An Upper East Side Yarn Store: Annie & Company

If you have typed "yarn store near me" anywhere north of 86th Street, the answer worth the walk is Annie & Company, at 1763 Second Avenue, on the southwest corner of East 92nd Street. It is a full service needlework shop where knitting and needlepoint share one address, and the store itself says no other place in the city puts both under one roof. Expect deep shelves of natural fibers, a busy class calendar and staff who answer questions without hurrying you.

Annie Goodman opened the shop in 2002, according to a 2022 Cooper Squared profile of Upper East Side needlework communities. Goodman runs community knitting sessions and classes where, in her words, people from all ages and backgrounds come to chat and knit. She told the reporter that her customers range from their teens to their 90s, and that knitters feel they belong to a community. "It makes me feel proud to create a community," she said.

The space grew with that following. When Time Out New York reviewed the shop in 2010, it described a 3,000-square-foot, light-filled store with hand-painted needlepoint canvases on the upper level and a newly expanded ground floor given over to yarn. That split still shapes a visit. Knitters and crocheters head for the yarn wall, while needlepointers browse painted canvases from designers such as Alice Peterson, Raymond Crawford, Patti Mann and The Meredith Collection, all of whom appear in the shop's online catalog.

Finishing is the other half of the business. Annie & Company offers finishing services for both knitting and needlepoint, which means a stitched canvas can come back as a pillow or ornament and a hand-knit piece can be blocked and seamed by people who do it every day.

The shop describes itself as a warm and friendly place where you can sit and stitch your project, and that tone sets the house rules. Bring your work in progress if you need help, since the staff offer one-on-one time alongside formal classes. Keep projects in a bag while you browse so loose ends do not snag on displays, and ask before squeezing open a sealed skein or kit.

Weekday mornings after the 10 am opening are the calmest window for a long conversation about fiber or a pattern problem. Weeknight classes run from 5 pm, and weekend sessions start at 11:30 am, 2 pm or later, so the floor is livelier around those times. Sunday hours disappear in summer, when the store closes on Sundays and reopens them after Labor Day.

Online, because yarn stock is handled by staff rather than a live cart.

The store lists its yarn range by fiber, and the list is long: angora, alpaca, baby suri, bamboo, camel, cashmere, cotton, lambswool, linen, llama, merino, mohair, nylon blends, organic yarns, silk, superwash wool and classic wool. For a first visit, the luxury fibers are the reason to come in person.

Time Out's review singled out Claudia Hand Painted Yarns and Artyarns five-ply cashmere as highlights of the wall, and hand-dyed yarn remains a strong reason to shop here rather than order blind. Needlepointers should look for Planet Earth Wool, the thread the shop supplies for its bargello classes, and for silk and specialty threads from makers such as Tilli Tomas.

Tools get the same attention. The needle selection includes ChiaoGoo Bamboo, Red Lace and Premium Red, and the notions shelf carries Clover ring markers, cable stitch holders and locking markers, Susan Bates Knit Check gauges and Chibi darning needle sets. A practical buy for beginners is a set of Clover locking markers plus a ChiaoGoo circular in the size your first pattern calls for.

The Fall 2026 schedule runs from September through December, and classes cost $95 to $285 each. Groups are tiny, with a minimum of two and a maximum of five students, and students must be at least 15 years old.

Beginner Knitting is a two-session course at $150 covering cast on, knit and purl stitches, reading a pattern and binding off. The shop supplies two skeins of worsted yarn, needles and a pattern. Intermediate Knitting, at $175, turns those skills into a striped hat knit in the round with color changes and decreases. Further along, there are sessions on cables, brioche, fixing mistakes and a top-down raglan sweater taught on a mini ornament.

Crocheters get Beginner Crochet, Tunisian crochet, granny squares and an intermediate hat class, plus seasonal projects such as snowflakes under the Handmade Holidays banner. The needlepoint track starts with continental and basketweave stitches and climbs to bargello, a six-square sampler and an ornament stitch-along on an exclusive Raymond Crawford canvas. When a class asks you to bring supplies, the store sells them to students at 20 percent off.

Two policies matter. Cancel at least 72 hours before the first session for a refund or store credit, and arrive on time, since students more than 15 minutes late without notice cannot join.

Annie & Company sits in a part of Yorkville that rewards a slow loop on foot. Head one long block west to Lexington Avenue and you reach 92NY, the cultural center founded in 1874 as the Young Men's Hebrew Association. It has occupied the corner of East 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue since 1900, and its current Art Deco tower dates to 1929 and 1930.

Turn east instead and walk toward East End Avenue to reach Carl Schurz Park. The park holds Gracie Mansion, built in 1799 and the official residence of New York's mayor since 1942. The John Finley Walk, a promenade built over the FDR Drive, runs from East 81st Street to the mansion with views of Hell Gate, the Roosevelt Island Lighthouse and the Triborough Bridge. If you are planning a full day of stitching stops around Manhattan, the Karpo APP can help map the route between shops.

Annie & Company Needlepoint and Knitting is at 1763 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10128, on the southwest corner of East 92nd Street, at ground level.

Hours are Monday to Friday 10 am to 6 pm, Saturday 11 am to 5 pm and Sunday 12 pm to 5 pm. In summer the shop is closed on Sundays.

The nearest subway is the Q train at 96th Street and Second Avenue. The 6 train stops at 96th Street and Lexington Avenue, and the 4 and 5 trains stop at 86th Street and Lexington Avenue. The M15 bus on Second Avenue stops in front of the shop.