Almost three years after we originally planned to be together, we are so happy to share our summer plans with Aimée Gille of La Bien Aimée. Aimée will be visiting Wool & Honey as a part of her Neons & Neutrals book tour, signing books, sharing her experiences with designing, knitting and the motivations behind her creative mind. The personal shopping experience‑‑a one-on-one session with a yarn expert‑‑is one of the most exciting additions we've ever offered. Aimée will be available to ticket holders to help shop both LBA yarns and other yarns around the store, combining colors and textures to help create the projects of your dreams. This will be a weekend full of yarn, treats and community‑‑we cannot wait to celebrate all of it with you.
Friday, June 9th, 6-9 pm. Evening Reception. A celebration for all of us, finally together again. Meet Aimée, have your books signed and of course, shop La Bien Aimée yarns. Mocktails and sweet treats served, door prizes and general buzzy merriment. FREE for everyone.
Saturday, June 10th, 10 am-2 pm. Open Stitch. Meet and chat with Aimée while you shop and join in our weekly Open Stitch (community knitting). Can't make it to join us in person? Aimée will hop on to our virtual Open Stitch to say hi, too. Coffee and treats served, FREE for everyone.
Saturday, June 10th, 3-6:15 pm. Personal Shopping with Aimée. 12 tickets for 15-minute slots with Aimée as their personal shopper. $25/ticket.
Saturday, June 10th, 7-9pm. Beach Knitting. Perhaps the perfect intersection of our favorite things: community, yarn and the beach. We’ll gather at Lake Michigan for a bonfire, stitch with Aimée and a sweet treat will be waiting for us at the shoreline. Let’s make this the largest World Wide Knit in Public gathering this world has ever seen. We'll be meeting at what locals call 'Bad Harbor'‑‑the end of County Road 669/Bohemian Road. FREE for everyone.
(Please note: you will need a National Park pass for the beach, which you can obtain on site for the day at the self-pay fee canister, or at the Visitors Center in Empire this week.)
Sunday, June 11th, 11am-2:15pm. Brunch and Personal Shopping with Aimée. 12 tickets for 15-minute slots with Aimee as their personal shopper and includes a delicious brunch, with several GF/DF options, as well as vegetarian. $65/ticket.
While there are lots of details about this weekend still to come (custom colorways! how to plan for your private shopping sessions with Aimée! all the yarn!), the thing we know is this: it will be intensely, vibrantly, blissfully full of the passion that brings us all together‑‑the act of Making‑‑and how the hues of these magical places (Paris and Michigan) provide us with the inspiration that informs everything we do.
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Planning to travel but not sure where to stay? Here are some of our favorite accommodations in Northern Michigan:
Leelanau Vacation Rentals. Whether you’re looking for a beachfront condo, a large cottage to split with friends or a pet-friendly rental, there isn’t anyone who knows Leelanau County better than Renee and her team. There are properties in Glen Arbor, Suttons Bay, Leland, Northport, Lake Leelanau–and every place in-between.
The Homestead Resort. The Inn is amazing, and so is Hawk’s Nest and Fiddler’s Pond and….you get the idea. The whole place is spectacular. And on Lake Michigan.
For more budget-friendly accommodations, we’d suggest hotels in nearby Traverse City (an easy 20 minutes from the shop). You can also find reasonable hotels in Cadillac (an hour away), Charlevoix + Petoskey (an hour and a half) and Grand Rapids (two and a half hours) and rent a car for an easy day-trip.
Don’t forget camping! Leelanau Pines (231-228-5742) and Lake Leelanau RV Park (231-256-7236) are the closest to the shop, but we love D.H. Day in Glen Arbor (231-326-4700) and the Traverse City State Park (231-922-5270). Visit the ‘Campgrounds & RV Parks’ page on Pure Michigan’s website, as well as the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore website.
We suggest thinking about your travel plans now, as it will be the very peak season in Northern Michigan; we’d hate for someone to miss this weekend because they couldn’t find a place to stay.