The Daily Life: Purling profitably

Six-month-old Audrey Jackson sits in a bas ket, tucked amid pink and green hanks of wool. She smiles up
at her mother, Kate, who coos gently to her "little peanut."

Kate's needles fly, clicking in a comforting rhythm as she knits on a sofa at her Chardon business, Knitting
on the Square. Last September, Kate's boss at the store announced that she was moving south and
putting the business up for sale.

A recent graduate of Kent State's School of Fashion Design, Kate needed a full-time job so that she and
her husband, Pete, could get a construction loan to build their home in Huntsburg Township.

"It was the perfect job," Kate said. "So I had to decide whether to buy the store. As I was sweating the
details, I found out I was pregnant. I decided if I was ever going to have a shop, it had to be now.
"It worked out perfectly," she says, knitting a yellow leg onto a blue-headed elephant.

"I guess ultimately I needed a yarn store. And now it's so much more fun to design and knit baby things,"
she says, smiling at Audrey, who is snuggled into a pink sweater Kate designed and knit just for her.

"It seemed overwhelming at first, and I couldn't have done it without my family," she said. "This has been
the biggest year of my life so far."