In the town of Cedar, MI, there’s a store called Wool and Honey. They sell (wait for it…) wool. And honey. And also alpaca fiber and other things, but you get the idea.
We first found this place while taking part in the West Michigan Yarn Quest, where you travel around the state visiting yarn stores. It always happens at a very pleasant time of year, Michigan is always beautiful, and the yarn stores are always calming.
Cedar is a really small town, and I was surprised that a yarn store could survive in a town that small. But they do very well, and part of it is due to The Sleeping Bear Yarn Club. Named for the nearby Sleeping Bear Dunes, each month the folks at Wool and Honey take a photo of something local to Northwest Michigan and have a custom dye lot made to match the photo.
Then people are signed up to the club for anywhere from $39.99 – $538.89 per month, and the yarn is mailed to them with a custom pattern. We live close enough that we just go to the store, which is nice, because the ice cream place across the street makes a mean Boston Cooler.
They have quite a few people signed up, which is a delightful set of recurring revenue from outside the town, bringing money and foot traffic into the community.
I was curious where they get the photos for the club, and they said people just submit them. So I sent one in and linked to my WordPress Photos profile. They didn’t like the one I sent, but they picked another, this one, and here’s the yarn and pattern they made.
The photo is of a poppy. and is taken in front of my house. The poppies were planted by Cate’s grandmother many years ago.
This is the photo and yarn for June 2026, and I’m delighted to have my photo be a part of it.
