In advance of national protest, pink yarn sales up at Santa Cruz shop

Cory Meyers, owner of the Yarn Shop Santa Cruz, says she first noticed people coming in asking for pink yarn about a month ago.

“It’s been a steady trickle. It ramped up over the last week and it’s been crazy,” Meyers told KION.

Shoppers are snapping up pink yarn to knit cat-eared hats to show solidarity for those who plan to attend women’s marches in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere on Saturday, January 21.

The Women’s March Santa Cruz County is set for 1:30pm, January 21 at City Hall.

An article by The Associated Press explained the provocatively named Pussyhat Project this way: The hats are, in part, a response to Trump’s caught-on-camera remarks about grabbing women’s genitalia, using the loaded P-word. The project’s co-founders want to take back the derogatory term pussy while infusing the traditionally “feminine” color of pink with strength in support of women’s rights.

“They just want the brightest pink they can find,” Meyers explained. “We took every pink we have in the store and put it all in one section.”

Meyers and her staff also knitted some sample hats so busy shoppers could easily identify the right area of the store.

The Yarn Shop opened in July at 765 Cedar Street in Santa Cruz. Meyers said if she wasn’r running a yarn shop, she might not have known about the pink hat project.

“Having the shop has put me in the center of the momentum of what’s going on,” Meyers told KION.