 2022 I packed up the tiny studio and with help from family and friends I moved The Wicked Stitch to its current location on Highway 17 in Hampstead.

Year 2023 proved to be amazing. The fiber community grew quickly, we held many successful events and knitted and crocheted many many miles of yarn together.
Fast forward to today, I’m still sometimes having days where I’m drowning under a mountain of administrative work however when I look back at the last almost two years I cannot believe how far I’ve come. Even though running my own business requires an incredible amount of work and sacrifice I am able to live my dream and share with others my love of fibers.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hello! My name is Magda. I have been a maker my entire life. As a little girl growing up in Poland, I learned knitting, crocheting, sewing, embroidery and several other fiber arts from my mother. I have always enjoyed creating with my hands and I discovered joy and peace in making things.

After the birth of my daughter, I felt an overwhelming urge to make baby accessories. First I dove back into crochet and then I started to knit while pregnant with my son. During those early days of motherhood I found myself spending my days waiting to be able to stitch in the evenings and making trips to craft stores every chance I had. Stitching became a way to cope with stress as well as a source of pride.

In 2015 I discovered natural fibers and hand-dyed yarns. With those I found a community of crafters that I felt a strong a connection to. The desire to be around beautiful colors and textures was so powerful that I began hand-dyeing at home and selling yarns to shops and at fiber festivals. This temporarily satisfied my need for creating but the desire to make yarns and knitting my full-time endeavor always remained with me. In 2022 I decided to take the plunge and open a yarn shop in Hampstead.

At our shop we offer local customers the ability to chose beautiful yarns in person. We help them in choosing the best fibers for their projects as well as assist them in completing their projects, regularly offer new classes, craft hours and feature pop-up shops and trunk shows from other makers. For those outside of our area we offer online sales and phone or email consultations.

I am very proud of the fact that since the shop was opened in 2022 we have built a very vibrant crafting community. Many friendships have been formed and our members have learned so many new skills along the way. We have many customers who took their very first crafting classes at our shop and went on to become regular fiber crafters. It’s incredibly satisfying to see customers create projects they did not previously feel confident to try.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

Before the idea of The Wicked Stitch yarn shop was even conceived I was a yarn dyer. I was working a stressful 9-5 job and I knew that I just had to do something else that allowed me to be creative and work with my hands. I spent several months researching the techniques and products. Thankfully I had a friend who was willing to share her knowledge and help me get started. I began dyeing in the evenings, in my kitchen, few little skeins at a time. I spent many hours testing colors and different application techniques. My first sale to a yarn shop was 27 skeins. These days I fill orders of 200+ skeins and dye in a small studio in the back of my yarn shop. My hand-dyed yarns received a great feedback from the very beginning and now several years later continue to be a best seller at my brick and mortar yarn shops.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I have to admit, social media marketing has never been my strong suit. I started with Instagram and Facebook pages and had no idea how to make my posts attractive and algorithm friendly. It took many years watching how other businesses grew their followers. It was one of those things that I became more comfortable with the more I did it. These days I have someone who helps me with digital marketing so that I can spend more time on things that come more naturally.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thewickedstitch.net
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/wickedstitchyarns/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/wickedstitchyarns

Image Credits
Pamela Nelligan Photography