Carrie Sundra Announces Alpenglow Industries' Closure, Puts Everything on Sale at a Steep Discount

Maker Carrie Sundra has announced the closure of Alpenglow Industries, the company behind devices like the Glow Gauge and SkeinTwister for fabric projects and light-up wearables like the Glowie jewelry range for electronics fans — with current stock being sold off at a steadily-increasing discount to clear inventory.

"Hello friends, family, supporters, and fiber community. I've had to make the incredibly difficult decision to shut down Alpenglow," Sundra writes of the company's closure. "Even though we had a great fall and holiday season, the short story is that we aren't making enough continuous sales to cover our shop space and employee costs, and it's too much of a gap for any short-term solution to cover. So it's time to call it, and just send out a huge thank-you and hug to everyone who has supported us, been excited about our products, and sent us kind words ever since this business started in 2009 with actual hand-dyed yarn."

Following its founding in 2009, Alpenglow Industries has released a range of parts, projects, and tools for soft-fabric projects, electronics education, decoration, and more — including a recently-released drop-in replacement for coin-cell-powered projects to convert them to wired USB power instead. Sales, however, have not been where they need to be of late, and as a result the company is shutting up shop.

"There are a lot of legal and financial considerations that go into shutting down a business," Sundra says of support for existing customers. "I cannot guarantee any specific type of future support. Our email will be active for at least a year, it will get to me. I'll try to help troubleshoot over email, but it will be sporadic and on my personal time, and it is unlikely that I'll be able to supply any parts. This is why we've added a lot of repair parts and kits to our website right now! We've always designed our tools to be user-repairable and have videos on YouTube that will remain up. If you have a SkeinTwister or a Swift I highly recommend you purchase a repair kit, as this will greatly prolong the life of your tool."

To clear stock, Sundra has announced a closing-down sale: "almost everything," bar already-discounted items and repair kits, are now 15% off for the Swift yarn tool and 25% off for everything else, which will rise to 25% and 35% respectively for a week starting February 21st, then 35% and 50% off respectively for a week starting February 28th. "Items will be discounted automatically AFTER they are added to your cart," Sundra notes. "Prices shown on product pages are normal prices, before discounts."

More information, including a link to the Alpenglow Industies store, is available in Sundra's blog post. "I will always love making things, engineering, working with electronics, and designing products," Sundra says of future plans. "My creative drive will never go away and the ideas will never stop coming. Whether or not I'll start another manufacturing business remains to be seen. I need a break, I need a period of time where I don't own a business. I'm really proud of the work I've done and what I've put into the world with Alpenglow, and I hope our work has brought you delight."