Local business 3 Bags Wool moves from Aberlour's The Gatherin' Cafe to new Dufftown premises
THE owner of a local craft business has shared her plans offer new workshops and employment opportunities at her new premises.
Aberlour based business 3 Bags Wool - which originally made up part of the The Gatherin' Café on the town's High Street - moved to a larger new location in the centre of Dufftown earlier this month.
Local entrepreneur, Sarah Fraser who owns both businesses said: "The new shop in Dufftown has been open for about two weeks and it has been going really well. There has been a lot of interest in all of our new offerings and a lot of folk have signed up to our newsletter, so it's been great.
"It is lovely to be back in a creative space and to be able to think about the projects, classes and workshops we can run now. Classes were a big part of the business initially and we really missed running them, so that was a big part of the motivation to move.
"We were unable run them in The Gatherin' because you have to maintain food hygiene standards, so we couldn't have bits of wool flying about the café."
The new shop will be selling a selection of local as well as international yarns, including fleeces from Sarah's own wool sheep.
The new premises will also offer in-person and online classes in knitting, felting, spinning, and rug making with the intent to include other crafts in time.
Sarah set up the business 13 years ago, to bring together her passion for knitting and her desire to make a living locally while bringing up a young family as a single mother.
She is passionate about helping others to do the same and has been working to create opportunities for those in the local community, alongside championing sustainability within the wool industry.
Sarah said: "We have been really keen to introduce thrum into the shop as much as possible. The thrum material is a by-product from woollen mills, it is a really versatile fabric and it is extremely useful.
"Part of our mission with the business is to try and help the environment by keeping it out of the landfill sites because it is useful and it should not be dumped.
"As part of that, a wee dream of mine is to get as team of people to help sort it. You need to separate and wind it, and I'm planning to pay people to help. It is not time consuming but it is something people could do to earn a few quid from home.
"I know when I was a single mum at home with my kids, it would've been a good way to make a bit of extra money to treat the boys.
"The demand for thrum is quite high at the moment, so if i could find people at home a lot who would like to help and make some extra money, I would really like to be able to do that too."
More information on classes or the roles offered by Sarah can be found online at: https://www.3bagswool.com/
