By Helen Karakoudas
Special to the Rock River Current
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ROSCOE — In an era when many communities don’t have any brick-and-mortar stores for specialty needlework supplies, this Winnebago County village of 10,800 now has two.
Bee Youtiful Sip and Stitchery softly opened at 11447 Second St. on Thursday. The new 1,450-square-foot shop is less than a mile from the region’s only other cross-stitch shop: Just One More Stitch, at 1714 Main St.
Bee Youtiful Sip and Stitchery, curated with supplies for the form of hand embroidery known as cross-stitch, is a passion project turned side venture for local chiropractor Brett Casanova-Rini.
“It’s such a big thing that we enjoy,” Casanova-Rini said of the growing community of people she’s found who sit back and, block by block, follow symbols on graphs to recreate designs on fabric that’s made in such a way you can count through it with little x-marks of colorful thread.
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When others were turning to bread baking, knitting and crochet during the COVID-19 pandemic, she dove into counted cross-stitch, the pastime her grandmother had taught her. “I had some stress, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll give this a whirl. And it’s like she always said, that was her best therapy.”
The fun and relaxation Casanova-Rini discovered carried over to her husband, Chris Rini, head of nearby Roscoe Chiropractic Centre, where she and her mother, Janet Casanova — the third chiropractor in the family — work. After the pandemic lockdowns, the couple took a cross-stitch cruise to the Caribbean. On their return, Casanova-Rini began organizing cross-stitch meetups at their office. For her mom, who says she doesn’t find the counting of cross-stitch relaxing anymore, Casanova-Rini hunted down projects where crosses are already marked on the fabric.
Channeling her passion for the pastime into a business was meant to be years in the future, according to Casanova-Rini: a retirement project. “And then (Chris) said to me one day, ‘Let’s just do it now.’”
In late March, as the concept for Bee Youtiful Sip and Stitchery took shape, the couple got the keys to space that was a law office. The shop is to the right of MeMe’s Upscale Consignment Boutique and just north of VFW Post 2955.
Since then, they’ve refreshed the shop’s three rooms and one long hallway with new flooring, paint, and shelving that Rini built.
‘A place to get together’
Much like walking into a home with a thoughtfully appointed foyer, you see framed heirlooms on one side — pieces cross-stitched by Alma Hockman, Casanova-Rini’s grandmother — and a place to stow your things on the other side. Organization underscores everything here. Not only are there notions and accessories to buy so you can keep your supplies in order, there’s also an array of cubbies where you can lock up bags and keys while shopping.
Or while stitching and sipping.
There’s no pressure to buy here. The sun-drenched front room is a place where people can gather around a table and share conversation as they work on their latest (or rediscovered) projects — wherever the supplies were bought. A hutch with specialty teas sits against one wall.
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No charge for the tea, nor the fancy paper cups holding it. This room will be used for classes, which Casanova-Rini plans to offer every month. Mostly, though, it’s for fellowship.
“During COVID, people had to sit at home and stitch by themselves,” she said during a tour of the shop on Tuesday. “It’s nice now to have a place to get together and meet and enjoy our stitching community. And we don’t look at the back, because everybody gets so worked up about it. Who cares about the back? I want to see what the front looks like.”
If you’d like to start a project here, you can buy a pre-packaged kit that includes the pattern, fabric and thread (floss, if you want to be in-the-know about the proper term). The most expensive pre-packaged kit is $39.
You also can buy supplies separately, using a pattern as a guide and then having the option to change up the fabric and the floss colors. You can buy these supplies all at once, or pace yourself. Again, there’s no pressure.
One person who chose the kit option is Chris Rini.
“Since my wife is so invested in this, and I see the beautiful patterns that come out of it, I thought, ‘Hey, what the heck?’” Rini said.
He finished his first project in less than a month while they were setting up the shop. He noted this is something heart surgeons do to keep their hands nimble. Rini was happy to learn that football great Rosey Grier enjoyed the related art of needlepoint so much, he wrote a book about it.
Proud of her husband’s progress, Casanova-Rini documented it on Facebook.
“I usually stitched at night,” Rini said. “Now I’ve started stitching in the morning, before work even. It helps me focus and quiet my mind.”
‘A boutique experience’
Charted patterns are in binders on a bookshelf, each stored in a sleeve. In addition to two full lines of cotton embroidery floss — one a specialty line from Japan with over 500 colors — Bee Youtiful Sip and Stitchery stocks full lines of hand-dyed and overdyed cotton floss. Specialty lines of metallics and beads are also available for accents. An embellishment pack for one of the more involved patterns is $99.50.
Fabrics include assorted solid colors of cotton and cotton-blend fabrics for beginner and intermediate stitchers, and linen, often the preference for advanced stitchers. In addition, Bee Youtiful specializes in stocking hand-dyed versions of these fabrics, where the variations in how the cloth takes the dye make for dramatic background effects when the project is worked up.
Every piece of fabric sold here comes with the edges serged — a specialty-shop flourish so that you don’t have to sweat machine-stitching or taping edges to keep them from fraying.
“My goal is to have this be a boutique experience for an approachable, affordable skill,” Casanova-Rini said. “You can make beautiful things that last for generations, and you can use them to decorate your house.”
She stocks finishing supplies and plans to offer finishing classes. For work in progress, there are project bags made by a textile artist in Rockford.
Roscoe: A stitching destination
The opportunity to seek out a new brick-and-mortar shop with cross-stitch supplies is much appreciated by people who love this and related arts, and want to see and feel the materials they’ll be devoting their time to using.
When Casanova-Rini recently announced on Facebook that her fledgling online business was coming soon to a brick-and-mortar location in Roscoe, one woman in northwest Ohio commented that she would make the 5½-hour drive.
“There are more people embroidering now. What has changed largely is how they obtain their materials,” Lamora Haidar, an observer of the needlework supply business for over 20 years, said in an email. Haidar is the founder of Access Commodities, a Texas-based importer, manufacturer and distributor of higher-end materials for decorative handwork. Bee Youtiful Sip and Stitchery will be the first shop in the Rockford region to carry goods from this supplier, a company known for its French silk threads.
Haidar confirmed the number of brick-and-mortar shops in the U.S. has significantly dropped over the last two decades as online retailers have increased. She added one point: “The largest number of shops that closed are cross-stitch-focused.”
In 2012, a cross-stitch-focused shop in Rockford closed. The Needle and I had been in business for 37 years. The region’s only other cross-stitch shop, Just One More Stitch, is less than a mile from Bee Youtiful.
Casanova-Rini sees only plusses.
“It’s like a restaurant,” she said. “When you go here, there’s another restaurant. Maybe I’ll try that restaurant.”
Haidar echoed the same thought: “More shops in close proximity means more interest from people who live outside of Roscoe to make it a destination to visit because there are two stores.”
About | Bee Youtiful Sip and Stitchery
The grand opening of Bee Youtiful Sip and Stitchery will be Saturday, May 11, with festivities,
food and giveaways.
Where: 11447 Second St., Suite 5, Roscoe (Next to MeMe’s Upscale Consignment Boutique; just north of VFW Post 2955)
Hours: Tuesday, 1 to 7 p.m.; Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Thursday, 1 to 7 p.m.; Friday, 10
a.m. to 2 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
On the web: beeyoutifulsipandstitchery.com
On social media: Facebook: @beeyoutifulsipandstitchery; Instagram: @beeyoutifulsipandstichery
Email: beeyoutifulsipandstitchery@gmail.com
This article is by freelance journalist Helen Karakoudas. Email feedback to news@rockrivercurrent.com.