We have been searching for YEARS to find a gorgeous MACHINE WASHABLE CHUNKY YARN. Leave it to the fabulous SHELBY to satisfy our needs in a big way. Her yarns are unique and beautiful, and she dropped off THREE GINORMOUS BOXES today. We have lots of colorways in both CHUNKY and WORSTED—all machine wash! If you are not familiary with Shelby’s yarns, this is a great time to check them out. She is a very talented LOCAL fiber artist ( just up the road in Germantown) and dyes colors exclusive to Woolwinders. This can be a really wonderful gift for someone who lives elsewhere—her yarns are not widely distributed and you will be a hero for turning a friend or loved one onto these skeins!

Just in time for the cooler weather, we received a large box from our favorite New Yorker, Cheryl Schaefer. Inside? Lots of ESPERANZA and KATHLEEN, her CHUNKY and SUPERCHUNKY wools. They’re luscious. Check these babies out. We have lots of pattern ideas and you can whip up a shawl, hat, or even a sweater in no time on big needles:

We want to have a TRUE day off tomorrow, so we are doing our usual Thursday blog today.
Mindful of everyone’s hectic schedule, we offer TWO books through www.amazon.com that should get you through last minute holiday scarves. If you have these PERPETUAL CALENDARS, you will NEVER need another scarf pattern again! Just pick a stitch you like, figure out your gauge, and cast on the appropriate number of stitches. VOILA!

And when you have had enough of food and family, come join us on SATURDAY and/or SUNDAY for our free programs that run from 2-4 PM. We promise to go light on the snacks! We will be working on shawls on Saturday, and on Sunday, we will be knitting the REPUBLIC HAT. This cute cloche takes 100 grams of CHUNKY YARN and 16” circular 9 and 10 needles as well as size 10 dpns.

We hope to see you over the weekend. Enjoy your turkey day!

Our computer system is back up and running just in time for Thanksgiving. Unlike our MA in Southern Lit (go on, ask us about Carson McCullers or Kate Chopin. Just ask. ), our stepson’s degree in Software Engineering is actually useful in the world of work. Ben was that tall handsome stranger climbing around under our cash stand over the past several days, and on very little sleep has gotten us a new computer, reinstalled our programs, upgraded our hard drive…..not that I really know what any of that means, but we are operational again. Many thanks to Ben and Lew who worked tirelessly to make this happen.

And a million thanks to all of you who came armed with cash and checks, just like the old days. About the only good thing that came out of this was the realization that many of you do, in fact, read this blog. That was really gratifying. And our customers’ cooperation was really heartwarming. Thank you again.

We are open 11-6 today, 11-3 tomorrow, and closed Thursday. Hope to see you during the holidays, but if not, have a wonderful weekend.

We always believed that our customers ROCK, and this weekend proved it. Thanks so much for your cash and checks—our cash flow appreciates it! Although we are in better shape than last week (thanks to our amazing IT department, aka our husband and stepson), we still would prefer the old fashioned payments. Hopefully we will be fully operational by tomorrow.

As for holiday hours, we will be closing at 3 PM on Wednesday and will remain closed until 10 AM Friday. We are having our annual sale this week on all yarns that contain the colors of PUMPKIN and CRANBERRY—15% off! And we have our usual FREE programs this weekend; the shawl KAL continues on Saturday and we feature a great and quick CHUNKY HAT on Sunday from 2-4 PM. We’ll post more about that on Wednesday.