A yarn shop in Park Slope, Brooklyn is seeing a boom in business as many people turned to crafting during the pandemic.

During the pandemic, Shawn Merchant decided to learn how to knit.

"I think there's something about these times that are tapping into certain people to get back into the simple things,” says Merchant, a customer of String Thing Studio.

However, he says not just any store would do.

"I said, ‘is this a Black-owned knitting shop?’ And the person that was on the phone which I take it was Felicia at the time said, ‘yes,’” says Merchant.

Felicia Eve flirted with the idea of opening this kind of business for decades. The mother of three finally opened the doors of String Thing Studio three years ago.

There was a boom in business right before the shelter in place order was put in place

"We jokingly started saying, ‘are you coming to get your pandemic project?’ because companies were sending their employees home, and our regular knitters were like ‘I'm working from home so I'm going to come in and get a bunch of yarn so I can knit because Zoom meetings are the perfect time to knit,’” says Eve.

In-person shopping was not allowed until July, but during that time she relied heavily on website orders and even social media.

Eve says customers are slowly returning to the 7th Avenue shop. She says she is starting to organize gatherings in the shop backyard or nearby parks for people to socialize at a safe distance.