By Luisa Loi
La Conner Community News
To any passersby walking on First Street in La Conner, Purl Dive may look like a tiny and cute yarn shop. As the word “purl” (which refers to a kind of knitting stitch) and the colorful skeins lining the shelves suggest, they wouldn’t be wrong.
Unbeknownst to them, the shop’s black curtains hide what would cause any Eighteenth Amendment nostalgics to break into a flashback-induced stress rash: a speakeasy-inspired bar.
Luckily, Purl Dive offers a selection of roughly 2,000 skeins of wool, alpaca, silk, mohair, cashmere and fiber blends to knit and wind down, lulling cocktail enthusiasts and abstainers with the sound of soft-spoken conversations and background jazz tunes.
Married duo and Twenty-first Amendment champions Marsha and Matt Owen combined their respective passions for knitting and historic cocktails to offer the community a fun and unique experience in an intimate atmosphere, where the bright and colorful interior of the yarn shop suddenly transitions into dimly-lit nautical aesthetic from the Victorian era.
“There’s a timeless quality to it,” Marsha said. “We’re all about the experience.”
The couple, who reside on Whidbey Island, opened the business two weeks ago, replicating the Skein & Tipple yarn shop and bar fusion they opened in Clinton in 2022.
Marsha was working as a mail carrier when the pandemic hit and increased her hours to 93 per week. Tired of the long shifts, she considered opening her own yarn store. Meanwhile, Matt had been dreaming of opening his own craft-cocktail bar for over two decades.
Feeling like two businesses was too much work for a couple, Matt came up with the idea of merging the two. Skein & Tipple has been a hit since, with yarn sales accounting for 25% of the 2025-26 year, and that number keeps growing.
All of the yarn for both locations is hand-dyed by Marsha, a seasoned knitter who can often be seen wielding a pair of knit picks whenever her hands are free to craft. While the shop offers over 20 colors, she also accepts requests for custom hues.
“It’s more of an art form for me,” she said.
Matt, on the other hand, pours his own artistic skills into the cocktail glass, creating original drinks like the Murder Hornet, made with rye whiskey, honey ginger syrup, lemon juice, absinthe, cardamom and aromatic bitters — as well as early prohibition-era classics like the Clover Club — made with gin, lemon juice, raspberry syrup and egg white.
Some of the Owens’ top picks include the Maple Bacon Old Fashioned — made with Pendleton Canadian Whiskey, grade A amber maple syrup, aromatic and walnut bitters, and strips of syrupy bacon — and the Penicillin — made with scotch, lemon juice, honey-ginger syrup and Islay single malt scotch.
For those who can handle little to no alcohol, the bar offers a wide selection of mocktail and softtail (cocktails with a smaller amount of alcohol) alternatives, as well as charcuterie, seafood tins and other snacks.
Every syrup is made with scratch ingredients, and the glasses are served full, in defiance to what Matt said has been a growing trend towards smaller cocktails in the bar world.
Currently, Purl Dive is in the process of seeking musicians who can play music, preferably instrumental jazz, at a volume that allows guests to carry a conversation.
To keep the atmosphere “low-key” and ensure walk-ins get a chance to take a seat in the bar’s limited spots, the Owens established a three-drink limit, as well as a two-hour limit for busy days.
The bar and yarn store are both open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, with entrance to the bar limited to guests aged 21 and older. Yarn services like sizing for a sweater and winding the yarn are only offered during the day.
For more information, visit purldive.com.
Luisa Loi is a general assignment reporter for La Conner Community News.
