![]() ![]() Self-taught, she grew her collection of spinning wheels as her skills developed. Dascher started with a simple drop spindle before progressing to a small spinning wheel. While she was in Texas, she developed an interest in spinning. “Knitting keeps the connection to my grandmother and that happy past where I spent a lot of time with my grandparents,” she says. It was where her grandmother, Gunda, taught her to knit when Dascher was a child. Her grandparents homesteaded on land in Kingston and she lives there now, settling into the family cabin after moving back to the area from Texas in 2004. “It is a welcoming, comfortable place where people can come and learn about fibers and textures.”ĭascher’s roots in the North Kitsap area run deep. ![]() “This is more than a yarn shop,” she explains. Outfitted with overstuffed chairs, lamps, strings of white fairy lights and a spinning wheel, the space encourages the conviviality of an old-time knitting circle. The space is often shared with Dascher’s two friendly shop dogs, graceful whippets named Grace and Semillon. To the left of the store’s woodstove, often lit on colder days, is a cozy nook, the domain of anyone who wants to sit for a spell to knit or crochet, or peruse the piles of reference books stacked on the floors and shelves. Among the array of fibers are baskets of exotic buttons, handmade wool-felted hats and piles of well-used books: “The Principles of Knitting,” “The Tapestry Handbook” and Vogue’s knitting patterns. Skeins of richly hued yarns in a wide variety of textures and weights, batts and felts are displayed in baskets and bowls and draped from decorative branches and racks, all artistically arranged for visual and tactile appeal. If you have never considered picking up a pair of knitting needles and casting on for a knit or purl stitch, The Artful Ewe will inspire you to learn how. Inside, visitors discover what the store’s loyal following of knitters, weavers and spinners already know - it’s an idyllic wonderland for both experienced and wannabe fiber artists. On sunny days, the front walkway is decorated with plants and chairs inviting customers to sit in the shade of the water towers and the surrounding elm trees, originally planted from cuttings shipped from New England. A sign declaring peace graces the entrance. The windows in front of the low-slung, colonial red building display a Black Lives Matter sign and another from the American Civil Liberties Union. The Artful Ewe bills itself as a purveyor of custom-dyed yarns and fibers, but a stroll to and over the store’s threshold and a conversation with Dascher make clear it is far more than that. And inside the shop, owner and artist Heidi Dascher has her own story of metamorphosis. The old meat and vegetable market adjacent to those structures now houses The Artful Ewe, modern-day Port Gamble’s longest-operating business. The two jade-green water towers, historically the source of the company town’s water supply, currently serve as its greeting sentinels. Port Gamble is a community of transformations. ![]()
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