How the shop began
Joubert Crafts opened in spring 2022 in a corner shop on Aleksandrovska Street, two doors down from a bookshop and across from a quiet café. Albena had spent twelve years working as an embroiderer for a costume workshop in Sofia before moving back to Ruse to be near her parents. Vesela ran a small knit-design studio from her flat for seven years, selling patterns online. We met during a long winter, talked about how hard it had become to buy a single skein of decent merino in our home town without ordering from Germany, and decided to do something about it.
What we sell, and how it gets here
The shelves are deliberately quiet — one or two of each thing, instead of twelve. The merino is spun in the Rhodope mountains from Bulgarian fleece. Plant-dyed skeins come from a one-woman dye studio outside Ruse who picks the rosehips herself. The cotton embroidery thread is hand-dyed in Plovdiv. The hoops are turned from European beech in a small workshop two hours away. The needles are John James from Redditch — we tried other brands and kept coming back. Less to choose between, more time to make.
Tested before it goes on the shelf
Albena uses every embroidery thread we sell on at least one finished sampler before we list it; Vesela knits a swatch and a small project from every yarn batch. If the thread frays badly when separated, or the yarn pills after one wash, we don't keep it. Our beginners kits are also dummy-tested — we ask a friend who has never done cross-stitch to follow only the printed instructions. If she gets stuck, we rewrite them.
Where we ship
We post within Bulgaria via Speedy or Econt — usually next-day for orders placed before lunch. To the rest of the EU we ship via Bulgarian Posts with hand-off to the local courier, which takes five to nine working days. Yarn travels in acid-free tissue and a kraft box; threads in a kraft envelope with the colour card on top. The only piece of plastic in the parcel is the courier sticker.
Visiting the shop in Ruse
The shop is at 23 Aleksandrovska Street, First floor, flat 6, 7000 Ruse. We're open Tue–Sat 11:00–18:00 (EET). There's usually one of us at the front and one at the back of the shop on a loom — please come in, or email [email protected] to make sure of a longer chat.