The Yarn Company

From the lush walls of colorful yarns to the latest fabric design lines, The Yarn Company turns crafting into an art form. The new co-owners and siblings, Tavy and Assaf Ronen, who took over the legendary Upper West Side yarn store this Spring, have created a modern and clean gallery space brimming with creative energy. Small orange trees sit in the windows, flooding the shop with a warm glow, and exposed brick walls create an intimate atmosphere that invites you to touch your way through an array of artisanal products. Specializing in hand-painted indie yarns and fibers, upscale sewing, spinning, weaving, needlepoint and embroidery supplies, the store also features classes for everything from basic knitting and quilting to elaborate finishing and spinning your own yarn from scratch. The newest reincarnation of The Yarn Company will reignite your creative side.

Redesigned by Assaf, a lawyer who built many of the minimalist fixtures himself out of pipes, the store now includes bright airy work space for classes and shows. The result is a space where fiber artists can both show their designs and teach.

The Ronens’ vision is a store that takes its customers’ visions seriously and gives them the tools to realize them. Tavy, a professor of finance with a penchant for haute couture and a love for her sewing machine, says that her concept for the store grows in part out of her Soho, New York childhood: “We were raised in New York in the 70’s and 80’s, when it was Punk New York, Hip Hop New York and Indie Film New York. People with the ‘do it yourself’ ethos of these subcultures exploded into art and dance and fashion. We don’t really believe that art and craft and fashion and real life are separable. Our customers do not knit or sew or embroider or weave to recreate what they see elsewhere. They do it to release their vision.”