Many, many years ago we created basically one type of product: crocheted bears (with the occasional cat or mouse or the like). They were jointed miniatures, small enough to sit on a few fingers, if not just the tip of one! They were all made as one-of-a-kinds with the target audience being artist bear collectors. The unusual thing about these items is that they were being crocheted from a single strand of thread. We had never seen any of these types of products before, and we had become the first to offer these unusual items online to art collectors. Since we had the unusual characteristic of creating bears from a strand of thread, we decided to title these items our "Thread Bears." We aquired the trademark for the name and decided to call our business as such.
We operated business for over a decade with the business name Thread Bears®, offering over a thousand different types of little collectible thread crocheted bears and animals. During the duration of operating business under that name, our products began to slowly evolve and expand. It began as this thread crocheted menagerie, offering items related to these...
New Year, New Designs
.. but it grew into a business offering something for anyone, not just a collector. We began offering home decor, knitted sweaters and hats, art prints, dolls and other play things. Even our bears didn't remain the same. They eventually became bigger bears that were crocheted from wool yarns, and then they were put through an intricate process of shrinking it to make it like fleece, to make it more durable, to make it even more unusual--this is a process called waulking wool.
As our products had expanded, so needed our business name. When you hear the name Thread Bears® you think of just that: bears. We have decided to keep the name, since it may be a perfect suit for naming those crocheted bears and animals, however, it is no longer the best option for a business name --the blanket in which all of our products are connected together. We chose to convert our primary name to Out of the Thistle, which pays respect to our Scottish ancestry, and is also a nod to the age-old Scottish technique of waulking wool.
