About Us

Susan is responsible for purchasing the whole range of goods and books stocked. Her negotiating and organising skills help us to achieve our target of fulfilling over 95% of orders with items from stock. She takes responsibility for selecting the colour ranges stocked and for picking through over 1 ton of sheep fleece we sell each year. She is also the resident expert on yarns, looms, spinning wheels and fibres.

Susan is a skilled spinner, weaver and knitter with a wealth of knowledge which surprises us all at times.

Ruth is responsible for keeping the accounts, paying the bills and chasing up the more dilatory of our customers. Whilst the range of stock, and curious names that are used for many items we sell continue to puzzle her, she keeps an eye on stock levels and the state of the bank account so that we continue to flourish. It does not stop there, she helps out with taking phone calls when we are busy and packs a good magazine when they arrive from the USA.

Ruth has tried her hand at silk painting and at keeping her three boys under control, both with reasonable success.

Rosina works very closely with Jo and the rest of the team as a vital first point of contact for our customers, taking responsibility for the processing of telephone and online orders. If you do telephone us, it is quite likely to be Rosina who answers.

Rosina is currently studying for her H.E. Diploma in Stitch Textiles at Windsor College and her hobbies include attending rock concerts and enjoying the drum kit she recently acquired!

Julie works part-time for us, pre-packaging and looking after stock, she is also working very closely with Susan and learning the complexities of purchasing and logistics.

She is an extremely busy mother of four children ranging from the ages of 8 to 19 years old. She is an avid listener of music and when she has spare time (!), enjoys reading and gardening.

Jo looks after all the picking, packing and dispatch of your orders. Our handwriting and the products ordered are often a big problem to Jo. However she has been working here, and at Style Cottage previously, long enough to find the unfindable, pack the unpackable and post to unreadable addresses with speed and success.

Jo spins and knits; the small bootees on the 2001 catalogue were all her own work, though too small for her two adult children!

Ian is the owner of Fibrecrafts, having helped his wife build up the original business before her death in 1994. He looks after business development, trying to keep out of the day-to-day side of running the business, this leaves him responsible for the technological side of keeping the computer system up and running smoothly, and for finding answers to the more complex or technical questions from customers.

He now spends his spare time keeping bees producing honey, an old MG running smoothly and managing a wet north facing garden as well as Chairing the local branch of the Alzheimer's society.

Howard is responsible for helping with picking the contents of your orders from the warehouse and preparing pack contents.

Having retired from working in a Bank in the City and when not at the warehouse, Howard is a fisherman, has a profitable interest in horse racing, helps his wife with a home for old people and enjoys water colour painting when time allows.

Dave works in the packing room for us, wrapping your parcels and getting the post ready for Royal Mail. He is the newest and often the cheeriest member of the team!

In his spare time, he loves gardening and is a motorcycle enthusiast. He also has a keen interest in steam railways.

Allison is responsible for the way we present ourselves to customers, through our advertising, catalogues, mailings and website. She is responsible for graphics, copy and the design and management of this web site.

Though she spends much of the time in front of the computer screen during the working day, she is an avid user of the Internet in her own time and mother of two boisterous boys