Having a yarn

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Reviving the lost art of knitting is a passion that Paula Coombs lives every day in her richly textured shop, Rubi + Lana.

You can buy Armani at Rubi + Lana, however there’s a bit of a twist to the story, or should we say yarn. For the Armani in question isn’t the Italian Giorgio, the fashion designer famous for his well-tailored clothes, but an alpaca who lives in a paddock in Galston, NSW.

His pale cream balls of super-soft yarn are just one of the many unique products Paula Coombs sells at Rubi + Lana, her shop in Gordon, in Sydney’s northern suburbs. “It’s certainly as exclusive as Armani, as an alpaca usually only produces enough yarn to make one garment a year,” she laughs while sorting through a cane basket filled with balls labelled Kirri, Lily, Valiant and Winslow, all named for the alpacas from which they’ve come. Spun by St Ives woman Jackie Barratt, it’s this type of traditional craftsmanship Paula wanted to try and preserve when she came up with the idea of opening her shop 18 months ago.

“I became really quite worried that these skills weren’t getting passed on,” she says. “I started to think about the renewing of traditions, skills and, I guess, a renewing of ideas.
I really wanted people to think outside the square.”

Her concern has resulted in this very modern take on the traditional haberdashery cum wool shop. While knitting was once seen as decidedly old fashioned and purely the provenance of grandmothers, this vibrant mother of four has created a stylish treasure house of wool, ribbon and thread all mixed up with beautiful handmade goods. And even though it is slightly out of the way in an arcade off the main highway, it already has proved to have a magnetic attraction for customers of all ages.

“They all think it’s like an Aladdin’s cave and can’t believe they haven’t seen anything like it before. I describe it as somebody who has been driving a bus through the desert and they arrive and say, ‘Thank God there’s water here’. You can almost see them physically saying, ‘Oh, I’ve just been starved for so long; I need this so badly’.”

After throwing around several ideas for the shop’s name – frontrunners included ‘Chicks with Sticks’ and ‘Chooks with Hooks’, Paula eventually decided on Rubi + Lana. Rubi is for the gemstone and represents the beads she would also like to stock, while lana is Spanish for wool. “I really don’t know where this came from,” she laughs gesturing around her shop lined with shelves filled with yarns in a rainbow of vivid colours. “It just emerged from nowhere.”

Antique yarn spools display a range of pretty trims, pigeonholes from an old post office now house haberdashery items rather than mail, and an antique wire plant stand is filled with rolls of ribbon. An original 1920s Singer sewing machine that once belonged to Paula’s grandmother guards the entrance. Even the shelving is second-hand, bought from a Gerringong wool shop that was closing down just when Paula was starting her business.

A large table takes centre stage and it’s here that the many knitting, embroidery and crocheting classes take place. These include ‘sit-in mornings’ on Tuesdays and Thursdays, an enjoyable social event that’s designed to prevent those half-knitted jumpers from sitting at the back of the cupboard for yet another year. The clientele ranges from seven-year-olds doing school holiday workshops and teenagers studying textile design to grandmothers knitting baby clothes. 

“Knitting can be like picking up a book and reading it when you want to – it doesn’t have to be something that is this perfectly completed project within minutes. We’re lucky now that the yarns are so fabulous that you don’t really need to do a lot of hard work to get something looking great,” she explains.

One of Paula’s greatest surprises was to discover the lack of confidence people have in their ability to learn to knit or to move away from conventional 8-ply wool. “Too often I hear ‘I can’t do that’ or ‘I can’t work colours’. But I can usually teach an adult within an hour and then they can’t believe how it’s never happened before. It’s a real confidence thing; you have to build them up and keep telling them they can do it. It’s wonderful to have someone say, ‘Wow, I can do that’.

“I think we can break down the barriers a bit more than most because of these fabulous yarns. We have to educate people along the way, but we’re only into the first couple of years of doing that as an industry,” she says enthusiastically.

Paula’s passionate about making sure these skills are passed on in a time that has seen a generation spend more time in the workplace than at home. She believes it’s a real issue for the thirty-somethings brought up to believe that career is everything.

 “I guess it wasn’t on the agenda for them, and now their kids aren’t going to get it either, so suddenly we’ve got two generations that don’t know how to knit. It is starting to creep back into the schools a little bit, but I get a bit bothered about it all,” she laments.

“For me, knitting was always there and I assumed everyone could do it. As kids, we expected the winter jumper once a year from grandma in Melbourne, and my mother knitted too. There always seemed to be a knitting book out with some project on the go,” she says.

Today, it seems nothing has changed, as the Coombs family still has several craft projects underway. The last time Notebook: spoke to Paula she had just finished a scarf in Winslow alpaca yarn and was busily working on a vest, a wrap and a cotton jumper while keeping an eye on everyone else’s stitches. Ten-year-old daughter Nicola has already knitted herself a cotton singlet and even Paula’s older boys – William, 15, Michael, 18, and Andrew, 22 – had a brief dalliance with French knitting when they were younger.

Which brings us to that age-old dilemma many mothers have faced over the years – what on earth do you do with the never-ending metres of french knitting? “Bags, rugs and the latest thing is to use it as a trim or tie on jumpers,” is Paula’s quick reply. And finding the answer to that is just what Rubi + Lana is all about – a passion for passing on knowledge and skills from generation to generation.

Where are they?
Rubi + Lana
Shop 21, Gordon Village Arcade
767 Pacific Highway, Gordon NSW.
Call (02) 9499 9711.

Balls of style
Alpaca: The first thing you need to know is that technically, it isn’t wool but hair. Very silky and soft, this yarn is growing in popularity.

Cria: A baby alpaca is called a cria and the yarn spun from their fleece is the softest of all. It’s difficult to find in shops, but Rubi + Lana can order it in.

Jo Sharp wool: This West Australian woman has revolutionised Australian knitting with her contemporary designs and fashionable vibrant colours.

Fancy yarn: Mostly woven from man-made fibres, these modern mixes are used to create many different textures and looks.

Mohair: This fibre from the angora goat is an old favourite and is easy to work with.

Cotton: Don’t think this is just for summer jumpers; with allergies on the increase, easy-to-wash cotton is ideal for people with sensitivities.

Words: Victoria Carey. Photography: Scott Hawkins. Hair & make-up: Jay Jay Rauwenhoff. Styling: Louise Owens.