Whether you ran a business, ran a family, or ran your own darn life, 2024 was one for the record books.
You can see year-in-review events for the world in many places; you can click here for the Time Magazine year-in-review, and you can see the best photos of 2024 here.
Our year in review for DKA is meant to be a light-hearted look at our silly year at the yarn store. We are thrilled you were a part of it.
January
In January, we invested in something very important to us.
Sandwich Board Chalk!!!
We have so much fun with our sandwich boards. It’s a team effort. All of us participate!
Some of our most popular?
#1 Most Viewed Reel on Instagram had 23 million views (WHAT?!)
“I might never buy yarn again. I might win the lottery. The odds are about the same.”
#2 Most Viewed Reel on Instagram had 15.9 million views!
“Not many people know that Yoda had a last name, it’s Layheehoo”
One of our most favorite…
“I wonder if somewhere, there is a ball of yarn just thinking about me too?”
A fan favorite, for after the Yarn Shop Hop!
“Don’t think if all the yarn I brought home, think of all the yarn I let the stores keep!”
FEBRUARY
We celebrated February with Sweater Camp! Another great event. Fun was had by all:)
In addition to our 211 campers who come in person to Stillwater. We also had 56 campers participate in our Virtual camp!
How great is this DKA Sweater Camp Sweater that our long time friend Pamela made??!!
My favorite photo from camp, is this one. This one of Brienne.
Brienne Moody joined us in 2024. She is a knitwear designer who lives in Grand Marais. She designed a sweater that was in the book Neons and Neutrals, by Aimee Gille of La Bien Aimee yarn.
What a joy to catch this moment for Brienne. She was listening to Aimee Gille, FROM PARIS, talk about her lovely sweater and the process of choosing HER design. You can see the pride in her face and I love it so much!
It’s hard to break through as a designer in this environment. Search for a sweater pattern on Ravelry and the same 6 designers come up time and time again. We loved giving her patterns some attention at camp. Brienne is joining us again this year and we can’t wait to see her.
Click here to see all of Brienne’s designs.
MARCH
Remember the solar eclipse?!!
We gave away hundreds of eclipse glasses with every purchase in preparation for the big event.
Team DKA was ready!
In March we participated in the Knit for Food Knit-A-Thon. You helped us raise over $5,600! We can’t wait for next year.
In March, Emily earned megaphone privileges.
APRIL
In April, we removed Emily’s megaphone privileges.
In April we also welcomed over 1200 people to the shop for the MN Yarn Shop Hop.
We love this event so much and are planning for 2025 as we speak.
Save the date for 2025! April 3 – 6th.
This would be a great time to visit MN:)
Click here to read more about the MN Yarn Shop Hop!
MAY
Team DKA had spaghetti dinner on the Historic Lift Bridge in May. So much fun!
See the reel on instagram here.
In May we all stared up at the sky for a few nights to oogle over the Northern Lights.
It was pretty cool. We all shared photos of our roofs:)
I received my first pair of overalls as a gift for my birthday in May too!
Wow, May was a big month:)
JUNE
In June we hosted 450 people on 3 Knit the River cruises.
So. Many. Overalls!!
Tickets for our 2025 cruises go on sale in February! Click here to see the dates and plan your trip!
We participated in our very first Tour de Fleece with Team DKA!
I said to Carroll and Carly. “Let’s go for it, how many people could we possibly get with such short notice?”
We had well over 80 spinners join the fun. Shows you what I know:)
See the first day on Instagram here.
JULY
This summer, we had a lovely customer come into the shop for the first time. She was traveling and made sure to come to her favorite “local” yarn store. She isn’t actually “local” but we ship packages to her often.
She introduced herself and we welcomed her as usual. She basically said, “yeah yeah, you ladies are great and all, but I really came to meet Tom”. We made the meeting happen, she left with yarn, a photo, and a smile:)
In July we shipped to every state in the US with the help of our first ever Dog Days of DKA.
This is Tom, post-shipping, pre-cocktail!
AUGUST
In August my planters die. That’s just what happens. I’m ok with it.
In August I started walking 10,000 steps a day.
By August 29th I was in a walking boot. Aging ain’t for the faint of heart.
SEPTEMBER
We hosted our first annual Sheep to Something event in September. It was legit, we had an announcer and everything! If you’ve got 10 minutes to kill, click here for the announcements of the teams on Instagram.
We had 2 teams of spinners, knitters and crocheters competing! The competition? Prep fleece, spin yarn, knit or crochet something in the 6 hours of the event.
Team Wooly Wonders made a hat, scarf and mitten set!
Team DKA Rockstars made a vest.
What fun!!
Yep, we’ll be doing it again in 2025. Watch your emails!!
OCTOBER
I am sitting here paging through posts about October thinking…what could I possibly write about October.
Then I stumbled on this photo…don’t we look young:)
How could I forget? Darn Knit Anyway turned 15 years old!
We had a fun party complete with some of our favorite yarns over the years, live music, catered bougie appetizers, and memories shared!
Marlo Shark was back this year for Trick or Treat on Main Street.
1000’s of pieces of candy were handed out.
Whew!
NOVEMBER
November was a whirlwind.
Carly made a Find the Alpaca graphic.
Can you find the alpaca?
Don’t follow us yet on Instagram? You should! Find us on Instagram for more of Carly’s games:)
DECEMBER
In December we send out a lot of emails. I warn everyone, because 10 Days of daily emails is a lot.
I love writing these emails and I love getting responses from you. Sometimes you reply with a question or sometimes with a funny memory or review of some product or another. Sometimes you tell me how amazing our team is (I always forward those on to the team). Sometimes you tell me how much you love the emails too.
But…10 days of daily emails IS a lot. I get it. Even I get tired.
So when I got this email reply from a customer, on the last day of our 10 Days of DKA, I laughed outloud.
I feel you girl!
FUN FACTS
Thanks again for another crazy, exciting, emotional year of Darn Knit Anyway!
Here are our most popular items of 2024!
Best Selling Book: Knitting Bag of Tricks – Patty Lyons
Honorable Mention: Doodle Knit Directory – Jamie Lomax
Best Selling Notion: Silicone Stitch Stoppers
Honorable Mention: Notion Nooks
Most popular yarn: Malabrigo Rios
Honorable Mention: Uptown Worsted
Most popular Makers League Kit: Not even close, the Emotional Support Chicken!
Interesting things:
1089 tickets were sold for our Knit the River Cruises!
2430 vinyl stickers were sold this year!
118 students learned to knit with us!
2775 students joined us for a class or event in the lounge in 2024!
1032 Mayana Mini Chocolate Bars!! YUMMMMMM
Here’s to another fun-filled year at Darn Knit Anyway!