Hello!
I'm Cleo (they/she). I'm a knitter, crocheter, weaver, pattern designer, and second-time yarn shop owner. I used to run Cast Away Yarn Shop in Santa Rosa, California with my mom Justine, before I left it in her capable hands in 2020.
Pretty soon after I moved to Brooklyn, I realized the Bushwick/Williamsburg area was in dire need of a yarn store. So using entirely self-funded savings and a lot of physical help from both my entrepreneur parents—a special thank you here to my dad, who has been running a small construction company for all of my life, and helped enormously with the build outs—I opened on a budget and hoped I could eventually grow the business into my dream yarn shop & cafe combo. (Spoiler: I did!)
Our First Location
I first opened in a small space in East Williamsburg in November, 2022, sharing the space briefly with my sibling Griffin who sold & repaired film cameras under the name Heart Breaker Cameras (now online only).
Over the next year and a half the shop's community grew quickly, mainly through hosting craft circles like our still-running Happy Hour (which started out as a Friday evening circle that included a complementary alcoholic drink) and Queer Craft Club (the film photo pictured is the first ever QQC!).
Since the very beginning, the support from Brooklyn's fiber community has been everything to our shop. The kindness, creativity, and engagement from our customers is like nothing I've ever seen. We wouldn't be here without our earliest regulars; a huge thank you to everyone who's been with us since the beginning!
Our Current Bushwick Location
In the summer of 2024 my growing (but still scrappy) team and I moved the shop to a much larger space in Bushwick. That's also when we expanded to open the cafe inside the shop!
Over the next year and a half, the shop grew into far more than I ever imagined. We now operate with a team of 7+ employees and host our Happy Hour Craft Circle three evenings a week (now with $5 off a drink from the cafe). We ship our products all over the country, regularly organize fundraisers for causes we care about, and offer scholarship tickets so anyone who can’t afford it can still attend our classes. We also run a completely free yarn and craft supply library, with donations arriving from around the country. During our busiest season, we teach 20+ classes and welcome around 3,000 people each month to shop and craft with us!
New Second Location in Ridgewood
In the spring of 2026, mainly motivated by the desire to be able to bring my dog to work with me every day, I decided to open a smaller second yarn shop location on the Bushwick/Ridgewood border. This one is sans cafe, so that our dearest health department would allow us to be completely dog-friendly :)
Named after me & my dog, Cleo & Rory's Specialty Yarn Shop will offer a completely different inventory than our larger location. I will also offer individualized instruction in small weekly group classes in this shop, teaching nearly every yarn & craft technique there is to anyone who wants to learn.
This location will be opening on Friday, April 17th, 2026!
Visit Us!
Whether you're a local, just moved to the neighborhood, or in town seeing the sights, we'd love to have you visit one (or both!) of our shops. See our addresses, hours, and more on this page.
If you stop by our Bushwick cafe location you are very likely to meet Jane (they/them, pictured here on the left), who is the manager of the larger shop and without a doubt the best one I could have ever hoped to find. We were friends first, and they started working for me extremely part time not knowing a single thing about yarn. They quickly fell in love with the fiber world and learned everything they could at a rate I have yet to see since. They are the most capable and impressive person I know, and the shop wouldn't be where it is today without them!
If you'd like to stay updated on everything happening at both our shops, follow us on Instagram (@cleosyarnshop), or sign up for our newsletter below!