MKG Cable Gram - Volume 22, Number 2

Coldwater Collaborative, Excelsior
The Place: Ah, summer. Time to send the kids off to camp, grab your girlfriends, and spend a day exploring the many knitting temptations to be found in and around Lake Minnetonka. Begin your tour in the charming small town of Excelsior, where you can cool your tootsies in the lake; warm up your credit cards at the antique shops, spa, bead shop, and art galleries; and fortify yourself with ice cream and chocolates. Now you're ready for some serious yarn shopping, starting with Excelsior's warm and friendly Coldwater Collaborative. Opened in 2002, this 900-square-foot shop is tucked inside a building that dates to the 1920s, with stone floors, a working fireplace, and yarn nestled in every nook and cranny. In the summer, you can knit at café tables on the sidewalk out front while enjoying the scent of flowers wafting from nearby gardens. There's even a bed-and-breakfast inn (www.birdhouseinn.com) next door if you want to make a weekend of it. The shop's name may not shout "knitting," but rest assured, that's what they're all about here. Owner Carri Hammett picked the name because her shop is just two blocks from Lake Minnetonka, and she and her staff view their role as collaborators in the creative process of knitting.