I get 15 minute breaks every 2 hours at work. I used to walk around the block a few times, to stretch my legs and get some air. But it is now getting chilly out, and walks around the block seem less and less appealing. Like a good little knitter, I carry a KIP bag with me. Knits-In-Progress. Currently, I am working on the popular Precious Pumpkin Beret (designer: Little Green Pixie) for several friends, and so I sit at the counters knitting up pumpkin shaped berets and stare off into the sunshine as I do so. 
One customer in line spotted me sitting there dreamily and came over to chat. She was asking about knitting in the round – how do you start? And I asked if she was part of a Stitch n Bitch, something I have been craving since our move. Unfortunately, no, but she did give me some good leads. We then talked about coffee (seeing as how we were sitting in a coffee shop at the time) and she said that I should combine knitting with my love of coffee. Open a Knit Cafe.
I believe there are already a couple in existence – I remember reading an article about one in LA, of all places, called (cleverly named Knit Cafe). Seriously though – Coffee clutching. Stitch n Bitch. The difference is……?
Seeing as how I am a crafter with the aspiration of owning a coffee shop someday, the idea stuck. I had given it some thought a few years ago, but the fella I was dating at the time convinced me it would never work. Then I read the article about Knit Cafe and I thought to myself “Oh, it’s been done already,” and that was that. Since that point in my life, I am happy to say that I both ditched the boyfriend and discovered a renewed sense of self that has pushed me to expand my dreaming. I have turned my dreams into my reality.
So, originally, I had wanted to open an Artist’s Cafe. A studio for artists and performers to be creative in attached to a coffee shop/gallery for them to display and perform. I was going to call it something like AlleyCat or HodgePodge. I’m mulling over the idea of a knitting store with a built in coffee shop/tea house right now. It doesn’t feel that strange. The woman I was speaking to, the Instigator if you will, said how she wished there were more places like that, and the Windy City especially could use one.
My one issue is that I am determinedly nomadic. It’s an impulse that I’m trying to work with, embrace rather than reject, but remain stable for the family’s sake. I don’t want to settle in Chicago, of all places, because of how bland the city feels to me. (No offense, Chicagoland. I am a Milwaukee girl, after all.)
In either case, my post-college credit is bad enough that it’s going to take a few years before I can take out a loan to cover the start up cost of running a business. I have time.
And who knows what the future will bring to me.
(ps: the Precious Pumpkin Beret Pattern is available for purchase at etsy.com/shop/littlegreenpixie)
