Purler of an idea! KNITTÉR'S AMAZING YARNS

Shoppers get the warm-fuzzies when they enter Margaret's colourful creative world

- Fleur Guthrie

When Margaret Richardson packed up her life on W a South African farm and immigrated to New Zealand at age 69, people commented, "How can you do this at your age?"

With a polite smile, she would tell them, "It's the last great adventure of my life."

There was, however, one more adventure to be had. Two years ago, at the age of 86, Margaret fulfilled a long-held dream to start a business and open a handdyed knitwear store.

"The only things I brought over to New Zealand were the mohair for knitting and my stainless steel vats from the farm [which used to hold cattle semen], packed with inks and dyes," tells Margaret, who initially. settled on a lifestyle block near Hokitika with her late husband Jimmy.

"We moved up to Auckland in 2012. Then I decided to buy a retail space at the very beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Because I thought if I waited for it to end, I might look back in a few years and say, 'I was only 86 then and now I'm 90- it's too late!' So I seized the day."

Amy Maria Kid Mohair opened for business in February 2021. The next day, however, Auckland went into Level 3 lockdown.

"In my first eight months of trading, I was closed for five of them. I was nearly kiboshed.

But I couldn't just give up, so I stayed at home and knitted to get my stock up because I knew the lockdowns had to end sometime," shares Margaret, now 88.