By NANCY KIMBALL/Daily Inter Lake

Yarns are all about community at Camas Creek Yarn.

That community is a mix of global and local cultures at the newest shop on Kalispell's Main Street.

It bursts with rainbow colors of hand-spun yarns from Uruguay, recycled silks from Nepal and Mary's Little Lamb wool from Kalispell.

The storefront is a re-creation of a bombed-out shop in post-World War II Berlin, which the owners glimpsed in the movie, "The Good German."

China teacups - no paper cups here - holding the complimentary tea, cider and the Creston-roasted Fieldheads Coffee served in the back were inspired by an English tea house.

Camas Creek owner Melanie Cross is deep-roots local. Her great-grandmother bought a homestead on Camas Prairie, a Hot Springs landscape criss-crossed by Camas Creek where her family has ranched ever since 1921.

Locally raised goats and sheep supply fibers for yarns stuffed into warm walnut cubbyholes that Cross made to line the shop's red-brick walls.

Lifelong knitters and Camas Creek Yarn employees Sue Birky and Mary Warner - grower and spinner of Mary's Little Lamb yarns - field questions from Flathead shoppers and out-of-state visitors who wander into the shop. Often, the browsers pull up a chair in the bay windows or plop down on the store's easy chairs and sofas to spend some quality knitting time.

"It changes the whole pulse or vibe of the store when ladies are sitting there knitting," Cross said.

"It's a huge community," she said of the women and men, girls and boys who come in to pursue their fiber fancies.

"These women come in here and say, 'I've been waiting 20 years for a store like this.' People just come and hang out. The response and encouragement from the knitting community has been great."

"YEARS ago, when my oldest daughter was young, I thought it would be fun to have a yarn shop with brick walls," Cross recalled.

With her five children now ages 19 to 26, there was finally time to pursue her dream.

But why - as a self-avowed "OK knitter" - yarn?

She downplays her own exquisite Norwegian wool sweaters on display in the shop as being easy to create. She brings in other more-experienced knitters to teach classes in scarves, mittens, socks, sweaters, drop-spindle, felted goods and jewelry (the store has an extensive bead selection, as well). Her one criteria for those hired to work at Camas Creek Yarn: They have to be a better knitter than she is.

So why retail?

Her community college studies were in biology and she worked as a water-safety specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

She supported her children by holding a variety of jobs and put herself through school by remodeling her own basement for rental income. Her only other retail experience was in customer service at Snappy Sport Senter. She had a common-sense business head, but had a lot to learn about running her own shop.

Quite simply, she loves the company of knitters and handcrafters.

TO PROVIDE a gathering place for them, Cross and her husband of four years, Andy Hurst, powered their way through a six-month remodel of the structural mess they found last summer after buying their shop. The two-story 1925 vintage building at 338 Main St. in Kalispell came complete with a rotted ceiling, painted cardboard in place of real walls, brick walls covered with concrete, not plaster.

They put in 14-hour and longer days wresting their vision from the formerly vacant building. Cross often was at it alone as Hurst tended to crews and accelerated work schedules for Hurst and Cross Construction Inc., their jointly owned finish carpentry and cabinetry company.

Yarn company representatives had stopped by in the summer, so when deliveries came long before the shop was anywhere near completion, Cross inventoried everything and stuffed it into every open room at their own Lower Valley home.

Determined to capitalize on the traffic of Kalispell's Nov. 30 Art Walk, the traditional Christmas shopping kickoff, Cross signed the store up as a venue and kept her fingers crossed.

"We opened a half-hour before Art Walk," Hurst said, grinning at the memory of the crowds jamming the shop all night.

That debut turned out to be the talk of the town.

Since that night, business has been encouraging.

Nine people are on the payroll for regular and fill-in work, including Bobby Schreiner, a high-schooler adept at teaching his students to crochet. Watching him work with a group of younger girls learning the time-honored tradition gives Cross great satisfaction.

"We want a new generation of kids using their hands," she said.

She wants not only children but also new enthusiasts of all ages to join the fiber community. Gradually, it's happening through classes offered at the shop and through knitters bringing in their friends and family to soak up the ambiance.

The shop's classes are creating a broader customer base for all of the valley's yarn shops, and are taught by some of the best in the business.

Nationally renowned author and designer Janet Szabo travels widely to present workshops, and lives and knits in the Flathead Valley. She's on the shop's roster of instructors, along with other talented knitters eager to share their art.

For Cross, who has worked long, hard years raising her family and pulling herself up in life, the advent of Camas Creek Yarn is a dream come true, a way to earn a living that just can't be called work.

"This couldn't happen, not only without the knitters, but also it's the women who work here," Cross said. "They care about the art. For them, it's a passion.

"And it's huge when someone who's been knitting only three weeks comes in with a pair of mittens."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com