Company: The Picket Fence
Owner: Linda Harrison
Location: 71 Maple Ave., Barrington
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Employees: 4
Year Founded: 1979
Type of business: Fine needlework and knitting yarns
Annual sales: WND
Are knitting and needlepoint forms of psychotherapy?
You won’t find them listed in a medical textbook, but Linda Harrison thinks they are, and so does longtime colleague Joan Milich.
Harrison owns and operates The Picket Fence, a Barrington crafts shop that serves patrons from throughout southern New England. Many of her customers say needlepoint and/or knitting help them to unwind – even though both activities require prolonged concentration and keep their fingers flying for hours at a time.
“Knitting is like comfort food,” Milich said. “Familiar stuff like meat loaf and mashed potatoes.”
“Needlepoint kind of takes you back in time,” Harrison added. “You think of grandmother doing the cushions for dining room chairs.”
Curiously, the events of Sept. 11 triggered a surge in popularity for both knitting and needlepoint. Consistent with their therapy theory, Harrison and Milich share the belief that the trauma induced by those tragic events caused people to seek the comfort of those safe and familiar activities.
Coincidentally, it was another mishap that gave birth to The Picket Fence more than 20 years ago. Its predecessor store, Dottie’s Golden Needle, was located on Washington Road, far from Barrington’s center, in the late 1970s. Harrison was a member of the sales staff in those days. One night the restaurant next door burned, and the Golden Needle, heavily damaged by smoke, closed down.
“One of our neighbors didn’t want us to stay closed, so she helped finance our reopening as The Picket Fence,” Harrison said. “Three of us went into business together, then one dropped out and the other partner passed away soon afterward.”
That left Harrison, who took over the business and has been in charge since.
In 1985, the store moved to a more favorable location at 71 Maple Ave. – a circa 1912 building located just off Barrington’s main thoroughfare.
Picket Fence is truly a preferred destination for knitters and needlepointers who want to fill all their needs at one place. The store offers handpainted needlepoint canvases, unique fibers, including Persian wool; professional finishing and framing, a needlepoint stitching service, and imported and domestic handknitting yarns. It also conducts regular classes in the two disciplines.
Which craft predominates? Harrison said it depends both on the season and on trends that seem to ebb and flow through the years.
“Right now, our business is 70 percent knitting and 30 percent needlepoint,” she said. “Knitting is more popular in the wintertime.”
For the uninitiated, needlepoint is produced by introducing multicolored threads into an image painted on a special canvas. The finished product can be a relatively simple wall hanging or a rug worth $800 to $1,000.
And it requires a serious commitment.
“Just stitching a pillow can take months, depending, of course, on how much time you put into it,” Harrison said.
The store offers lessons in both crafts – a part of the full-service capability that is a source of special pride to Harrison and Milich.
“If they’re our customers, we’re very supportive,” said Harrison. “We want them to know that they can come to us anytime for help. No question is too silly.”
For both women, knitting and needlepoint represent more than a business. Both do needlepoint at home, and Milich takes special pride in her 3-by-6-foot wall hangings.
Harrison has no preference between knitting and needlepoint.
“I love it all,” she said.
She grows wistful when she recalls that, in the old Golden Needle days, she could leave the store behind her at day’s end and devote full evenings to her needlepoint projects. Now she’s faced with paperwork and other business issues, and has much less time to pursue her hobbies.
Among those “business issues” is the need to restock on a regular basis, a requirement that takes her literally all over the country. She makes annual trips to trade shows in California, Ohio and Arizona. She also buys frequently from an artist based in Asheville, North Carolina, and Florida — a woman who will occasionally drive north to pay The Picket Fence a special visit.
For her part, Milich, who has worked with Harrison for 22 years, is a familiar presence at the Barrington Community Center, where she teaches regular craft classes. She also teaches small groups at the store a couple of times a week.
Right now, the women observed, fancy scarves are especially popular.
Milich said they’re favored by veteran knitters who sell the finished products at church fairs, with the proceeds used to support youth programs.
One church, Milich said, raised $1,500 last fall.
Dick Sherman is a contributing writer for PBN.
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