This weekend is LYS Day 2023, an online and in-person weekend-long event that celebrates community, yarn…and includes a surprise box with TWO free gifts inside.
While LYS Day began as a way for customers to support their neighborhood bricks-and-mortar store, there are so many of you who consider us your local shop, even though you might be hundreds of miles away‑‑and we can’t thank you enough. We are here because you are here.
Small, independent companies‑‑often owned and operated by just one brave soul‑‑are the chapters that give every yarn shop’s story its Life, and LYS Day is meant to honor them, too.
This weekend’s featured stories include:
-the Colosseum Socks by local designer Sophie Sparling, knit with Kelbourne Woolens Perennial and Perennial Minis
–a cozy box that includes yarn, a pattern, wool wash and TWO free gifts (plus multiple add-on options)
AND
double punches all weekend long
(both in-store and online)
The shop will be open from 10 am to 5 pm on Friday, April 28th, 9 am to 4 pm on Saturday, April 29th and from 11 am to 4 pm on Sunday, April 30th for local yarn lovers‑‑we hope you’ll stop in to celebrate this community together.
Each dollar is worth two on our frequent customer punch card, both in-store and online: our way of saying thank you for your devoted, loyal support.
Can’t make it to see us in person? We have plenty of love to share with our not-so-local locals‑‑keep reading for more.
While Life swirls in a maelstrom around us, we are looking‑‑always looking‑‑for a steady patch of ground. Finding center is a daily (hourly!) goal. Oftentimes tiny moments of reprieve are all we can manage, but we collect those times like precious jewels. The smallest things‑‑done with intention‑‑can infuse an otherwise mundane task with joy. The ritual of striking a match to light a small votive candle. Taking ten minutes to truly breathe. Filling a kettle with fresh water and listening to the water boil. Picking up smooth needles to stitch a few silent rounds before the rest of the world wakes up. We heard recently that ‘happiness is not the absence of problems, it is the ability to deal with them’. How wise. How true. May we learn to take better care of our selves, even in small ways (perhaps especially those!), so that we are better prepared for the waves that eventually tumble over us.
For LYS Day, we wanted to create a box to send you some of the same little comforts we aim to incorporate into our daily lives. One of the shop’s long-standing patterns, the Bee Cozy, is an old fashioned household tool that we reach for more often than we ever imagined. Portable, practical and incredibly low-tech, slip on a little Aran sweater, fill this vessel with hot water and it becomes the grown-up version of a child’s blankie‑‑you might just want to take it everywhere. Tuck it in between the sheets on cold winter nights, wedge it behind your back after a day of heavy lifting, cradle it to your abdomen to ease your cramps. The mini pods of Eucalan‑‑one each in Jasmine, Eucalyptus, Pink Grapefruit and Unscented‑‑are fortified with lanolin for no fuss, no-rinse fiber washing. Light this honey-scented beeswax candle‑‑a gift from us‑‑as you knit, spin, read or navigate a tough time; please know that you are never, ever alone. The little pink book, a handwritten and illustrated guide to finding happiness‑‑or at least trying to, is another gift. Of course we understand there is no simple path or real treatise to Happiness, but adding tiny moments of Joy into daily ritual is a very good first step.
What’s inside the box? This package includes one skein of Kelbourne Woolens Lucky Tweed, a Bee Cozy pattern, a set of four mini Eucalan wool washes and TWO free gifts‑‑a Midwest-made beeswax votive candle and a ‘zine about Happiness from Michigan artist Kristen Drozdowski. Even better? Shipping is included.
And. You know how we looooove options, yes? The pattern can be knit on its own with just one strand of Lucky Tweed, but you can add a strand of mohair for next-level softness without changing the pattern or gauge. Need the actual hot water bottle rubber insert? You can add either a skein of silk mohair OR the hot water bottle‑‑or BOTH!‑‑to your box.
The colors–for the main yarn and the optional mohair–will be a surprise and almost every single box will be different, but we think that’s a huge part of the fun. Not just for you when your box arrives, but as you start knitting; a few rounds in and the magic begins!
Find the Little Comforts Box HERE.
Emma from Coates & Co. was one of our featured makers during Small Business Saturday in 2022‑‑we loved her mini skein bundles in bright, fun colors. This Spring, we wanted to bring in full skeins of her smooth, tonal sock yarn for larger projects.
Cottage Sock is a 4-ply sock yarn made from superwash merino wool blended with recycled nylon. Each color is dyed by hand in small batches. The colors are layered during the dyeing process to create bright, saturated colorways.
Find Coates & Co. Yarn HERE.
Question: Is there any project better suited for Spring than socks? Answer: Hardly! These darling socks are knit from the top down, featuring a simple steely gray base which highlights kicky heels and toes, a picot cuff and a gorgeous vertical motif at the ankles‑‑reminiscent of the great columns of the Colosseum.
Sophie Sparling is a local high school senior, dipping her toes into knitwear design in her spare time, and it is an honor to feature her first published design on LYS Day. She knit this sample with one skein of Kelbourne Woolens Perennial in ‘Lead’ + two skeins of Kelbourne Woolens Perennial Minis.
Find the Colosseum Socks HERE.
Open Stitch Saturdays
10 am to 12 pm ET
Sitting and creating with you on Saturday mornings…it’s what we DO.
Join us every Saturday morning as we sit and drink caffeinated beverages and knit (or crochet/spin/stitch/weave!) together.
After almost three full years of in-person stitching on hiatus, we’re so happy to say we are back to hosting our Open Stitch IN PERSON. Come sit and stitch with us‑‑the more, the merrier.
We have our online stitch circle, too‑‑we have no intention of EVER disbanding!‑‑and we’re in the process of figuring out how to combine the two so we can all stitch together.
JOIN US HERE.
Meeting ID: 835 6727 2501
(In the event that the link itself isn’t working, head to Zoom’s home page, enter meeting ID: 835 6727 2501 and you should be able to get right in.)