Coldwater Lakeside Yarn

Coldwater Lakeside Yarn is owned by the very lovely Cynthia...she too has a story to tell.

"For some reason, my professional training as a lawyer and my passion for the world of fiber seemed to intersect in strange ways. When I graduated from law school in 1983, I didn’t even know how to knit. My dreams of “changing the world” envisioned a very different future than being  the happy owner of Coldwater Lakeside Yarn in Excelsior, Minnesota.  Yet, it wasn’t even 4 months after passing the bar exam that I was in a car accident on a law firm trip and was laid up with a compression fracture in my spine .  After a week of reading and playing solitaire, I turned to my Swedish knitter friend and said “I’m in”.  I cast on a Penny Straker sweater and never looked back!   I was a lawyer and a knitter and while I never knit at the negotiating table, my needles did come out on business trips and at continuing legal education seminars.

In 2001, my world completely changed when my husband died of pancreatic cancer and I left the practice of law to care for my three children---then 7, 4 and 4.   Ah, the soothing click of Addi Turbos and gentle loft of unspun Icelandic wool .    

Two years later as my twins went off to first grade,  I answered an ad for a sales position at my suburban LYS in Chicagoland and my new career was born, albeit humbly.    Picture the scene--  it’s my first day on the job and the legal receptionist from a large health care system where I had acted as senior staff counsel  12 years prior, enters  the shop with her husband.  She introduces me to him as follows:       “[Husband’s Name],   this is Cynthia.  She was my favorite attorney in the office and everyone thought she had such a bright future.”   (Turns to me)   “And now you’re working in a yarn store . . . (pregnant pause) . . .  did you have a breakdown?”

Breakdown?   Nah, but all that had happened allowed me to see my life in a new way.   My 16 year old non-knitting daughter, an old soul in her own right, says “Mom, now your work changes the world one knitter at a time.”  She is right; we are changed by our knitting and our knitting is inspired by change.  My hope is that Coldwater Lakeside Yarn is a place to inspire that change as well as creativity, confidence and camaraderie.  

See you at the Hop!"