Retail Supplier to Textile Artists 1971-2001 - 30 Years
Crystal Palace Yarns Wholesale from 1980 - 2017
Straw into Gold was begun in 1971 by Susan Druding and Sambra Neet (Sam left for Oregon in 1973). Andy MacEwan joined Susan as a partner in the late 1970's. Straw survived and grew and added a wholesale branch (Crystal Palace Yarns) which supplies yarns, fibers, Ashford spinning and weaving products and spinning supplies to shops and coned yarns to designers. More History of Straw Into Gold is Here.
In Spring of 2001,
after 30 years as a retail store, Straw closed and moved to Richmond, California
as Wholesale-only supplier to shops and designers.
Over the years Straw was always been known for its wonderful fiber & yarn
oriented staff who did much to make Straw Into Gold a nationally (and
internationally) known supplier of yarns, books, fibers, and
Straw in Berkeley is Closed
Photos of Straw Into Gold as it was 12/2000 - HERECrystal Palace Yarns Wholesale is Closed as of June 2017
See the CPY moving photo from 2001
We have published some
of our past articles, handouts, dye recipes,
dye history and knitting patterns
on the Web. We hope you will find the information useful. During the late 70's and early 80's Susan Druding published
the "Textile Artists' Newsletter" (TAN) and some of those out-of-print issues
will be scanned for these pages. A series of TAN
Articles on fiber reactive dyes is now here.
You will see Straw Into Gold referred to on these pages by its "nicknames", Straw and SIG.
Here's a photo of the last
retail store (taken Dec
2000) showing our "Sale Moving" sign in the window. The sign later changed to "CLOSED"
when we were unable to find a large space to move our retail store. We finished emptying the building
on May 12, 2001.
For more photos click HERE.
