Paradise Fibers Inc.'s origins are woven from a woman's passion to craft with high-quality wool yarn—and a desire to get a bit of a price break on it.

Business co-owner Travis Romine says his sister, Rachel Romine, helped inspire the family-run and Spokane-based business six years ago when she encouraged their parents, Bill and Laurel Romine, to buy a fledgling home-based business with some 2,500 fiber craft products.

"My sister's an uber-enthusiast about knitting and weaving," says Travis Romine, adding that she wanted "to get good deals on yarn."

Paradise Fibers now stocks more than 20,000 products for weaving, spinning, crocheting, and knitting, with Web-based sales worldwide.

About 80 percent of Paradise Fibers' business comes from Internet sales. Romine says the company's revenue has increased steadily by about 25 percent per year in the past three years, and it now has 10 employees, including five members of the Romine family.

For walk-in customers, the business is based in a 28,000-square-foot building at 225 W. Indiana, which once housed the Brownie Baking Co. of Spokane. Romine sometimes shows visitors the bakery's chimney oven with a two-story conveyer system.

Paradise Fibers' real attraction, though, is its variety of colorful yarns and bulk raw fibers used in spinning wheels to make yarn- primarily fine wools. It also sells the many tools required for the fiber arts, from knitting needles to weaving looms.

"We sell a lot of nice wool yarn they don't sell in the big-box stores; that's our niche," says Travis Romine, who oversees daily operations. "We essentially sell animal hair-yarn and the raw fibers of sheep, llama, buffalo, possum, yak, camel, cashmere goats, alpaca," among other varieties.

The company stocks from multiple suppliers, including the New Zealand and Australian wool industry, as well as small farmers in the U.S. and abroad. Some products come from clothing manufacturers, such as Jacques Cartier Clothier Inc. of Canada, which Romine says makes a jacket using vicuna wool. Found in the high alpine areas of the Andes Mountains, the vicuna is a relative of the llama that produces small amounts of extremely fine wool.

"They (Cartier Clothier) make extra yarn for us," says Romine, and Paradise Fibers sells a ball of that vicuna yarn for about $300. "Folks will make an expensive scarf."

Most of its balls of yarn sell for $6 to $25.

The company also is working to develop new products, such as a newly introduced spinning wheel designed by Bill Romine, who spent about three years developing it. Paradise Fibers just began selling the spinning wheel for $800.

"It's an innovation of my dad's," says Romine. "It has cool features that are convenient for spinners, and it's one of the only spinning wheels out there that is truly balanced."

His father, who previously owned an auto transmission shop and was a shareholder in the KSKN-TV television station at one time, also designed another hobby product, sold for $65, that's used to unwind a skein of yarn and keep it from getting tangled.

Travis Romine joined in early 2006 to focus on the business's advertising and website, and then stayed on to help with the overall business. His wife, Sara, is a manager and instructor. Sister Rachel works in the shop and is an instructor.

Mom, Laurel, is also a weaving and knitting enthusiast, and she runs a small family farm in Cheney with sheep, which provides a small amount of yarn sold by the business. Travis' brother, Jace Romine, also worked on the building's remodel, though he isn't an employee.

The Romines bought the building that houses Paradise Fibers in 2010, moving the business there in October from smaller leased space on Thor Street where the business had been since 2005. Travis Romine declines to say how much they paid for the building, but says, "We got a good deal; it was in disrepair."

They restored the historic structure's interior brick walls and wood floors, replaced the roof, and upgraded with more efficient windows and lighting.

The merchandise now fills the main floor of about 10,000 square feet, while the upstairs has space for craft classes. Instructors hold up to 25 classes a month. The cost of classes range from $20 to $60 per class, and most run about three hours, from beginner to advanced subjects in knitting, spinning, weaving or crocheting.

Paradise Fibers' busiest months are in the winter, Romine says, because much of the wool yarn products it sells are used for making blankets, sweaters, hats and scarves, but also because of Christmas projects and gifts. The company stocks a small amount of acrylic yarns for projects.

Romine says Paradise Fibers has intertwined into a community of craftspeople who knit, weave, and spin. It has built up that relationship through the classes, social media, and store events, he says.

"Rural customers are a big part of our customer base," he says. "They mail order because they don't have knit shops nearby. There are guys who do this, too. We have knit nights for men, which have some of our employees. We work on projects and eat pizza."

During often 12-hour winter work days, Romine is known for coming in early to make breakfast for staff. As part of the building's renovations, a large kitchen upstairs is nearly complete.

An additional upstairs space now under construction also will soon house what Romine calls the "man cave," complete with his father's vintage pinball machines, television for watching Netflix, and magazines such as Golf Digest.

"We're building the man cave to remedy the scenario of when the husband is drug kicking and screaming to the yarn store by his wife and is trying to get her to leave the whole time, or he goes to the car to sleep. We've witnessed this since we opened the business."

Romine also operates a separate business, his Sack Lunch Recording Studio, through which he has recorded rock 'n' roll songs and does DVD and CD duplications. A small studio for that business is also under construction upstairs in the building.

In the future for Paradise Fibers, Romine says the company plans further outreach to farm fiber suppliers in the region, as well as to the enthusiasts who use those fibers.

"We'll continue to promote fiber arts through education and fun classes," Romine says. "We have people interacting who take classes over and over with the same group of people. It's fun."