It seemed like disaster in December when, following news of rising rent prices and a new development planned for the area, West Vancouver’s beloved Knit & Stitch Shoppe announced it would be shutting its doors for good.
The hordes of women who had congregated inside the shop over the decades knitting and spinning yarns would have to find a new place to clack their needles, and Ingrid Mutsaerts, the shop’s owner, would have to wave goodbye to a business that belonged to her family since 1971.
Only now it seems there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The sudden intervention of one saving grace: West Van’s St. Stephen’s Anglican Church.
“I knew of the shop for years and years, and I knew how busy it was, so when I saw the story that they were unceremoniously getting kicked out, I thought, well, what is she going to do now?” said the church’s office administrator Trish Schonbrun.
Wanting to do anything she could to help, Schonbrun offered Mutsaerts the church’s lounge to host a weekly knitting club. It would be dubbed “Holy Knitters.”
The club’s inaugural session took place last week, and Schonbrun suspects it won’t be too long before the church is filled with dozens of chit-chatting, knitting ladies just like the shop once was.
With many of the parishioners avid knitters themselves, who are “quite tickled by the fact there’s a new knitting club” in town, Mutsaerts could even expect a higher turnout than all her packed previous years, said Schonbrun.
“We’re hoping that with word of mouth we’ll get it out there so that she can continue with her business, even in a small way.”
The charitable church isn't the only group to offer a helping hand. Mutsaerts said she has also received requests from other businesses, including The Bakehouse in Dundarave, to host their very own pop-up knitting clubs.
Another kind Samaritan, unknown to Mutsaerts but devastated to hear the community would be facing disbandment, hopes to help the store owner live out her dream of taking her Knit & Stitch shop on the road.
He’s offered her his van at a far cheaper price than the going rate, and will replace the engine, tires and windshield himself so Mutsaerts can be up and running with her mobile business by the end of March.
“The response has just been amazing. You don’t really know how much you’re loved until something like this happens,” said Mutsaerts.
“The whole knitting community, from UBC all the way to White Rock, were just so unhappy with the news the shop was closing. People have been emailing me to tell me that I changed their life, and that shop gave them somewhere to come to because they were in dire straits.”
Mutsaerts said she hopes to visit her large and scattered knitting community as soon as she is able, but until then, knitters can kick back with a brew and a ball of yarn right here in West Vancouver. Every Thursday, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m, in the lounge of one very generous church.
Mina Kerr-Lazenby is the North Shore News’ Indigenous and civic affairs reporter. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.
