It is a party of chit-chat harmonized by the clicking and clanking of knitting needles at The Knitting Tree in Inglewood, which often looks more like an event space than a yarn store.
Knitter Jacquie Camacho has been attending events at the shop for more than a decade. "It's family. That's the only one word I can use to describe it. Family," Camacho said.
No one makes it through the front door without a warm welcome, then to be greeted by walls of yarn and crafting tables filling the floor space.
"It's creating that third space that everybody keeps talking about," owner Annette Corsino Blair said. She and her husband Bruce Blair say that's the point.
"We've become so digitized that a lot of those places where we would naturally meet and get support from other people are gone. I want to create a space like that here, and I think we have," Annette said.
It's the reason The Knitting Tree was just named one of America's top 100 small businesses by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The business took flight with its emotional-support chickens, packaged kits, and patterns sold worldwide to offer a little comfort.
What was once 30,000 patterns sold has now tripled, selling in 76 countries. "There's a real mental health aspect to it, and that's no joke. We just got an email from someone in Italy, and she was making them for assisted living facilities and dementia patients," Bruce said.
This is why they're nominated in the Global Stars category. Jeanette Mulvey is the editor-in-chief of CO, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's publication, which sponsors the award.
"We liked their story because it really exemplified what small businesses deal with every day. Yes, they're a global business," Mulvey said. "They also have a huge community of loyal and faithful customers who come to them from all over to visit them."
It's a big honor for a little store to weave a yarn of sorts about how one business can mend a community, one stitch at a time.
The celebration and announcement of category winners and the $25,000 Top Business of the Year, 2026 program takes place at the U.S. Chamber's Washington, D.C. headquarters, Oct. 19 – 21.
