About Scheepjes Warehouse and Oceans of Yarn

Notes from the Netherlands. Part 4

This post should have been written and published long ago. It was planned as last, forth, in my series about trip to the Netherlands in April. But in fact it should have been the first one, because the main reason why I went to Holland was to meet with other members of the Scheepjes Bloggers group and to visit Scheepjes Head Quarter in Tynaarlo.

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This was my first excursion around warehouse and I was very much impressed by the scales and amounts of yarns and craft supplies. I have never seen so much yarn before. And Scheepjes warehouse in Tynaarlo we visited is one of 6 (in total) located in the Netherlands. Can you imagine? A huge ocean of yarn you can dive in. And maybe even be drowned :)

Tynaarlo is a small place in the North of the Netherlands with slightly more than 1.000 inhabitants. This is definitely not a sightseeing spot and tourists hardly know about its existence. But if you are obsessed with yarns and crafts you may probably want to visit it. As this is the place where Scheepjes yarns come from. It takes only 15 minutes by car to come to Tynaarlo from Groningen (which is known as one of the most beautiful cities in the whole Netherlands). And here you can find Scheepjes HQ - a place where customers come to see the products, and where all the orders are carefully packed and shipped to retailers.

The story of Scheepjes yarns goes back to 1799 and name “Scheepjeswol” was introduced in 1930’s. In 2010, after twenty-two-year hiatus, “family-owned business De Bondt, a haberdashery wholesaler located in Tynaarlo, Drenthe, took over the Scheepjeswol brand name and gave it a new lease of life so that today we can again use the yarn of this famous Dutch brand”. (Source: First, “sea”, issue of “Yarn” book-a-zine where you can read more about the history of this yarn brand and also find 15 crochet and knitting patterns. Mine as well!)

Today the leader of the company is Job – a nice and modest man with obviously strong will and vision and a father of three lovely children – who took the family business over from his parents. Over last few years Scheepjes has grown a lot and began to ship yarns to US (Paradise Fibers*) and South Africa. Scheepjes yarns are stocked by Wool Warehouse* and Deramores* – two main retailers located in UK which deliver orders internationally.

YARN book-a-zine*. First "Sea" issue

But regardless of the fact that Scheepjes is constantly growing, it still remains a business with family spirit, with relatives and friends working together. And with a team of bloggers who were also accepted to friendly and warm Scheepjes family.

As we were told, Scheepjes harbedashery warehouse is one of the largest in Europe. So any zip or ribbon you can think of can be most likely found here. By the way except of long rows with yarns I was very impressed by the amount and variety of zips and buttons. There are even buttons with real dried flowers inside. Very interesting.

One of the facts I liked about Scheepjes is their desire to be as “green” as possible. And this is very close to my own mode of thinking. I do care a lot about the future of the planet and try to do my best to save water and electricity, and to recycle garbage. The first thing we saw when we parked by the warehouse building was a charge spot for electro mobil. And the roof of warehouse is covered with sun batteries which produce enough energy for lighting the entire building (offices and storages).

So this is what warehouse looks like from the inside. Endless yarns, craft supplies and tools, fabric, bag handles, books… Just everything you can think about. And this is not everything. After a half an hour excursion we were invited to look behind the scenes. Here we saw an extra storage place with boxes standing up to the ceiling. And they all were filled with the yarn kits for Last Dance on the Beach CAL. I could imagine hundreds and hundreds of beautiful blankets hidden inside, which will be soon finished.

First Scheepjes yarn I’ve heard about was Stone Washed*. For the first time I saw it in the Sophie Universe CAL (by Dedri Uys from Look At What I Made) and since then I have been wanting to try it. Last summer I found a local yarn shop in Gent (Belgium) selling this yarn and could touch it for the first time. So Stone Washed is the yarn which is associated with Scheepjes in my head. But after becoming a lucky member of Scheepjes bloggers group I got an opportunity to try more and more of their yarns.

Today my favourites, except of Stone Washed, are Catona (best choice for overlay crochet, in my opinion) and Merino Soft. But I can totally imagine that my preferences may change over the time, as  Scheepjes is constantly releasing new yarns. And I’ve already seen something new though I am not free to tell you anything about it. But believe me – it will be exciting!

Stone Washed yarn by Scheepjes is my favourite

I like to hear the stories behind designs and yarns. So I thought it might be a good idea to tell you about my excursion to Scheepjes warehouse. So that every time you purchase their yarns – you can imagine the place where they are carefully packed and shipped from.

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