About Us
Brooklyn General Store is tucked away on a sweet block West of the Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill neighborhoods and North of Red Hook. This commercial block on Union Street used to be a thriving shopping block for all types of foods and goods. Brooklyn General’s home within the Old Frank’s Department Store is a throw back to that era, with its preserved floor to ceiling shelves, rolling ladders and classic old wooden floors. The vintage interior is not reproduced, just uncovered, cleaned and painted.
Brooklyn General Store was created in an effort to provide the highest quality materials to a community of devoted artists and craftspeople and to promote making things by hand through inspiration and education. Not only is it a place to feast your eyes and hands on glorious colors and patterns and textures but it is a place that respects and honors a time when a trip to the country store was a way of life. It is a place where a quick trip for a yard of fabric or a skein of yarn turns into an hour of sharing, teaching, inspiring and encouraging all the amazing and creative makers that are also out for that quick trip to the General Store...
Following its mission to promote all things handmade, Brooklyn General offers a wide variety of classes in knitting, sewing, quilting, felting, spinning, rug hooking and embroidery. Classes are limited in size in order for students to have ample individual attention. Studio time with our fantastic BERNINA classroom machines is also available. BrooklynGeneral.com was created to share our carefully picked goods with all the creative souls outside of Brooklyn, NY.
Eva Steinberg (and June)
Evalearned to sew when she was 6 and knit when she was 8 (and purl when she was 12…) and has been stitching away ever since. She loves cheese, overalls, biodiversity, and anything chartreuse. When she isn’t knitting (and sometimes while she is) she is a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology at CUNY, where she studies plant breeding and seed saving—ask her about peanuts!
Delaney Fowler
Delaney learned how to knit and crochet in middle school and has been crafting non-stop ever since! She loves to show she cares by making hats for the people in her life. Delaney’s looking forward to diving into the world of sewing and embroidery and learning all she can.
Yamil Anglada
Yamil is our resident knitting clinician and has been practicing the craft for over 20 years. She learned to crochet from her grandmother as a teen, and taught herself to knit from books and magazines as a young adult. Her interest in making and fiber arts has led her to also explore dyeing (including natural dyeing), spinning, cross stitch embroidery and sewing. Even if she is not an expert in a particular craft, she is enthusiastic about troubleshooting and brainstorming with our customers to find the best path forward for their project.
Trudi Roach
Trudi learned to knit from her Swiss granny and never stopped making. As a kid, she sewed her own school uniform dress and knit countless Barbie tube skirts. That early creativity led her into the fashion industry — merchandising products, becoming a Global Product VP, launching a modern quilt company, and coaching creatives to build thriving businesses.
Her journey wasn’t linear, but it brought her back to what she’s always loved: yarn, color, community, and working with her hands.
Trudi loves Scandi-Noir, a good brunch, and music that sits somewhere between Gladys Knight and Rufus Wainwright. Her favorite colors? Grey, black… and well, more grey.
Today, she’s exactly where her younger self hoped she’d be — in a yarn shop, surrounded by fiber and fellow makers … or finishing a project of her own (finally).
Catherine Clark
Catherine has been knitting and sewing since the age of 5. She has grand ideas and follows through on most though she may take the scenic route at times because she can't stop making. Her favorite music is Western Swing, Joni Mitchell and all the folky, bluesy, raspy, deep and rich love sick songs there are no matter what genre. In addition to knitting and sewing, dancing and singing are her favorite things to do. My favorite color is where blue meets green...when it is hard to tell where it falls. Followed by a rich magenta, earthy yellow and denim blue. Basically, stick me in a Renaissance fresco painting and I'll be in heaven. Catherine is the founder and owner of Brooklyn General. She is also a Midwife and has been working to serve the women of Brooklyn for 25 years.
Kristin Parker
Kristin (she/her) is a sheep obsessed queer fiber artist, plant lover and tender, teacher, writer and organizer currently living on Lenape/Canarsee territory in now-called Brooklyn. Her work centers around interdependence, repair, connection, and collective liberation. Kristin has been knitting for over 25 years and is particularly passionate about all things local fiber. You will always find a pair of socks on her needles. Teaching knitting is one of her favorite things to do. Her writing about knitting has been published in Hudson Valley Textile Project’s publication Common Threads. Though knitting is Kristin’s main squeeze she also adores spinning, visible mending, natural dyeing, sewing, embroidery and dabbling in many other crafts. Where usefulness meets beauty is what drives Kristin’s making. Also color!
Derya Altan
Madison Monteze Hardt
Madison learned to knit in high school and still gets excited every time she casts on something new. She especially loves knitting fair isle sweaters and socks, and always has more than a few projects on the needles. When she’s not knitting, she’s weaving, spinning, or working on her sewing skills. She loves connecting with other fiber folks and is always happy to help pick yarn, troubleshoot a pattern, or just chat about projects.
Jessie Barker
Catherine and Yamil pretending to be international business women in Germany
Noctuidae is a tribute to unseen beauty. It is an ode to the light seekers...those who spend their
time here on earth looking for deeper meaning. Like moths, we too are victims of the world
we have created. While they search for the true light of the moon, we are also searching ...for
the truth. While they find it in the moon, we find it in our unconscious and our intuition.
Ixchel is inspired by the power of the moon and its cycle. This design is my tribute to the power of women and Nature, the phases of the moon and the phases of a woman’s life.
Cladonia is a tribute to the jewelry of the forest. Named after the Lichen species better known as British Soldiers, they are ready to protect while looking sharp. Like the bark of a tree, this sweater is intended to make the wearer feel sheltered as well as adorned with the wisest of beings. Observe carefully...the balance of nature is held in these tiny plant animals. They endure the harshest of environments while absorbing elusive elements, creating nutrients for themselves and releasing their gifts into the air.
