Overview

I would like to give a bit of an overview as to who we are.

CPU Enterprises was created many years ago by Diane and Peter Underwood. The creation of CPU will be covered in later blogs when we get into the history.

CPU has 3 websites at the moment - the biggest and busiest is Dianne's Knitting Yarns (the story of the spelling will come in a later blog). DKY sells knitting yarns (obviously), 1000's of pattern leaflets and well over 100 pattern books. They also sell some needles, crochet hooks and other accessories including Bag Handles.Craft Bits (CB) was born when knitters started asking for beads and teddy eyes. Again more on that later. The third site is Craft Kits (CK) which has not been going long and is getting busier all the time. That site concentrates on Kits for Kids and Beginners and was a bit of an experiment on design and p+p costs.

CPU is a family run firm - a four way equal partnership of Diane, Peter, Carole (me) and Dawn with a few others who help out. To make things easier I will always refer to myself by name (Carole) so as not to confuse. The dynamics is a bit complicated on how the work is split so a quick guide is shown below.

Diane and Peter are semi-retired and mainly work in Winter when DKY is busiest, but also cover holidays during the summer and look after the kids in school holidays [UPDATE 2018 - all the children are now adults and don't need any looking after 😃 ]. When they are working, Peter works in the Office, does the DIY (occasionally helped by Simon), makes the tea and organises the storage areas. Diane also works in the office but she also works in the warehouse when needed - I think she prefers the Office though 😃 [UPDATE 2022 - Now both Diane and Peter are in their 80's they are less involved and more retired - see Update 2022]

Carole and Dawn both work for DKY & CK - Carole in the office and Dawn in the warehouse. Both of us are happy with those roles and neither of us would want to, or could, do the others job - so we both appreciate each other - a perfect partnership (mostly)!

CB is a little different. It was formed separately by Carole and brought under CPU a few years ago. It is still run fairly separately and in a different office/warehouse to DKY & CK. [UPDATE 2021 - all stock is now in the main warehouse] Carole does all the office work for CB and Martin does all the warehouse work - occasionally helped by Lucy. I should also mention that Martin and Lucy also work for DKY in the warehouse when we are busy. However the final Visa Charging and sealing of CB orders is done in the DKY warehouse so CB is not completely separate.

I think that covers the basics and much of it will be expanded in coming blogs.

Chapter One of the CPU Enterprises Story