Sara Ingle knit her first sweater in 2018. Five years later, she became the owner of Boston Fiber Company, a knitting supplies store in the South End that prides itself on cultivating an inclusive community of knitters.

When Bead and Fiber, the store Ingle previously worked at, shut down in February 2023, she decided to rent the space and buy out the store’s yarn inventory to found her own business. For a while, she and former Bead and Fiber coworker Genevieve Montante were the only employees of the Boston Fiber Company. It now has five employees, two of whom work part-time.

“It’s really come a long way, and we’ve turned into a whole different place,” Montante said.

One of the team’s priorities is making the store a welcoming third space for customers to build relationships. At a seating area in the back — which features colorful couches and a self-serve coffee station — employees teach free knitting lessons and host Sip and Stitch, a bimonthly knitting circle. They also run field trips, book clubs and trunk shows.

Sierra Collins, a scientist at a biotech company, visits the store twice a week and said the knitting circles are a great way to make friends with fellow knitters, especially younger ones. Knitting circles at other stores tend to skew older, but Collins said Boston Fiber Company’s customers are a wider range of ages.

“It’s just a lot of fun to bond over something that everyone likes to do,” Collins said. “This is the first time I’ve ever had any friends who knit.”

Boston Fiber Company moved into its current storefront in October 2023 after eight months of subletting the old location. Longtime customers helped them carry trash bags full of yarn into the new location at 61 Thayer St., which is nestled in the corner of a strip of art galleries, photography studios and another craft store. A cluster of potted plants sits outside the door, and a pride flag hangs from the facade.

To get the new storefront ready, Ingle’s dad installed pegboards to hold yarn, and Montante’s friends painted a mural of wavy patterns on a wall inside. Ingle enjoys updating decorations and reorganizing the inventory, though she said some customers get playfully annoyed at the changing layout. Knitted projects from employees and customers stand on several mannequins throughout the store.

“We have such a strong community,” Ingle said, adding that the three other employees besides Montante were all “friends of the store” before she hired them, and sometimes, frequent customers will “babysit” the store when no employees are available to work the checkout counter.

Boston Fiber Company prioritizes Massachusetts- and New England-made yarn. They also sell yarn made from New England sheep’s wool because many knitters traveling to Boston like to take home skeins from local sheep breeds as souvenirs.

Jordyn Hanover, a clinical project manager, is a customer who frequently attends Sip and Stitch and the store’s yarn crawls. She loves Boston Fiber Company’s yarn collection and calls it the “epitome of ‘shop local.’”

Their variety of yarn attracts a diverse range of people, from passionate long-time knitters interested in hand-spun local yarn to beginners looking for the cheapest string available. 

Collins said non-knitters typically only know about the most popular yarns that are available at large retailers like Michaels, but there is a “whole other world of higher quality yarn.”

Boston Fiber Company and its suppliers are “preserving the artisan stuff, stuff that is not mass produced,” Collins said.

Hanover joked that knitting and collecting yarn were two different hobbies, and Boston Fiber Company conveniently facilitates both. She likes to know who dyed each skein and where it came from because “it’s not just a skein of yarn — it’s a memory.”

She has made plenty of memories thanks to Boston Fiber Company. She and a group of women who met at the knitting circle took a trip to Iceland in early 2025 — and wore matching hats that Hanover knitted to look like the northern lights.

While Montante said the store prioritizes providing a range of different prices, it does not compromise sustainability for price. Acrylic yarn is the cheapest kind because it is a synthetic, plastic-based fiber, and Boston Fiber Company only sells skeins made from recycled acrylic. The store turns to secondhand yarn for the cheaper end of its inventory.

Since Ingle took over from an established business, she already had a clientele and suppliers. But becoming the owner still came with a huge learning curve, as Ingle did not attend business school and needed to learn how to manage inventory and lead a team on the job.

“I love neons, so that’s what I bought when we opened. It turns out what sells well is neutrals,” she said. “It’s been a learning process, when to buy things, what to buy, colors to pick out — having more of a vision, less chaos.”

Over the years, she and Montante have cultivated close relationships with their local suppliers. After years of sourcing from hand-dyer McKenna Clement, who owns dying company Honey & Quill, Ingle hired her as an in-house dyer. She and Ingle collaborate to create collections of yarn unique to Boston Fiber Company.

The store also features other suppliers at the annual Boston Fiber Festival, which it started after noticing a lack of yarn-related events in the city. The festival had 10 vendors when it was founded three years ago. In 2025, it had almost 40, making it one of the largest yarn-vending events in Boston.

“I’m very thankful for the community of people that have found us,” Montante said. “We’re happy to be here.”