The 27-year-old hairstylist can usually find her go-to: Jamieson & Smith, known for the Shetland wool yarns it makes on a Scottish island. But last week, she learned her favorite brand had suspended shipments to the United States because of new import levies.
Washington Post | Knitters snagged by tariffs, as yarn brands pause shipments to U.S.
Share
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Autumn Larosa knows exactly what she’s looking for when she shops for yarn: Heavy enough to knit a warm sweater but light enough for a drapey shawl. Just the right shade of beige or black or purple. No polyester.
“That’s a problem,” said Larosa, who’s partway through a sweater and a shawl, each requiring about 11 balls of yarn, and not sure whether she has enough on hand to finish.
Knitters, crocheters and other yarn enthusiasts are feeling the ripple effects of President Donald Trump’s repeal of a tax exemption for low-value imports. With Friday’s ending of the de minimis rule, parcels worth $800 or less are now subject to an additional 10 to 50 percent levy depending on the tariff rate of the country of origin. But uncertainty over how those charges will be collected prompted more than two dozen national postal services to pause U.S. deliveries.
Now at least a half-dozen European yarn brands — some with intensely devoted U.S. fan bases — have followed suit, leaving crafters with the near-certainty of higher prices, delivery delays and supply issues. Knitting for Olive, a Danish brand with a cult following, suspended direct shipments to U.S.-based customers last week. Undercover Otter of the Netherlands, De Rerum Natura of France and John Arbon Textiles of England did the same.
At Brooklyn General Store — where Larosa eventually chose vibrantly colored yarns from an American company, Spincycle, for an upcoming sock project — owner Catherine Clark wonders whether the higher import costs will put her out of business.
“I’m really into buying American-made. I always have been. But I couldn’t just have an American-made yarn shop. It wouldn’t be sustainable. There isn’t enough,” Clark said. “I’ve been in business for 23 years. I’ve never been this nervous about staying open. I made it through covid.”
The pandemic, in fact, sparked something of a resurgence in knitting and crochet, old-school hobbies that were labeled cool, trendy, calming and even brain-building in the age of Instagram and TikTok. Because such crafters are less likely to buy yarn from large retailers, the loss of de minimis is more acute. According to a survey from the Craft Industry Alliance in May, just 5 percent of yarn shoppers bought from Amazon and 4 percent from big-box stores like Walmart. Instead, 35 percent said they buy online directly from yarn makers, 30 percent shop at independent yarn stores and 18 percent buy from craft chains like Michael’s.
Knitting for Olive co-owner Alexander Larsen said he expects to start shipping again in several weeks, probably by using a commercial carrier instead of the Danish national postal service. He estimates that will double shipping fee for American buyers to about $20, which doesn’t reflect the new 15 percent tariff on the yarn. “It’s a bit terrifying,” he said. “It’s our biggest market.”
At Fibre Space in Alexandria, Virginia, owner Danielle Romanetti has seen a spike in Knitting for Olive orders as customers stock up. Though worried about rising prices, she finds the ambiguity of the duty collection process more challenging. She has been getting tariff invoices for products after delivery. “We don’t even see bills for days or a week” after the yarns are already on the shelf, she said.
At Woolyn in Brooklyn, owner Rachel Maurer was grateful a Turkey-based supplier paid the import fee on a recent delivery. “A yarn I’m selling for $30 now, if I have to charge $45, they’re not going to want that,” she said. “If the next order I get, I get hit with a 20 or 25 percent tariff bill, yes, the yarns are going to go up 20 or 25 percent.”
Maurer carefully stocks her one-room storefront with a mix of light and heavy yarns, from different kinds of sheep. “Choosing colors is my superpower,” she said. She won’t buy products with huge tariffs on them but isn’t sure what she could replace them with.
$80 for $19 yarn
Companies that suspended shipments also know their shoppers — who already are being more choosy about discretionary spending in a time of rising prices — will quickly notice any delivery delays or cost increases. The craft alliance survey also found that 60 percent of knitters say they knit every day, and more than 90 percent knit at least once a week.
The company that Larosa favors, Jamieson & Smith, buys 80 percent of the wool produced in the Shetland Islands, the windy northern Scottish isles — about 250 tons a year to turn into yarn. Staffer Ella Gordon said the islands’ climate has produced sheep with a sticky, windproof wool perfect for the Fair Isle patterns invented in the region, which require yarn of two colors to stay clearly differentiated from each other, and for a method known as “steeking” that asks knitters to cut into their fabric without the whole thing unraveling.
“Wool from Shetland is different from wool from anywhere else,” Gordon said. “It creates the perfect wool for what it’s used for.” Though saddened to tell American customers that the company won’t ship to them for the time being, she’d otherwise risk having packages with unpaid duties turned back at the U.S. border.
Aiden Sielias, who dyes yarn in the Netherlands under the brand name Undercover Otter, stopped selling to the U.S. when the Dutch postal service stopped shipments. Commercial carriers like FedEx are too expensive, Sielias said.
Sielias makes brightly colored yarns with such names as “Clowncore” that often are inspired by American pop culture — like horror movies — and sometimes speak more to American audiences than Dutch ones. About 40 percent of Undercover Otter sales are to the United States.
Sielias said a skein of yarn that currently costs $19 could be nearly $80 for American buyers with tariffs and shipping costs. They worry they’ll go out of business without the U.S. market. “If I let myself panic, I’ll be in full panic mode,” Sielias said.
Sonja Bargielowska, director of John Arbon Textiles in Britain, said the U.S. represents about 40 percent of its business. But those sales have been falling since Trump began announcing tariffs weeks into his presidency.
“The moment that people hear it is going to be harder, in their heads, it is already harder,” she said.
New levies are ‘painful’
The Uruguay-based brand Malabrigo makes one of the most popular yarns in the world, according to the craft site Ravelry. The tariff for importing the brand from Peru, a hub of global yarn manufacturing, to the company’s Miami distribution center has been “painful,” owner Tobias Feder said, though the company has not yet raised prices. About 70 percent of Malabrigo yarn is sold in the United States.
Feder said he understands why Trump imposed the tariffs to foster domestic manufacturing. (Late Friday, a federal appeals court struck down most of Trump’s tariffs, saying he overstepped his authority in using emergency economic powers to impose them on nearly every country. The levies were left in place pending the administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court.)
“Let me tell you this. We do business with a lot of countries — other countries are not easy. The U.S. is a very easy country to do business with,” he said, describing the paperwork and regulations that make it harder for him to sell products in Europe. “If I were a U.S. manufacturer, I would be very upset about how easy it is to bring product into the U.S.”
But many craft experts are skeptical that the restrictions on foreign-made yarn will be a boost to American producers.
Anne Costley, left, knits socks in a class at Purls of Wisdom yarn shop in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. (Julie Weil/The Washington Post)
Jennifer McKay, who owns two yarn stores outside Philadelphia, said she tried to “get on the bandwagon” of supporting American-made yarn in response to the tariffs. She flew to California to tour a business. Stickers on her store shelves highlight locally made yarns.
“This is local. I’ve seen these animals. It’s great,” she said, pointing out yarn made from Pennsylvania alpacas’ wool at her shop Purls of Wisdom in Phoenixville. But then she shrugs. She holds the Pennsylvania product in one hand, a South American-made yarn of the same cream color in the other. She invites a customer to feel the difference — the American yarn’s texture is far less smooth.
A sock-knitting class was starting up in McKay’s shop, and the knitters were lining up their needles, chatting about what they were making. Anne Costley said the higher costs won’t change her choices, as she pulled her sea-green socks with blue toes out of her bag.
“I look at the quality of the yarn. I look at the colors. I look at how it feels,” she said. “I’m not going to buy something else. I’m going to want what I want.”