"I'd Rather They Bring a Smile Than Sit in a Bin": Retiring Vermont Yarn Shop Owner Gives Away Her Final 400 Pairs of Hand-Knitted Socks

Ruth Bellamy in the front window of Ruth's Warm Corner, the shop she opened in the spring of 1987.

After 37 years behind the counter, Ruth Bellamy is closing her small Mad River Valley knitting shop — and refusing to let 400 pairs of finished socks sit in a box.

On any given morning for the past 37 years, you could find Ruth Bellamy in the same wooden chair by the front window of Ruth's Warm Corner — a small yarn shop tucked into a converted red barn on Vermont's Route 100.

Two knitting needles clicking. A mug of tea cooling beside her. Her orange cat, Poppy, asleep on the windowsill.

That morning routine is coming to an end.

At 74, Ruth is closing the shop she opened in the spring of 1987 — but not before doing something her regulars are calling "very Ruth."

She's giving her final inventory away. Every last pair, for free.

The shop interior has changed little since 1987 — wood shelves, hand-labeled skeins, and a chalkboard by the door.

The Grandmother Who Never Stopped Knitting

Ruth learned to knit at age 8, at the kitchen table of her grandmother's farmhouse outside Montpelier. She's been at it ever since — through high school, through nursing school, through raising two children with her late husband, Frank, who passed away in 2019 after 51 years of marriage.

"Frank was the one who told me I should open the shop," she said, folding her hands in her lap. "He said, 'Ruthie, you're too good at this to keep it to yourself.'"

Ruth's Warm Corner opened its doors in April 1987. Over the decades, it became a quiet fixture of the Mad River Valley — the kind of place where locals came in for a skein of merino and stayed for an hour.

The three designs Ruth is best known for — panda, sloth, and cow — each stitched by hand.

How the Animal Socks Started

The socks with tiny knitted animals attached — the ones that have made Ruth's shop something of a local legend — started, like most good things in Ruth's life, with a grandchild.

"Lily was three years old and obsessed with pandas," Ruth said, smiling. "She asked me to make her 'panda feet.' So I did."

Word got around. Then it was Owen, her grandson, asking for a sloth. Then a neighbor's little boy wanted a cow ("we're a dairy family," Ruth explained). Before long, she was making them by the dozen for grandkids all over the valley.

Each pair takes her about four hours. The little animals — panda, sloth, and cow — are stitched on individually, with tiny black-bead eyes and soft yarn ears.

"I never sold them for what they were worth," she admitted, laughing softly. "I couldn't. Kids should be able to have them."

Why Ruth Closes Her Shop for Good

Earlier this spring, Ruth's doctor gave her news she'd been half-expecting for years: the arthritis in her hands had progressed. She'd need to stop knitting for hours at a stretch.

"He wasn't mean about it," she said. "He just told me the truth. It was time."

But Ruth had a problem. Over the last two years, anticipating her retirement, she'd been knitting extra pairs — a small stockpile so her regulars wouldn't run out during her transition. Now she has just over 400 pairs of animal socks left in labeled bins in her back room.

She refuses to throw them out. She won't let a wholesaler buy them for pennies on the dollar. And she doesn't want them showing up "at some fancy price" in a boutique after she's gone.

So she made a decision that surprised even her own family.

She's giving them away. All of them.

We met Ruth on a farmers market earlier this year, with her animal socks on display.

How She Got Online

Ruth doesn't do computers.

"Never learned," she said with a small shrug. "Frank was the one for that. And after he was gone, I just… kept things the way they were."

The online shop was set up by her nephew, Danny, who runs a small design business up in Burlington.

"He wouldn't take a dime for it," Ruth said. "He just kept saying, 'Ruth, let me do this. Let people find them.'"

Ruth's nephew Danny built the ordering page over a weekend at her kitchen table this spring.

Danny is also the one who talked her into letting customers leave a small tip if they wanted to. Ruth had said no at first.

"I told him nobody tips a stranger on the internet," she said. "He said I was wrong. He set it up so you can leave a couple of dollars at checkout if you're feeling generous — helps me cover what I've got left to work through before I close. Or you skip it. He said either way is fine."

What People Are Saying

The Shop Closes for Good This Fall

Ruth's Warm Corner will close its doors for the final time this fall — the same weekend the leaves in Waitsfield turn. Whatever animal socks are left by then will be donated locally.

Until that day, Ruth wants them to find homes.

If you'd like a pair — panda, sloth, or cow — you can claim yours below while she still has stock. Shipping is a small flat rate. Everything else is on her.

Advertisement · Stock is limited to remaining inventory and offer ends when the shop closes. Shipping fees apply.