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Shop History

Some photos of our newest location at 1734 Clement Avenue.
Our parking lot	The barrel ceiling with truss system	View from our back door to the front of the shop
Our check-out area on the right	Our fabric cabinets, book case & display space near the front	Our fabric cabinets and the wool wall.
An area for sampler related items and new product.	Our back window (facing the parking lot) with cabinets for DMC Perle and Kreinik silks.	Par of our 87' long wall of thread.

Park Street - Front of the store Our location from 1998-2003	Just after our move to Webster Street in February 2004
Webster Street - 2004-2010 (with our purple walls!)

We are now on our 3rd location, moving into the 1734 Clement Avenue space July 2010. The building was a pencil factory for more than 55 years and has been converted into a mixed-use commercial space. At the present time we are the only retail in the building, sharing it with a professional photographer, HVAC supplier and the offices for the pencil company (Listo).  The building is of post and beam construction with a wonderful open feel to it. Our barrel ceiling highlights the old truss system and with it being 24 feet tall at the mid-point gives a great sense of space. We've painted the walls Seafom (tending toward the green rather than the blue) and have a carpet of taupe and grey which is kind of like pebbles on the beach. With a small parking lot for the building we have 3 spaces (marked NEEDLE), 2 handicapped spaces and plenty of on-street non-metered parking. We're very happy with the space and hope you'll enjoy visiting us here.

March 27, 2010 marked our 12 year anniversary at Needle In A Haystack, having opened our doors on March 27, 1998. The shop was started from scratch vs. buying out an existing business (we get asked this often). We were located on Park Street for the first 6 years, moving to Webster street in early 2004 and then to our Clement Avenue address in July 2010.

All of the staff are stitchers themselves and while we don't claim to be experts in every technique out there, we are generally knowledgable about most stitching techniques and can usually give pointers to others who are specialists in a particular area.

Shop Owner - Cathe Ray

While reading was my first love as a child I've been doing needlework or crafts of some kind since about age 10. My grandmother taught me how to embroider and do some sewing but much of it I picked up on my own. Needlework skipped a generation in my family and both my sister and I do various aspects of it (she does absolutely beautiful crochet). I lived in Santa Fe, NM until I was 11, when we moved to California (mid '60s). I went to junior high and high school here and later moved to Seattle to attend college. I have a degree in Computer Science from Seattle Pacific University (1980), where I started out as Textile major in 1975. I came back to California in 1984 to work for a computer firm in Berkeley, at which point I moved to Alameda (and then married a native Californian).

In my early 20's, I traveled for a couple of years with two different gospel groups and saw a great deal of the country. It was during my travels withoneof these groups that I taught myself to needlepoint and spent many hours on the road making up projects. It was also during this time that I found my first counted-cross stitch patterns on the road. It wasn't until years later when I took an actual class in needlepoint that I discovered I'd being doing half-cross stitches vs. tent stitch on my needlepoint. I'd always wondered why my needlepoint pieces seemed so distorted when I was done and then I knew :-).

I worked in the computer field from 1979 to 2001, first as a software engineer and after 1994 as a manager of them. In 1997 I started seriously thinking about opening a shop and credit two people with really making me believe it was possible. First and foremost is my husband Carl, who believes that I can do anything I put my mind to. The second is C.A. Wells who helped me understand that I could build it as a business without giving up my day job. When you've worked in the computer field as long as I have it gets in your blood and it's hard to walk away from for many reasons. Once I'd made the decision it was possible it took many months to plan and when I started to look for someone to manage the shop I was most fortunate in finding Ada Haydon. Ada managed the shop from Jan. 1998, even before it opened, until October 2001, when she left to join her husband after his transfer back east. Ada now owns Eye Candy Designs, her needlepoint design company. Ada was the first of many wonderful staff to come to the shop and it's really my staff who have made my vision of the shop come to life. Over the years I've also had the pleasure of making wonderful friends in our industry. Four of them, Jean Lea of Attic Needlework, Deb Clark of Stitchville USA and Roz Vancil and Jeannine Cheney of Acorns and Threads are my "partners in crime" - we're collective known as the Needlework Maffia. I have three other great shop owner friends in Janice from Traditional Stitches, Linda Mendenhall of Old World Designs and June McKnight, who has sold her shop and is spending more time teaching. The friendship of these ladies is a godsend to me on a daily basis.

The shop has been a way for me to combine two very different aspects of my life and I'm the one that handles all the website and computer work for the shop (I'm really a geek at heart). After being layed off in 2001 I had been spending most of my time at the shop while looking for another computer job. In August 2003 I decided not to go back to the computer world and instead concentrate on the shop, taking over many of the day-to-day jobs others had been doing for me. In 2004 I had a small part in a Mythbusters episode about find needles in a haystack, which was great fun. You'll find videos on You Tube (Part 1, Part 2).  In 2004 I became chair of the Counted-Thread & Embroidery within our trade organization,  serving on the board of directors of TNNA until September 2010 when my terms ended.

I work a number of needlework techniques such as cross-stitch, needlepoint, embroidery, hardanger, pulled-thread, drawn-thread, silk ribbon embroidery, goldwork, Bunka (Japanese embroidery) Brazilian embroidery, Punchneedle embroidery and a bit of crewel and Stumpwork. I also do machine embroidery on my Pfaff as well as gardening, baking, card-making and beading. I've rarely met a hand-working hobby I didn't like :-).

I'm at the shop Tuesday-Saturday except Thursday (and sometimes even then), when I try to work from home to do the web site updates. Even with 10 hour days, sometimes 6 or 7 days a week I love being a shop owner!

Shop Manager - Debi

Debi is the shop's manager and with Cathe tends to the day-to-day business for the shop such as ordering all those goodies we like to buy, keeping track of special orders and handling the shop e-mail. Debi is normally in the shop Tuesday through Friday.

Staff - Jennifer

Jennifer joined us in August 2008 and is the shop's primary mail order person. When packages are mailed to you Jennifer has handled it at least from the pretty wrapping until it's sent to you and perhaps been the one to pull your order as well. Jennifer does cross-stitch and we're getting her hooked on needlepoint as well.

Staff - Mary Frances

Mary Frances became one of the staff in August 2009, having previously worked at Lacis in Berkeley. Mary Frances has done needlework most of her life and is featured frequenty in Piecework magazine for her lace knitting. She's a wealth of odd-ball needlework information and is the person to ask about any kind liturgical embroidery (as well as dead languages).

Staff - Ali

Ali started with us in November 2007 and is now our part-time mail order person. Over her time with us we've given her the needlework bug and she enjoys cross-sttich in particular.

Helpers - Susan & Margaret

In addition to our regular staff our "helpers" are those of our staff who are not necessarily in on a regular basis, although some are here quite frequently. Depending upon when you're in the shop or call us, one of them might be here as well. They are all well qualified to help you with your stitching questions and if they don't know the answer, they'll know who does.

Why does your toll-free number have an extra character?

Many people have asked why the mnemonic for our toll-free number of 877-HAYSTACK has an extra character in it. The "K" is superfluous and without it the number would be 877-HAYSTAC (877-429-7822) which isn't nearly as easy to remember. This should never cause a problem with any phone system, which will ignore the extra digit. So feel free to use it if it helps you remember the number. But be careful, we've been told that leaving out the 'C' will get you a "steamy" phone call.

Shop Awards, Commendations & Associations

We were pleased to be the December 1998 shop focus on the Caron Collection web site (in our first year of business). In January 1999 we were given a Best of the Net award by the Needlepoint guide at The Mining Company. Also in 1999, we became a member of the Needlecraft Showcase, which includes many on-line needlework shops, distributors and suppliers.

Last updated January 4, 2011
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