Spinning a new yarn: With two new yarn shops in downtown Cape Girardeau, a friendly knitting community has taken hold

Knit, purl. Knit, purl.

It's a mantra of sorts for knitters like Dawn Flickinger. They knit for the diligent repetition, the patient creativity and the soothing rhythm that emerges as the yarn slowly caterpillars from one needle to the other and back.

"It's just relaxing," she says. "When you're working on something, it redirects your mind."

She owns the Yearning 4 Yarn shop in downtown Cape Girardeau, a place where knitters (and even the occasional crochet-enthusiast) can come to find some hand-spun alpaca wool yarn, take classes to master new patterns and projects or just come and knit together.

Dawn Flickinger combines together two different types of yarn inside her downtown Cape Girardeau shop, Yearning 4 Yarn. (Laura Simon)

"We call it Sock Sunday," she says. "It's usually anywhere from five to 10 to 20 people, and we all just get together to socialize while we knit. We talk about everything under the sun."

Yearning 4 Yarn is one of two yarn shops that have gotten off the ground within the last year, buoyed by an eager local folk-art community.

After spending 34 years as CFO of an Iowa corporation, Cindy Rittmer moved back to Missouri to be closer to her parents and set up shop in Bilderbach's Art Plaza. She now runs a store called The Tangled Yarn.

"It was a lot of little pieces that just came together," she says. "I love to knit and I love yarn, so when I got to Cape Girardeau and it didn't have a yarn shop, I just jumped in."

Her hunch was spot-on. The knitting community seized the idea of a local yarn shop and the news began percolating around craft markets and online forums such as ravelry.com.

"Business has been going really good," she says.

It's been good for Flickinger, too. She started out on the craft fair circuit after buying her first alpaca in 2006, a pregnant female named Jasmine. She was inspired by the knitting presence at the Saturday farmers' market to start her own store.

"I thought, you know, that would just be so cool," she says. "We're finally open on a regular schedule during the week, so I get off my day job and get to come here."

She now has 40 alpacas that she raises with her husband on their ranch in Uniontown, Missouri, the fleece of which is her store's most popular yarn. Her customers place orders for fleece that hasn't even come off the animals yet.

"I couldn't keep my hand-spun in the store. I'm always spinning a new yarn," she says. "The one I'm working on now is already purchased and is going to be made into a sweater."

Both stores offer knitting classes that span all types of crafts and projects, and Rittmer explained that once someone gets the basics down, they can figure out a way to knit just about anything they dream up.

"I had a guy in here not too long ago who knitted himself a pair of mittens with a built-in beer cozy in the palm," she says.

It's an inclusive community, where people are quick to explain things like the finer points of "casting off" and appreciate the little things like good, soft string.

"Once someone gets the basics down, I encourage them to come out to Sock Sunday," says Flickinger.

Rittmer has only one caution: Don't get into knitting unless you're willing to rip it out.

"Regardless of how skilled you are, it's going to happen and you'll have to start a row over," she says.

But true knitters know that it's just a part of knitting's gentle Zen.