Spend five minutes in Needlecraft on Dawson Street in Dublin and any notion you might have that the art of knitting and needlepoint was dead is quickly dispelled. The shop is always busy with lines of people - mostly women - looking for advice on wool ply and needle gauges from the expert staff behind the counter.
And the milling crowd is not your stereotypical image of knitters. The Needlecraft shopper is as likely to be a hip-looking college student as it is a grey-haired granny. So it is not for lack of trade that Noel and Breed Flavin are closing what is one of the oldest family-run shops in Dublin city centre.
Instead, the couple are retiring from the business that was started 63 years ago by Noel's parents Jack and Juliann Flavin. When Needlepoint finally closes at Christmas it will mean the loss of yet another specialist shop in the city's capital.
In its present layout, the shop at 27/28 Dawson Street totals 1,905 sq ft with an annual rent of £41,500 (€52,694), with the next rent review in 2004. It is let under two separate leases, one for each unit, and both units have basements. Lisney, which is the letting agent, says that it could be let as one unit or as two separate units.
Needlecraft is a determinedly old-fashioned looking shop with its hand-painted sign and hand- knitted goods in its two bay windows.
Inside the shop is divided in two. On one side there's needlepoint and craft items, on the other there's shelves and shelves of wool. The abundance of tactile and colourful stock, the lack of high tech modern fittings and fancy lighting mean that the shop exudes a pleasant sense of organised chaos.
Breed did think of changing the look of the place years ago but decided against it, feeling that the shop had its own atmosphere.
Knitters come for the range of stock but also for the staff of three's expertise, which can untangle any knitting problem with some swift words of commonsense advice. High profile customers include the President, Mrs McAleese, an avid and expert knitter, Adele King (aka Twink), and Angelica Huston, who according to Breed, is keen on needlepoint.
Noel's parents must have been optimistic types, because they set up shop at a particularly inauspicious time. A year after they opened, World War II began and with it a severe shortage of knitting wool. According to Breed it was not uncommon to see people lining up on Dawson Street from 5.30 a.m. waiting for the shop to open. Wool was on quota until 1947 and it continued to be in short supply until the early 1950s.
Noel took over the running of the shop from his then widowed mother in 1972 and 10 years later he doubled the size of the premises by taking over the shop next door. The extra space allowed him to increase his stock of needlepoint and craft items.
They didn't entirely demolish the dividing wall when they moved next door. They simply punched a wide entrance in the wall; new leaseholders will probably want to complete the job of joining the two premises of the building, a protected structure.
Since the sign went up on the shop, Breed has been overwhelmed by the response from customers. She's had long-time wool-buyers spontaneously hugging her and one woman even cried at the counter at the thought of the shop's closure.
All wonder where they are going to buy their wool from now on and it's true that from Christmas, knitting wool will be nearly impossible to find in the city centre.
"I've been overwhelmed at the response," says Breed, who now wonders how she will fill her retirement time. The shop has a website, which has proved successful since it was started three years ago with as many as 20 orders a day, mostly from America.
The couple has yet to decide whether to keep the site going. "We'll get through this first, " says Breed, surveying the milling customers, "then we'll see".
