Stitching together healing and community

WITH a professional background spanning youth work, developmental trauma and family therapy, Andrea Clements’ career has always centred on people, connection and healing.

For more than three decades, Andrea has had the privilege of working alongside extraordinary young people, children, families, colleagues, students and volunteers – many of whom were navigating the lasting impacts of significant childhood trauma and abuse.

It was deeply humbling work, often requiring the capacity to truly listen, to build trust and to “sit with” each person’s story without judgement, urgency or expectation.

Throughout those years, Andrea witnessed both the profound weight of trauma and the quiet strength of the human spirit.

While the work was meaningful, it was also emotionally demanding. Like many women in caring professions, Andrea learned firsthand the importance of finding ways to restore herself after giving so much to others.

That understanding became the foundation for Yarn Me Calm.

After long, emotionally and mentally stressful days, Andrea would come home and instinctively turn to her yarn stash. Sometimes she wouldn’t even crochet or knit. Often, it was enough simply to sit with the yarn: to feel the fibre between her fingers, notice its softness and allow her nervous system to slow.

Touching yarn, its warmth and texture, became a grounding ritual, inviting calm and creativity, or sometimes simply stillness. Andrea came to recognise this as the first step in using yarn as a therapeutic tool.

Yarn Me Calm was created to intentionally combine Andrea’s professional experience with her lifelong love of all things yarn. It was never intended to be just about products or services.

At its heart, Yarn Me Calm is about people, about creating moments and space for calm, connection and care, offering gentle, accessible ways for individuals to reconnect with themselves and others and about using creativity as a pathway to wellbeing.

That same desire for intentional living led Andrea’s family to make a significant shift from the fast pace of normal life to the coastal community of Portarlington.

The move was a conscious decision to slow down and reconnect, not only with themselves, but with the people around them. Andrea’s two very spoilt schnauzer-poodle crosses adapted quickly, embracing spending more time with familiar faces and a gentler rhythm of life.

Community has become central to both Andrea’s lifestyle and work.

Portarlington offers something increasingly rare: genuine connection. Conversations linger, people notice one another and there is space to belong.

That sense of community deeply aligns with the values behind Yarn Me Calm, creating environments where people feel safe, supported and seen.

The move also created space for Andrea’s husband to step away from the corporate pace and establish his own mortgage broking business, Kista Finance.

Built on trust, transparency and relationships, Kista reflects the same belief that business can be both professional and deeply human.

Together, their businesses are rooted in community, connection and care, proof that slowing down doesn’t mean doing less, but rather doing what matters most.

Through Yarn Me Calm, Andrea hopes to foster not just calm, but community: one stitch, one conversation and one shared moment at a time.