Needle in an Ice Shack In revamped ‘factory,’ Carmel man responds to demand for larger knitting tools

They tell me I’ve made an awful lot of women happy,” Fred Harmon says. If you are a knitter, you may be one of those women.

In less than a month after he officially opened his business, The Needle Shack, in April, Harmon, who grew up in Milo, had made more than 500 sets of knitting needles, all by hand. That makes sense, given his work background includes heavy equipment operation and road construction, as well as working in lumber mills and the Basketville factory in Milo.

The impetus for The Needle Shack came from Harmon’s wife, Kathy, of Cityside Yarn Co. in Bangor.

“They couldn’t get knitting needles in the bigger sizes,” the 53-year-old craftsman said. “They kept getting back-ordered, so I just tried it.”

Harmon’s “factory” lies at the end of a muddy, rutted dirt road in Carmel, far from mill whistles and time clocks, and consists of his ice-fishing shack, a utility shed and a spare room in his house. Knitting needles in various stages of completion stand in large coffee cans awaiting the next steps in finishing, packaging or packing. His companion while he makes knitting needles is a little black-and-white dust mop of a dog named Chum.

“The ice-fishing shack sat here in the yard for five years after I built it,” he said, “and I never used it. Now I’m using it.”

The ice-fishing shack, covered in bright blue weatherproof material, is where Harmon puts a finish on the knitting needles. He hangs them to dry in holders he fabricated. They dangle from wire strung from one side of the shack to the other like a clothesline. The shack is also where he stamps sizes on the knitting needles and where he glues on the ball-shaped finials.

The shack is heated with a tiny wood stove. The silver foam insulation panels that make up the walls of the shack are covered with graffiti written during family parties when they got together to go “mudding” in old cars they drive around on country roads crisscrossing the 140 acres the family owns. They also like to sit around a fire pit, tell stories and talk.

The ice-fishing shack is where Harmon displays the first dollar he earned from his knitting needle-making venture.

The annex to the ice shack is a brown utility shed, where Harmon uses a sander equipped with a jig he devised to put points on the lengths of birch dowel that he uses for the knitting needles.

“This is going to change, though,” he said. “I’m going to try something else. Maybe an electric pencil sharpener.” The trick, he said, is not to get the point too sharp.

Next to the sander is a drill press where Harmon makes holes in the wooden balls that become knitting needle finials. This, too, has a jig he devised to hold the ball in place in a precise way, insuring that it is bored accurately on center.

“I didn’t even have this drill press when I started. I used a hand drill,” he said, laughing at the memory. He bought the drill press after he sold his first big order for knitting needles: “Fifty pairs of each size.”

Harmon sands all the knitting needles by hand before and after the finish is applied.

“When one person is doing it, it’s a lot of sanding,” he said.

The spare room in his house is where Harmon packs and packages the knitting needles for shipping. He has sold knitting needles to yarn shops in Presque Isle, Freeport, Ellsworth and, of course, Cityside in Bangor. He also has an order from a shop in New Hampshire.

“I sent out twenty samples,” he said. “Out of that I got six orders and that’s how I got started. A lot of it is word of mouth, too.”

Initially, he tinkered around and made several pairs of knitting needles just to see if he could do it.

Currently he makes 10-inch long knitting needles in sizes 11, 13, 15 and 17, which are favored by those who knit scarves in Fun Fur and similar yarns.

It’s too early for Harmon to tell if he’ll need to hire someone to help produce the knitting needles, or if he will need to expand into a larger space.

“If I have to build me a factory,” he said, “it’ll go right here,” he said, indicating a large area at the end of his driveway.

Harmon said he likes being his own boss and working by himself.

“I don’t have to get dressed … to go to work,” he said. “It keeps me out of mischief.”

The Needle Shack knitting needles are distributed by and sold at Cityside Yarn Company, 81 Main St., Bangor. 990-1455. Ardeana Hamlin can be reached at 990-8153 and ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.