By: Naomi Gwynn for LOOSENDS
Photos: Liam John
Tuesday May 19, 2026, 5:09pm.
28 degrees, the first hot day following what felt like a never-ending winter. Our 5th in-studio event was just beginning, and after weeks of prep, the team patiently waited to see who’d show up, and if the event would be a success (spoiler alert, it was). After just a few minutes, guests flooded into the newly expanded LOOSENDS studio and storefront. The room was humid and smelt of fresh lilies, with notes of matcha and cedar-wood.
7:22pm. Suddenly the studio is buzzing with action: guests waiting patiently to try Mashukin Matcha’s lavender and coconut flavours, with others browsing the over 600 colours of yarn lining the shelves, while a growing swarm of guests gather around the centre of the room at our workshop table. You see, this wasn’t just an open studio. This time around, we wanted to do something special, so we set up a DIY charm bar where guests could come and learn how to make our original bag charms. Sure, we expected some interest, but we couldn’t have anticipated nearly 100 guests stopping by to make their own charm!
Bennett and Ilana carefully instruct guests how to weave, loop, and knot strands of our reclaimed t-shirt yarn into a new accessory. The crowd’s razor focus is occasionally interrupted by supportive observations and compliments to one another. “Which colours should I pick?”, “does this look right?”, “OMG yours looks so good, I want to make another one!”. With each charm completed, a curious newcomer emerges, eager to attempt their own. The Yarn Soirée is marked by this unique alchemy - a large number of people working independently tied together by a quiet synchronicity - a shared attention towards their craft.
The overwhelming interest in the charm bar came as a surprise. We expected guests to enjoy a freebie and be excited by learning something new, but we didn’t expect to receive so many questions around if and when we would be hosting something like this again, or how overjoyed they were with the experience of making it, which sparked the question: Why was this such a success?
A Craft Renaissance?!
You may have seen the trend of “going analog"’ all over your socials this year. 2026 is seeing a wave of articles, tiktoks, and posts across social media talking about ways to ditch your phone and “go analog”. This trend is not surprising, as we become fatigued with the endless overflow of content, corporations farming us for our data, and ad-free platforms and services becoming flooded with payment options and advertisements, we yearn for a time before constant notifications and never-ending feeds. There is a palpable shift towards hand-made, human experiences. Not only that, but experiences that force us to slow down and take a break from taking in information.
We are feeling a pull towards craft, and it is no wonder, as crafting is known to have significant health benefits including reducing stress, anxiety, and depression, and increasing self-esteem.
In Solitude, Together
It was beautiful to watch so many individuals gather and quietly immerse themselves in a normally quiet and solitary task. Despite doing the task independently, with everyone working on the same task, people were inclined to ask each other for help, and we began to see new friendships blossom.
The DIY activity was an icebreaker that allowed everyone to feel comfortable being silently engaged in their work, taking away the social pressures of being at an event, and instead, creating an environment where you can let your guard down, and DIY a cute craft!
As children, 'parallel play’ is a significant developmental stage and a habitual part of childhood - children frequently engage in recreational play alongside other children, but playing independently with their own objects. As we age into adulthood, we occupy work tasks alongside our coworkers, but how often do we intentionally engage in ‘play’ or recreational pleasure alongside our community?
The Decline of the Third-Space
In our post-pandemic, late-stage capitalist world, our third spaces - to simply exist in community - have largely disappeared. To quote Ruby Peake’s recent Substack article “capitalism doesn’t really know what to do with lingering. It wants transactions…to consume quickly and move on”.
We have lost a sense of being able to exist in public without obligation. We yearn for that feeling of discovery, and curiosity for what could happen should we open ourselves to the world. And we lack the places where this discovery can happen!
Enter the LOOSENDS Studio...
As a small, crochet business with a mission of making the fibre arts more sustainable and accessible - we are actively working to resist these capitalist forces, and foster opportunities to fuel community and expose more people to the joy and benefits of crochet. As our modern world becomes increasingly infiltrated by AI and capitalism, crochet is an especially unique rebellion and distinctly human practice - as it cannot be replicated by a machine.
In observing the success of the charm-bar we see larger forces at play. With our studio expansion, and new storefront, we look forward to being able to host more workshops, and creating opportunities for our network of over 340K of you online (WOW!!) to meet, connect, and craft together in person.
Cheers to community, and to slow, intentional practices.
