Our Team

Ashley

Ashley learned to knit during Becky's first knitting class ten years ago! As a newcomer to Billings coming from Mississippi, knitting seemed like a good thing to learn in this cold Northern place. An avid reader with sharp wit and genuine Southern Charm, we've always loved calling Ashley our friend. As a part of the Yarn Bar team, her experience with a digital marketing business is especially helpful in this era of small business ownership.

Becky

Becky brings years of common sense teaching experience to our team. She and her husband started the Billings Gymnastics School in 1985 and taught & coached a couple of generations of kids. She's a great sounding board for the backend side of business ownership for us, and a fabulous teacher of knitting to all; she's been teaching Beginning Knitting in the community for 15 years. Becky learned to knit by making her baby daughter a sweater 37 years ago. She perfected the art of bleacher & travel knitting at gymnastics meets and watching her son play football all the way through college at Montana State University.

Kathy

Kathy learned to knit 4 years ago during a class at Wild Purls taught by Becky. "I started because I needed to do something besides perfecting cinnamon rolls and found that knitting mistakes are easier on the waistline!!!" She quickly turned into a "regular" at the shop and dove into all kinds of projects. Yarn love co-mingles with fabric and scrapbooking love in her craft room. We love her sense of humor and enthusiastic approach to knitting and crochet. She's our go-to gal for questions & great stories about goats, horses, chickens, cats, and Labrador Retrievers.

Sara

Sara's knitting started in 2001 when pregnant with Second Baby. Her favorite thing to knit is socks! She joined us in February, shortly before Covid 19 sent everyone into quarantines. Happily, Sara adapted to the big change in what we needed for the shop during that time (i.e. not working a busy shop but coming in for major inventory projects as we geared up the webstore). We are thrilled with her eagerness to learn and question, flexibility with scheduling, and quiet friendliness.

Connie

Most of Connie's career was spent working as an RN. She's an avid reader, Griz fan, grandkid sports cheerleader, and enjoys British and Australian tv dramas. Connie grew up in Butte ("Don't mess with a Butte Girl.") and we love her story about learning to knit: "When I was 10 years old my friend Carol and I were allowed to take the bus from the 'flats' in Butte and go all the way to Hennessy's Department Store in Uptown Butte - quite an adventure for two 10 year old girls in the 1960's. Our teacher, Joan, was a very sweet English lady who gave the knitting classes. Classes were held in the mezzanine, where both the yarn AND book departments were at Hennessy's. We would knit until noon and then we went to Gamers to have lunch. It was a great place with wonderful food & baked goodies. When it came time to pay you took your tab and money to the till and rang it up yourself; it's still that way today. After lunch we would wander around uptown and go in and out of Five & Dime stores and various dress shops. Around 3:30 it was time to hop on the bus and head home. We were always excited for the next week's lesson."