Join us this weekend as we begin our APRIL KNITALONG with this fabulous SLIP STITCH PILLOW designed by our very own MARIETTA. Slip stitch knitting (or as Paige refers to it “the lazy person’s Fair Isle) is the easiest color knitting we know. Hence, we profess our love for it. Although you create beautiful two color designs, you don’t have to strand OR weave yarn in; rather you “slip” the secondary color. We’ll teach you how to do it in a heartbeat, and Marietta will instruct you on the finer points of pillow completion, such as stuffing and sewing/crocheting. April kicks off our Spring KALs focusing on “Staycations”-projects meant to beautify your home in case you, like us, are cutting back on travel this year.

As always, the program is free of charge and runs from 2-4 PM each Saturday. Just give us a call to participate. We do ask two things-that you attend the first week, and that you work with yarns from WoolWinders. Other than that—no rules, just fun!

We were so excited about all the yarn arrivals yesterday that we forgot to blog about upcoming weekend programs. Saturday is the last day of our SPRING SHELL KAL—we can’t wait to see everyone’s progress. For those of you who have asked, we will be repeating the program (i.e. as a “SUMMER SHELL”) KAL event during Saturdays in JULY.

And on Sunday, join us as we knit the must-have spring accessory—a lightweight laceCOWL. We are wearing the one KERRY knit today and it adds that “je ne sais quoi” to our otherwise standard jeans and top outfit. You will need 150 yards of a lightweight yarn (think silk or cotton) and size 16” 7-9 needle. We have a few spaces left for this FREE program—just give us a call at 240.632.9276 to save you a seat at the table.

We have more fun knitting for babies! Check out NOA, the new addition to Lew’s law firm group, courtesy of mom ALYSSA and dad JOEY. Isn’t she adorable in the CROCUS CARDIGAN as she rests on the ORGANIC COTTON baby blanket?????

Wow! Take a few days off and you come into a WHIRLWIND! Ready?

We are now stocked with three lovely neutral colors of the BLUE SKY ORGANIC COTTON. This is one of our favorite yarns for baby projects—the yarn is undyed and ultra soft. Lovely for baby blankets, sweaters and the like.

Next, we received a box from SCHAEFER YARNS filled with their yummy LAUREL and SUSAN cotton yarns. At this point, we are basically taking anything they have in stock; we appreciate your patience if your color isn’t here yet. We knew that once CHERYL began attending the TNNA trade shows she would get on everyone’s radar. But on the other hand, we get to chat with her and her wonderful staff almost on a weekly basis. And we promise to be the first in line at the fall show to get her amazing wools.

We are also restocked with those all important NOTIONS like cable needles, chibis etc. Since we also get some single patterns from our notions distributor, we also have the lovely SCALLOPED BAG, FELTED HAT, and CROCUS CARDIGAN patterns back in stock.

Finally, although we thought we would sell down our DALE OF NORWAY since sales had been slow, wouldn’t you know that within the next few days everyone seemed to want STORK and BABY ULL. So relax; Dale will still be here.

Come on in TOMORROW for “TWOS-DAY” at WoolWinders—you will receive DOUBLE CREDIT on your frequent buyer card for all non-discount purchases! What does that mean? By shopping on Tuesdays, you will fill the card twice as fast and get that 15% discount on ANY* purchase before you know it!

*Any non-sale purchase, that is. The card can’t be combined with other discounts like birthday or clearance bin. Classes, finishing, and lessons are excluded.

We were delighted when our new UPS GUY walked in today with a big box from SKACEL. Your faves, and ours, are back in stock: ADDI CIRCS. Due to the overwhelming response we’ve gotten regarding their ADDI LACE needles, we are increasing our supply of these while phasing out the traditional turbos in the 24 and 32 inch lengths from 0-9. We think you will be thrilled with the lace needles, if you haven’t tried them. The tips are sharper, the cords lighter. Of course we will continue to stock the ADDI NATURA in bamboo.

Our inability to do any crochet beyond the simple chain is quite infamous here. All the more reason to be in awe of the pictures our customer CHRISTINA sent us. Check out these fabulous garments, all made from WoolWinders yarn. The tank was crocheted from ROWAN DAMASK; the scarf from SIMPLY SHETLAND SILK/LAMBSWOOL, and the amazing cropped cardigan from CASCADE SIERRA. There’s also a fantastic coat, but the picture was too big to upload. If you would like to see it, send an email to jacqui@woolwinders.com and we’ll forward it to you! We’ll tell you—this could inspire us to attempt crochet once again:

We always love coming in on Thursdays; not only are we tanned, rested and ready from our days off, but there is generally pretty cool stuff waiting for us. Today was no exception—we received our backorder of the WHITE CASCADE SUPERWASH, perfect for graduation/baby/mother’s day afghans and gifts. And we also came into some luscious KARABELLA patterns, including the lovely VINTAGE COTTON SHELL that was shown in the newsletter (how was Lew to know we didn’t have that pattern in stock????). KARABELLA designs are extraordinary—so much so that we break our general rule of not ordering single patterns. Also in, our CRYSTAL PALACE NEEDLE ORDER.

Join us this weekend on SUNDAY as KERRY leads our SALON through the knitting of a lovely lace bag. We only have a few slots left for this FREE program (don’t pay to learn lace!!!! It’s easy. We’ll teach you for free.) that runs from 2-4 PM and takes two skeins of VINTAGE COTTON in the main color and one in a coordinating color. You will need to have basic knitting skills, but trust us; if you can do a decrease and a yarnover, you can do lace. There is prep work; for those of you signed up, please do the following: WITH YOUR CONTRAST COLOR, CAST ON 51 STITCHES on SIZE 6 NEEDLES AND WORK 13 ROWS IN STOCKINETTE STITCH (K 1 ROW, P 1 ROW).

JANN is amazing. She whips out these gorgeous COLINETTE Creations in record time. We love this picture—the perfect “transition to spring” sweater made from TAO silk and PARISIENNE kid mohair.

We celebrate EVERYTHING at WoolWinders. Come in between now and Thursday for 15% off any yarn that has green or orange in it! How could we let St. Patrick’s Day go by without recognition???

And we have been busy with the spring newsletter and are glad to report it is FINISHED. Now the fabulous LEW has to put the magic touches on the copy that makes it look so great, and it should be out by tomorrow evening. As you know, we only do electronic copies (more money to spend on yarn). So don’t miss it. To sign up for our email list, simply go to the lower left side of this home page and put in your email address. There will be a few prompts and an email waiting for you in your inbox to ensure that you really want to do this. Please follow all the instructions so we don’t end up in your spam filter!

The UPS Guy wheeled in three GINORMOUS boxes (literally bursting at the seams) filled with CASCADE YARNS today. Come see the beautiful new colorways in their best selling yarns: 220, 220 SUPERWASH and SIERRA. We love these yarns! SIERRA is perhaps our favorite three-season yarn and now the new quattro colorways are even more beautiful. The great thing about CASCADE is that their yarns are of high quality as well as high value. We know of no other distributor of great value yarns, particularly in the realm of MACHINE WASHABLE fibers. And CASCADE now has a lot of patterns on their website available as downloads (both free and paid). Just go to www.cascadeyarns.com to take a look!

Also in, reorders of the NASHUA books as well as the new KNITTERS MAGAZINE.

And just a reminder—WE ARE CLOSED SUNDAY FOR THE MARGARET FISHER PROGRAM. Come see us on Saturday!

but when we tested it this morning by calling in, we were unable to hear the voicemail message. Instead we heard major static. If this happened to you, just call back after 11. The phone does ring at the shop and we can answer it during business hours. Yes, we have called VERIZON once again, so hopefully all this will be resolved soon. Stay tuned. Trust us, we are as frustrated as you are.

Unfortunately, we no longer seem to have a fax machine; when both are hooked up they ring simultaneously. But hey, we can be reached by phone again!

Our SATURDAY KAL to design a shell is FILLED!!! Please remember to bring a favorite sleeveless top with you to the first session. It doesn’t have to be hand knit, it just has to be the garment that you wear thinking “I wish everything I owned fit this well!”

And on SUNDAY we go GREEN with our MARKET BAG. You will love this cotton number—you can take it proudly to the grocery shop or farmer’s market and help save our environment. It takes 200 yards of worsted weight cotton (consider splitting a skein of LAUREL with a friend) and size 13-17 (depending on how open a look you want) circular needle either 24 or 32” in length. We are a bit low on needles (what DO you all do with them?????) so bring ‘em if you have ‘em. As always, the program is free of charge-just give us a call to make sure you have a space at the table. Actually, since our phones STILL aren’t working, why don’t you send us an emal to jacqui@woolwinders.com

We’re back from our brief trip out of town, and just about everything that could possible happen did in those few days.

We missed the storm (good), lost our phone service at the shop (bad), and dealt with a crashed laptop so were completely without technology(ugly). We had to close the shop on Monday because of the snow (bad), but reopened on Tuesday to boxes from SCHAEFER YARNS and JOJOLAND (really good!). We still didn’t have phone service (beyond ugly). We arrived at the shop this morning at 7:30 to wait for VERIZON who gave us a time window of 8-5 to fix the phone line (good? bad? ugly?). So here we are.

And the truly good? We have to give a shout out to our amazing staff. HEATHER closed up on Sunday so we could make our flight before the snow, MARIETTA schlepped back and forth to the shop in an effort to fix our phones, GAIL, FLO, KATHY, BRENDA and PAIGE received, tagged and shelved all the new beautiful yarns. KATHY also went to our house TWICE to check and make sure our cats hadn’t locked themselves in any closets as one did while we were in NY in December, and KERRY brought her son over to SHOVEL OUR DRIVEWAY!!! How terrific are they????? Whatever else goes on in retail, we are blessed with a truly wonderful staff and we wanted all of you to know that.

Stay tuned for the next post about our upcoming weekend activities. We think you will have some fun at WoolWinders!

Hello customers! thanks for hanging in with our phone drama. If you need to call the store please dial 240-632-9265 this is normally our fax number but for now it is the main number. We will still check our voice mail for our regualr number until we can get this settled.

now for the YARN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the Schaeffer Laurel and Susan is in!!! Laurel is a lovely worsted weight variagated 100% mercerized pima cotton and Susan is its sport weight sister. New colours for us this year - BEATRIX POTTER, ETHEL WATERS and BARBARA MCCLINTOCK -and favourites to - FRIDA KAHLO and BILLIE HOLIDAY just to mention a few.

If you are calling and get a busy signal or it goes straight to voicemail, we are not ignoring you! We are very sorry but we are here during regular business hours 11-6. We don’t know if it is the phone itself or Verizon but we are working on the matter. So try try agin - or just come on in and visit us!

-Marietta

Due to all this beautiful snow, WOOLWINDERS will be closed today, Monday - all day. So I am staying home and crocheting with Max. Jacqui is in warm and sunny Las Vegas but she will be updating our voicemail too.

IF we get hit with this late season storm again, we will update here and on our voicemail if we are closed tomorrow

Sorry for any inconvenience.
-Marietta

Maybe our next career will be as a weather forecaster-we were convinced of a March storm. OK, we didn’t think it would be the first DAY of March, but still……

We are open today but tomorrow, Monday, looks a bit dicey. So make sure to check the website AND the phone before heading out. If we are closed we will make sure that information is in BOTH places. We want everyone to stay safe, and given our sales over the past two weeks we are pretty sure everyone has projects to keep them busy!