Private Equity and Yarn: Why We're Mad Now

It is, frankly, exhausting being a human in 2026 because every time you turn around, some arrogant rich white (or orange) dude is ruining something you love.

This time it’s yarn.

Specifically, private equity taking over beloved yarn purveyors and their finance bros getting richer while quality, ethics, employees and customers suffer.

Private equity isn’t buying up companies out of the goodness of their hearts, of course. They are laser focused on making those businesses as profitable as possible to maximize the return on their investment—too often at the expense of beloved employees, years of expertise, production values, ethical businesses practices and the quality of what they’re producing.

Brands like Knit Picks and Jimmy Beans Wool were acquired by Blue Point Capital a few years back, but the most recent domino to fall is Knitting for Olive, a small, family-owned yarn company that feels like an especially low blow.

KFO has been a star in the yarn industry over the last few years, offering a gorgeous array of colors on their ethically sourced natural fiber yarns at an economical price point.

Their decision to sell out to a private equity company has left customers feeling confused, betrayed and unsure of what’s to come.

While KFO maintains that their small family team will continue to run the business as it has always done, given everything we know about how private equity functions, that seems more like the well-meaning reassurance any business would offer jittery customers than a guarantee.

Even if it is their intention to uphold their current standards and values, PE may make that impossible. While the KFO team claims it will maintain control over day-to-day operations, the larger financial decisions that underpin those operations will be made by the new owner.

Ultimately, we simply don’t know what the impact will be, but we have more than enough evidence from similar PE buyouts to make our doubts and fears justified.

So what can we, as customers, do?

Do we just give up beloved yarn brands, and the long-standing employees that go with them, to ensure that our hard earned cash isn’t lining the pockets of already wealthy men?

Do we continue supporting them, knowing that every dollar we spend makes the private equity companies richer, encouraging them to invest in other knitting-related businesses where they think they can make a profit?

Frankly, I don’t know.

Personally, my strategy moving forward will be to try direct the majority of my yarn purchases to independently owned companies, but we all need to take our personal ideals, beliefs, goals—and wallets—into account.

I’m now a Fairmont Fibers affiliate. FF is the US distributor for 3 independently owned yarn companies: Baa Ram Ewe, KINUA and Tukuwool.