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Today's newsletter is 970 words, a 3.5-minute read.

Touching the merchandise isn't just allowed at Yarn Dragon in Pioneer Square. It's kind of the point.

Why it matters: As brick-and-mortar yarn and fabric stores disappear around Seattle, Yarn Dragon is betting there's still something the internet can't replicate: seeing the colors, feeling the fibers and maybe even watching the yarn being dyed.

State of play: Owner Jonathan Berner moved his dyeing operation into the Pioneer Square space in January 2025 and opened the factory store to the public that June.

• The shop's walls are packed with hand-dyed skeins in saturated colors from golds to blues, greens, pinks and purples, with yarn ranging from $27.99 to $48.99.
• Also on the racks are hats, socks, gloves and mitts knitted on site with Berner's yarn.
• Blues are the perennial bestseller, Berner tells Axios, while greens — naturally — do especially well in the Pacific Northwest.

Zoom in: The shop doubles as Yarn Dragon's production space, and customers can peek through the shop windows to see the magic happen.

• The dyeing is sporadic, so there's no guarantee you'll catch it in action, but Berner is happy to give tours and customers can call ahead to see what's happening that day.
• "You can watch us through the windows doing everything," he says.

The backstory: Jonathan started knitting in 2008 and fell hard for what he calls its combination of "engineering and history" — plus the fidget-spinner satisfaction of keeping his hands busy.

• He sold his first yarn to a shop in January 2014. By June of that year, he'd left his "grown-up job" and has supported himself with yarn ever since.
• Today, Yarn Dragon has two Seattle shops — the other is at Pike Place Market — a three-person staff and nearly 400,000 followers on social media, he says.
• Its bestseller is Silkpaca, a 70% alpaca, 30% silk blend custom-spun in Peru and dyed at the shop.

The bottom line: "I don't know that yarn will ever make me a truly wealthy man," Jonathan says, "but I have enough, and I have a wonderfully gratifying career surrounded by wonderful, beautiful people."

Thought bubble: I couldn't resist buying a skein in "Wind Song."

Tell a fiber enthusiast

Washington's Supreme Court has struck down Initiative 2066, a natural gas ballot measure approved by voters two years ago.

Why it matters: The ruling invalidates the initiative, which sought to roll back the state's energy-efficient building codes and to bar state and local governments from discouraging the use of natural gas.

The latest: The court found the initiative violated a constitutional rule that requires laws to stick to a single subject.

• That provision of the state constitution is intended to "ensure transparency in the legislative process" and prevent "unconstitutional logrolling," Chief Justice Debra Stephens wrote in the court's majority opinion yesterday.

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🏡 Mayor Wilson signed a law limiting so-called rental "junk fees" like administrative charges, aiming to make renting in Seattle more transparent and affordable. (KOMO)

🇵🇸 Seattle-based rapper Macklemore is donating $1 million to Palestinian relief efforts, after being dropped from Ed Sheeran's "Loop" tour over his onstage "Free Palestine" comments.

• New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who previously said Macklemore couldn't perform at his venue, said Sheeran has also pledged to donate $2 million and asked Kraft to do the same. (CNN)

🤖 Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman is warning that Anthropic's efforts to train Claude to reason about consciousness, personal identity and its own welfare could make advanced AI harder to control.

• The clash puts Microsoft — one of the Seattle area's most important companies — at the center of a growing debate over how AI companies should build increasingly powerful systems. (Axios)

📈 Downtown Seattle logged its busiest visitor month in seven years, even as the number of workers commuting in remains below pre-pandemic levels. (KOMO)

In Puget Sound's sluggish housing market, cheaper homes have one big advantage: They don't sit around as long.

By the numbers: The region's fastest-moving single-family markets tend to be among its less expensive, according to new RexMont Real Estate data shared with Axios.

• Bremerton's single-family listings, with a median price of $435,000, average just 17 days on the market, followed by Mountlake Terrace ($690,000) at 20 days, Tacoma ($635,000) at 21 and Everett ($725,000) at 23.
• At the other end, single-family listings in Medina, with a median price of $4.65 million, average 78 days on the market.

The big picture: Cities with median single-family listing prices under $750,000 average about 33 days on the market, compared with about 44 days in cities at $1.5 million and up.

The bottom line: These days, a lower price tag generally comes with a shorter wait.

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Hercules is a mini long-haired dachshund who "loves getting out socially," his owners David C. and Patty S. tell us.

• "Wherever we take him, people want to meet him," they write.

He's named after David's late son, Aric, who was nicknamed Hercules by some of his friends.

• Now, the canine Hercules "brings joys and smiles wherever he goes."

Want to see your pet featured here? Hit reply and send us their name, some cute pics and what they most like and dislike. They might just become our next featured star!

🐶 Melissa is tempted to adopt a small, fuzzy dog, but worries about how it will stand up to her rambunctious boys. (Maybe one medium-sized dog is enough.)

😂 Clarridge is heading over to a tiny beach house on Hood Canal to eat, laugh, and swap stories with old colleagues.

This newsletter was edited by Geoff Ziezulewicz.