South Wedge shop knits crafts, community

Shelby Przybylek was an ICU nurse. She’s traded sutures for sewing needles as the full-time owner of Little Button Craft, a small business in the South Wedge. 

This year, the store marks a decade in business. It hasn’t been an easy road—Przybylek is running a fundraiser to help “Keep Little Button Craft’s Community Alive.” 

It’s her second community fundraiser in the past two years. The first raised over $10,000 to support the shop after a slow season. Przybylek remains focused on her desire to keep Little Button Craft as a space for vibrant acceptance and artistic accessibility. 

“Crafting is for everybody,” she says.

Little Button’s origins date to spring 2015, when the shop was initially purchased by Madelyn and Jennifer Posey of Hedonist Chocolates as a way to support business growth in the neighborhood. 

“At that time, South Avenue really didn’t have much going on,” says Przybylek.

Acquainted with the Poseys through work and friendship, Przybylek spent her free time teaching knitting and crochet at Little Button Craft, often joking with the previous owners that she’d love to take over the business when they were ready to sell. When the Poseys approached her less than a year later, offering Przybylek ownership of Little Button, she jumped at the opportunity. 

“I immediately said yes. It was not a question in my mind,” Przybylek recalls. “I thought that I was joking, but I guess that I definitely was not.”

Przybylek marched forward as the newly minted owner of Little Button Craft, getting financial assistance from PathStone to kickstart her business and support the shop’s growing endeavors. As she developed the shop from what she describes as a “knock-off Anthropologie,” Przybylek reached out to friends made at First Friday gallery nights, asking if they wanted to sell their work at her shop.

In 2015, the shop sold artwork from approximately 40 local artists. Today, that number has grown to around 275. Along with selling art, Little Button Craft hosts crafting nights, which are also run by guest artists. 

The store’s weekly Fiber Night, intended as a “bring your own project” social hour, provides an opportunity for its community to find company while crafting, regardless of their experience level or artistic medium. 

Last year, the event moved from Little Button Craft’s store to Abundance Food Co-op’s community room, one of many neighborhood relationships formed by the shop’s growing audience.

Little Button Craft hosts three to five events each month, taught by guest artists, that have included making “Fuzzpatch” plushies and faux stained glass, as well as introductions to embroidery and granny squares. Fees range from free to $65; the costs are determined by the artist and split between them and the shop. 

To keep prices low, Przybylek offers donated craft supplies to the event’s teachers in hopes of reducing the material costs of the experience. For attendees, she plans to introduce a sliding scale payment system to ensure event accessibility. 

“In the shop in general, as well as with our classes, it’s really important to me that anyone can attend, whether you make $100,000 a year or $20,000,” she says. 

If community members need supplies or simply want to “de-stash” their own, they’re welcome to stop by the shop’s “Little Free Yarn Library,” a collection of donated materials for shopgoers to use.

Along with crafting, Pryzbylek frequently hosts social events, such as Speed Friending, a function designed to ease the strain of developing friendships in adulthood.

“As a millennial, as an adult, I think as anybody, it’s really hard to make friends,” she says. “And I think a lot of us are very anxious, and it’s hard to talk to new people.”

The playful take on speed dating features each table equipped with coloring sheets to avoid awkward eye contact and cards, allowing attendees to pass notes to new friends.

“What I’ve seen over running this for the last almost a year is that we have repeat customers … they’re just there to meet whoever they can,” she says. 

For Pryzbylek, creating a space for crafting and neighborhood connection is not only a project of passion, but something deeply personal. 

“During a really hard time in my life, crafting was all I had,” she says. “I was just really going through a rough time, and I had a place in Philadelphia where I could go, and they had free craft supplies. … It kept me going.

“When I had the opportunity to have classes with artists who were interested in teaching other skills and providing that, I just seized on it.”

Reflecting on Little Button Craft’s growth, Pryzbylek credits South Wedge locals as big supporters. 

“Every other day, I’ve got someone different from the neighborhood updating me on what they’re doing and who’s pregnant and who just got a new dog and who’s moving,” she says. “The interaction, especially with the neighborhood, has really been woven into everything we do.”

In 2024, when the shop was struggling to pay the bills and cover inventory after a slow season, it was once again the community that came through with support through GoFundMe. 

“I was bowled over by the amount of support and not just the money … but the amount of notes and people (who) would share things on social media like ‘this is what Little Button means to me and this is what they do for me.’ It was humbling,” she says. 

Przybylek’s second round of fundraising began in May to help with financial challenges as consumers curb spending. However, even in times of financial hardship, Przybylek is devoted to the cause of keeping crafting accessible. 

Currently, she’s working on registering Little Button Craft as a nonprofit organization, a status that would enhance the store’s eligibility for wider grants. Within the shop, she has recently launched a small-batch program for purchasing custom items, such as shirts, stickers, and pins —a project that has become a significant source of income. 

For Pryzbylek, creating custom items with clients and watching their ideas come to life is one of the most fulfilling aspects of her work. 

“It’s really fun,” she says, “to sit down with someone and say ‘okay, dream with me.’ … We can make this happen.”

Alex Holly is a member of the Oasis Project’s second cohort. 

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