We love to work with our shops and to hear about our shop's events! We are so excited about our most recent collaboration with a store because we're working with a cat!
Ms Tillie is the cat of Sewickley Yarns in Sewickley Pennsylvania and she is the inspiration for a custom colourway hand-dyed by Taiu. Ms Tillie is well loved and known by all that come into the shop. Her beautiful icy blue eyes and grey, white and cream fur are the inspiration for the speckled colourway that is Koigu's Ms Tillie.
The Ms Tillie colourway will be kicked off at the Steel Valley Yarn Crawl that Sewickley Yarns is participating in. The owners of the shop told us more:
"Sewickley Yarns participates every year in the Steel Valley Yarn Crawl: it is an event that the local yarn stores collaborate on and it runs from August 3 through August 12 this year. The event showcases 11 local stores in the Pittsburgh region: we all carry different stock and have a different focus. The event draws several hundred participants and many people make the trip out to Western Pennsylvania to take part. Participants visit all the stores, have chances to win prize baskets with some wonderful knitting and crocheting yarns and accessories. Everyone gets a great project bag and a free pattern for participating.
Our store is known for, among other things, our huge selection of Koigu fingering weight- we have a display that we call our Koigu Bar- all the choices that you could possible want in a rainbow of great colors. (We may be the only purveyor of Koigu in Western Pennsylvania- I think we have the largest selection of Koigu, at least). You have done a custom color for us before and when we were at TNNA we decided to get another color for the Yarn Crawl this year. We have a beautiful cat, Ms.Tillie, a Ragdoll cat that has recently become a member of our household, whose colors are very neutral and subtle- we thought that these colors would be a perfect inspiration for a custom colorway for the Yarn Crawl. As usual, Taiu has created a beautiful reflection of Ms. Tillies look- and our customers will be adding this special skein to their collections for sure!"
Shop owner, Robin, loves her cat very much and said, "I know that cat stories about other people’s cats are pretty tedious... but here is Ms. Tillie’s story:
Ms. Tillie is about 6 years old, and spent her formative years as the resident cat at a small inn on Block Island, Rhode Island. One of our family members, Claire, was assistant manager for 3 summers (the Inn closes in the winter), and they formed a special bond. Ms.Tillie would follow Claire around the property as she went about her daily duties. We had Ms. Tillie the past 2 winters, and this year, because of a change in ownership of the property which did NOT include Ms. Tillie, we have become her permanent family. Ms. Tillie does not like to knit, she does not care about yarn, she won’t sit on anyone’s lap, she is, unfortunately a great huntress, and her spirit animal is Audrey Hepburn. She is sophisticated, beautiful, and knowledgeable, just like our customers! "
