A somber and personal note

Published on by Stephanie ShimanLeave a comment

As the news of the catastrophic flood damage from our Southern friends filtered up, we have been overwhelmed and awed by the resilience of the region. 💔 

In 2011, Hurricane Irene swept through southern Vermont and completely upended my life. In a morning my home and my dye studio had flooded. By the afternoon the waters had receded, causing a tremendous amount of destruction, and taking 75% of my studio’s inventory, supplies, equipment, and a huge part of my heart.

I know firsthand how catastrophic flooding can be. How you can go to bed with this ideal life and wake up in a completely different world. Before Irene, I always assumed that there was support for flood victims you saw on the news. However, there’s really not. We had flood insurance at our home — which incidentally cost us $2500 a year — and only covered the cost to replace our heater (less than the $2500). No other insurance covered anything. The government gave out masks and cans of chili. Our saving grace was that we were very lucky to have a supportive community that came with buckets and shovels. 

Some unknown person, to whom I will forever be grateful, listed my business as part of a local fundraiser for artists. It meant so much to me — it wasn’t the few hundred dollars that came as a result, but the reminder that people cared. That was huge! 

I think it’s important to pay that forward whenever possible. Maybe for someone it will matter as much as it did to me. 

We can’t help with buckets and shovels, but we can help with fundraising. 

We’re doing this in a few ways: 
1. Until the end of November, all the money from sales of downloadable patterns designed by me will go directly to flood support. So if you’ve had your eye on something, now is the time! Click to visit our Flood Pattern Support collection.
2. We’re dyeing up a limited edition colorway (right) and 100% of the proceeds go directly to flood relief. Yarn for a cause! More info on this below!
3. Helping to make it easy for you to donate to organizations — even a few dollars is something!
See links below.  

 

Colorway for a cause

As the Hurricane Helene flood waters have receded and help has poured in, we’ve pulled our own watery-colorway out of the dye-pot. We wanted a vibrant blue that pooled together the hope and vivacity that was once the arts community of Asheville, NC… and will be again. We wanted a colorway that brought life and joy. We found it among our retired colorways and have brought it back.

Renamed ‘After the Storm,’ this colorway is the exact vivid blue-teal yarn we needed. It brought a smile to our face, and is full of bright splashes and specks in various colors. In our mind it represents the hope and and vibrancy of connections found in these flood-damages communities. We hope that you find it as vivacious as we do!

Click here to visit the colorway page!

3. So many big organizations often outshine the few smaller places to donate directly to supporting the flood relief. GoFundMe accounts for specific families and business are up — but the listings below either go directly to NC-local organizations, NC artist relief funds/grants or support the arts districts that were heavily hit:
Samaritan’s Purse
NC Arts Disaster Relief Fund
Local Cloth Inc.
Craft Emergency Relief Fund
ArtsAVL Relief Fund
RADA Flood Relief Fund

Getting the hang of things…

Published on by Stephanie ShimanLeave a comment

It’s a new year of club and our DeSTITCHnation ‘glow up’ has thrown up some frequently asked questions! Which we’re happy to answer, but we may not be available 24/7, as much as we’d love to be. So here are the top 5 questions we get in regards to our ‘Tour of the Season’ yarn club!

  1. Where are my patterns?
    All our patterns this year will be found via QR code galleries on the back of your label. We will have a rotating library to choose from (or just the Block of the Month patterns depending on which subscription you have), so you won’t be stuck with the same patterns month after month and a new one every so often! If your QR code doesn’t work, don’t panic, send us an email at info@frabjousfibers.com and we’ll get you the proper link to use.
  2. I’m doing the Block of the Month, how many squares will a skein make?
    Typically we’re aiming for at least 3 squares per skein, with enough left for your swatch/joining if you so desire. It’s hard to say that every square will be the same as it highly depends on the motif and your gauge! You’re always welcome to reach out and see if we have any extra skeins if you decide you want (or need) more of a colorway too.
  3. I’m getting the featured base of the month, where are my block patterns?
    Unfortunately, the block of the month patterns are limited to our Mad Hatter base and not the featured base. The featured bases will alternate every month and are not designed for the block designs. You are welcome to sign up for the Mad Hatter base subscription in addition to your current club if you’d like both, or can change your subscription under your website account information.
  4. If I order now, can I get X-month’s colorway?
    Possibly. We ship our monthly colorways from the 1st to the end of the month. If you order on the 30th of January, you will still get January’s club color. However if you order on February 1st, we will ship February’s colorway. You can always reach out to us at info@frabjousfibers.com to see if we can retroactively date your sign-up to get the previous month!
    Sometimes we may have extra of our previous month available too, but we will list those separately on our Limited Edition page of our website for purchase.
  5. Where are my stitch markers?
    We were overwhelmed with the response for our club this month and didn’t anticipate this many orders, which means that we’re backordered on January (and now February) as we wait our supplier to make more for us.
    Once they arrive, if you have a year-long or multi-month subscription, we are happy to include those in your next club shipment. If you have a month-to-month subscription, we will have to charge you a small shipping fee as we cannot ship them separately, or we can include them in your next non-club order as well. Please reach out to us for your preference.
  6. I want to cancel my club, how do I do that?
    We are so sorry to have you go! If you need to make any subscription changes, you should be able to find all that under your website account page under subscriptions. If you have troubles, please contact us at info@frabjousfibers.com and we’ll see what’s happening and get your account all set.

Hopefully this helps clear up some confusion and help you on your way to stitch happiness!

Grace Stamper
Wonderland Yarns General Manager

Unlocking new skills!

Published on by Stephanie ShimanLeave a comment

Anytime I begin something new, I try to keep in mind where it could take me on my crochet journey. Is it new stitches, texture, or technique? Most often I lean toward textures. The ability to create a fun texture with simple stitches is something that I love doing. (pssst… stay tuned for February’s square. 😉)

However, with the first Block of the Month motif, I was challenged to dive into learning a new technique that our collaborator and crochet designer Devan Winchester loves — standing stitches. 

Some designers swear by them and prefer to substitute these stitches into the pattern instead of using the beginning chains that are written. I will admit that the standing stitches are particularly useful and can help eliminate the unsightly gap that can occur if inserted most often when a color change is happening or at the end of rows when turning chains are involved. If you’ve worked with the MacNamara Square motif pattern (also by Devan), you’ll notice that it’s chock-full of these. Now, I personally am not a huge fan of cutting yarn while mid-project. The panic that I *may* need to frog back with cut yarn — EEK!

Devan has often stated that she prefers these and finds them the best way to work projects and clearly doesn’t mind all the tails. So, as collaborators on the squares for our ‘Tour of the Season’, I decided that it’s high time I learned to work — and try to love — standing stitches. 

Now, not every Block of the Month pattern will include these standing stitches, but it’s a possibility. And they really aren’t that hard to get the hang of once you complete a few rounds with this technique. 

So let’s dive into these stitches and how they can benefit your skills to learn! 

First, as with any new technique, practice is key. I highly recommend trying this on something small like a dishcloth or even just a swatch square until you get the hang of it. Once you have it down, you’ll notice that the piece has a much smoother and polished look than your beginning chains ever achieved.  

This is a completed swatch of no real pattern. Only for demonstrating how standing stitches look overall.

There are several different types of standing stitches, but they can all be boiled down to most crochet stitches (single crochet, double crochet, half double crochet, triple crochet, etc.). If you know how to make a basic crochet stitch, you can complete the standing version with no problem. 

Each standing stitch is worked by attaching the yarn in a specific location on the row or round just worked and do not require beginning chains to form the stitch. Just be sure that you’re placing the stitch in the proper place according to your pattern instructions. 

I’ll explain how to do a single crochet (in US terms) and hopefully it will make more sense in how you’d work the others as well. 

To start with, you’ll need to complete a round or row to work from. Then fasten off your working yarn. Then choose your next color and make a slip knot on your hook, leaving a good 4-5 inch tail of yarn to weave in later. 

Next, you’ll want to hold your slip knot in place with a finger and insert the hook into your indicated stitch or chain space where the standing stitch is to be placed. 

I started a few stitches beyond where I fastened off the first color, so I could be sure to work over the join and previous tail a small bit. But you would work wherever the pattern indicates.

Then wrap the yarn over the hook (yarn over) and draw a loop through the stitch. There should be two loops on your hook. Complete a second yarn over and pull the yarn through both loops on the hook. 

Ta da! That’s all there is to it! You’ve now completed a standing single crochet and can continue the rest of your row/round as normal. 

Your slip stitch to join the round together would be in your first standing stitch. Don’t skip that as it *IS* your first stitch of the round!

For a half double or double crochet, you’d yarn over before inserting your hook into the appropriate space and a triple would have two yarn overs, and so on. 

There are some tutorials that exist which also indicate that you can slip stitch the yarn into the appropriate place before beginning the standing stitch, but that is not quite correct as it would require a chain stitch or more before completing the standing stitch indicated. 

Now that you know the wonders of the standing stitch, do you think you’ll include this in your next project? Or is it only as necessity requires? Personally, I’m still on the fence! I do love the look and seamless blending that comes with using standing stitches… but I’m not sure if that love can overcome the weaving in of ends. 

Feel free to share your love or hate of these stitches as we progress through our monthly blocks! 

Until next time,
Grace

#crochet #cal #blockofthemonth #wonderlandyarns #yarntok #booktok #learnsomethingnew #standingstitches #crochettechniques #newskill #newblogpost #monthlyblog #designernotes

Starting with Square One . . .

Published on by Stephanie Shiman3 Comments

We’re starting 2024 with a make-a-long of knit and crochet squares as part of our monthly club, 
Tour of the Season.  When designing our Tour of the Season project for knitting I spent a lot of time thinking about how blanket squares are constructed — how different stitches yield different sizes and wondered about the ease of assembly with all these squares.  Ultimately I decided I liked the look of a center-out square. There’s no top, there’s no bottom, just perfect symmetry.  However, in order to achieve that look, it either means knitting from the outside in, or the inside out.  And in order to have the most amount of texture & stitch pattern options, it was best to knit from the inside out.  And this meant using something like the pinhole cast-on. . .this meant fidgety.

To be honest, I don’t like fidgety knitting. I don’t like *really* challenging stitches or tiny needles. I have intentionally avoided projects that require picking up lots of stitches or complicated colorwork — even if I loved the look of the finished garment.  But the square really wanted symmetry.  I had to do this for the square.

So I came home from work one night and sat down to start my square — my darling is making dinner and I’m chatting with him, meanwhile texting with my kids — and I ended up trying this cast-on for an hour and a half, pulling it out each time.  Fidgety!

The next morning, I was home alone and the house was quiet.  I watched this  slow-mo video from VeryPink Knits and got it and the first try. So lesson learned — don’t be tired and distracted when doing something fidgety!  A really helpful thing she says in the video is “all the action happens right here.”  That section of yarn is really the only section of yarn that you’re picking up with your needle.  That’s when it all clicked!



Now is my pinhole cast on perfect?  Absolutely not!  Is it still fidgety for the first few rounds?  Yes!  But is it pretty and satisfying when done?  Yes!

So here we have our first square, which will be the building block for the 11 other squares we will be making this year.

Some tips for other non-fidgety knitters:
1.  peace and quiet while learning something new — no audio book, no tv, no distractions
2.  don’t try to learn when tired — a friend told me he has a “no crafting after 9 pm” rule as it always ends in tears
3.  working over a flat surface, like a table, helps your needles stay vertical instead of getting all twisted up.
4.  once you have enough rounds, mark the start of the round with a locking marker



This first block of our knit-a-long blanket is “First Dance” and is included in with a club membership. And don’t worry if you’re starting late — this club will continue throughout 2024 and all squares will be available to subscribers.

Blogging…

Published on by Stephanie ShimanLeave a comment

New Year, New Year’s Resolution? For me resolutions are like a list of things that I didn’t do before and likely won’t do now. Haha. But ok, fine, blogging is added to the list. A blog seems useful — from time to time there are things that just need more said about them than will fit in a Facebook or Instagram post. So, here it is…bringing back the blog.

This won’t be one of those pages where you want to read about making sourdough and I start by telling the entire history of bread with an ad every few inches so you can test your patience as you scroll and scroll and scroll for a 5 line recipe. ;)

–stephanie

Published on by thespunmonkeyLeave a comment

Greetings, Wonderland friends!

We hope you’ll forgive our radio silence for the last several months post-TNNA. We’ve been deep down in the Rabbit Hole of creating and expanding, with some exciting new products and events in the works!

Streamlining and uniformly branding our media outreach has also been part of why things have been a bit quiet, as we redesign the blog, our newsletters, and soon our website. We are quite active on Facebook and Instagram in the meantime, however, where we post about projects, tips, wips, contests and more nearly-daily.

To begin to play a bit of catch-up, and in the spirit of WIP Wednesday, one of our summer releases was the Which Way shawl, born from our Mad Hatter sport Combo Pack (one 4-oz skein plus one Mini Skein Pack), and we love to see everyone’s shawls turning up on Ravelry. Here is a selection of some of our favorites:

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Clockwise from top left: Which Way shawls by Ravelry users @Darthknitter, @cbass, @KnittingWizard, @Wiartonknits, @myasisdragon, and @redrhonda.

I’ve started too many projects and still have my own Which Way on the needles!

What are you working on this week?

-shannon (Team Frabjous)

Back on track – Virtual Road Trip 8th Stop: The Woolery!

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Road Trip Day 8-page-001

Oh my, we’ve been off our road trip track for a while! We’ll hop back on in KY this week, visiting our friends at The Woolery. You can find them online or at 315 St. Clair in Frankfort, KY.

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FF&WY: Why/when/how did your shop come to be?

TW: The Woolery was established in upstate NY in 1981, selling sheep and angora rabbits as well as spinning and weaving supplies; we relocated to North Carolina briefly, and found our eventual (final) home here in the beautiful Bluegrass State of Kentucky!

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FF&WY: What makes your shop unique?

TW: Our customer service team definitely sets us apart from a lot of retailers. We have customers who know our staff on a first name basis, and even ask for them by name on the phone with specific questions. It is not uncommon for a staff member to receive thank you cards or gifts from appreciative customers year-round! We also have a wonderful, large showroom, with dozens of wheels and looms set up for customers to ‘try before they buy’ or learn to troubleshoot on. We get a lot of random requests and queries, as well: one gentleman in Scotland, an archaeologist, needed a historically accurate spindle to display with some beautiful medieval spindle whorls he had uncovered, and came to us for help finding one.

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FF&WY: What do you love about your town? If an out of town guest came to visit, where would you take them?

TW: Frankfort is a delightful place to visit! Buffalo Trace Distillery is right here, just a mile or so away, and is a premiere destination for very fine bourbon, as well as boasting beautiful grounds and offering hourly free distillery tours. We also have both the new and old state capitol buildings (some would say our capitol building is the prettiest in the country), the Kentucky History Center, Rebecca Ruth Candy Factory (try the bourbon balls), and the Kentucky River which flows right through the middle of our downtown! Frankfort Cemetery hosts numerous Kentucky governors in respite, as well as famed explorer Daniel Boone, and has a breathtaking overlook of the river valley. It’s a truly beautiful, historic little town.

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FF&WY: Fiber Emergency!

TW: We got a frantic call late one afternoon from a production studio that needed flax tow shipped overnight to Canada for a new movie being filmed.  We had it in stock, and arranged for the international, overnight delivery.  Several months later, Academy Award winning The Revenant was released in theaters…with our flax tow used as a prop! We sent two spinning wheels once to a penguin rescue reserve in the Falkland Islands, to be used at the B&B for demonstrations on how to spin the famous Falkland sheep wool!

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FF&WY: What is your favorite yarn brand?

TW: Our Bluegrass Mills 6/2 cotton comes in so many great, rich colors and is such a versatile fiber, I’d say that’s the latest addiction. It weaves beautifully!

 Many thanks to the kind folks at The Woolery for spending some time with us today. Please join us next week when we stop at Nomad Yarns in Plainfield, IN!

 

A Rainbow-licious Giveaway!

Published on by thespunmonkey66 Comments

We interrupt our virtual shop-hop to get prepped for TNNA 2016, AAAAANNND…to introduce you to a new item for Mini Skein lovers. We’re so excited about it, we want to give one away!

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To enter the giveaway for our new 20-Skein pack, So Fond of Rainbows, please visit our Facebook page for official entry (click on the “Giveaway” tab if you don’t see the post) after you comment here!

In about a month, we’ll be hosting a design contest with this pack, and there are big prizes to be had! $300 gift certificates for winning patterns, as well as publication in a rainbow-centric pattern e-book for fall. Stay tuned for details!

Dashing in to Yarn It & Haberdashery!

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Road Trip Day 7

Today we find ourselves in Columbus, at Yarn It & Haberdashery, a community resource for yarn and fiber lovers located at 1093 W. 1st Avenue in Grandview Heights, OH. Welcome!

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FF&WY: Why/when/how did your shop come to be?

YI&D: I’ve always been into knitting and crochet since I was 8 and even focused on knitwear when I did fashion design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The big turning point for actually opening a store was after many years of working the craft circuit with my own handmade goods and going onto TLC’s Craft Wars hosted by Tori Spelling. You had to have some big catch for what you would do with the $10k prize money. Mine was to open a store. Although I didn’t win my episode I kept the dream alive and I did open my dream store several years later with the full support of my husband.  I did a podcast with Tara Swiger about it here: https://taraswiger.com/podcast96/

FF&WY: What makes your shop unique?

YI&D: I like to think we are finely curated because we pay attention to what is around us and what is missing. We seek out brands and colors that other stores aren’t carrying in our area to bring a fresh breath of air to our local market. We are huge suckers for color so we are known for being a color store and getting people to think outside of the box. We don’t have all your typical classes either like some other stores. We encourage our beginners class to dive right into a project. We also let the teachers decide what to teach because if they’re passionate about their class or project it shows when they do their classes and makes for a happier environment. We have open knitting all the time and don’t have restrictions on using our store yarn or winding yarn not bought from us. We figure why close out a possible connection? We are also confident that once you come in you’ll find it very hard to leave without picking up something new.

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FF&WY: If a visitor came from out of town, which places near you would you suggest that they visit?

YI&D: In Columbus, we have such a great mix of everything: art, music, indie scene, FOOD. We love our food here and have tons of great restaurants and food trucks. We have a cute shopping boutique area of all small businesses and art galleries called the Short North. Just down the street from our store we have a plethora of great restaurants ranging from pizza to fine dining, Mediterranean, Indian and Italian and traditional Chinese soup dumplings. Of course, they have to get our locally roasted coffee next door at Luck Bros Coffee. Where we are located is the perfect little retreat for a day, since you can get food, fiber and coffee with a place to sit and enjoy.

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FF&WY: Do you have regular social meet-ups, like a knit night or KALs?

YI&D:  We have several social events every month. We have our regulars that come in to sit and knit on Mondays and Thursdays. Sundays are a great random sit and knit day since most of the other yarn stores in the area are closed Sundays. The last Thursday of every month we run a UFO (Unfinished Objects) Club where we play a little lottery for all the people that finished their project that month. At the beginning of each quarter we pick 4 UFOs, write them down and laminate the paper and each month we do a different one. Everyone puts a $1 into the pot whether they finished it or not and the lottery winner gets the pot that month.

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FF&WY: What’s your best “Yarn Emergency” story?

YI&D: I can’t think of any specific one but we have a lot of conferences that come through here and multiple times we’ve had ladies take Uber down to us to pick up a new project because they forgot their knitting at home.

FF&WY: What are the most popular patterns/yarn bases/colors among your customers right now?

YI&D: Stephen West is always hot in our store because we cater to the “neon realness” that he boosts.  Fingering and sport have been our most popular weights and pretty much anything rainbow or neon gets snatched up pretty quickly.

FF&WY: What is your favorite yarn brand (yes, this is a trick question)? 🙂
YI&D: It’s so hard to choose but Wonderland is definitely in our Top 3 brands that customers just can’t wait to get. The Pack of the Month almost always sells out the same week we get them in!
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FF&WY: Also, we love hilarious, heartbreaking or hilarious AND heartbreaking knitting stories. Entertain us!
YI&D: I think the most heartwarming thing is that we have truly built up a community in our store. People who never knew each other before are now hanging out here and making plans outside of the store. When someone is going through a rough patch (cancer, divorce, loss of job) we all pitch in together to help them feel better whether it is helping to buy them some yarn for a new project, bringing meals to them, or just a warm hug before they leave for the night. It’s much more than just a store or business, for some of our customers it is a sanctuary to get a little relief and happiness at the end of a hard month, week, or day.
Well, you know what to do now when you’re in Columbus. Thanks so much Yarn It & Haberdashery!

In Case of Yarn Emergency, call Fiberworks!

Published on by thespunmonkey5 Comments

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Bye-bye, PA, and hello OH! Pin #6 has dropped into the Dayton area at 1350A North Fairfield Road in Beavercreek, where you’ll find Fiberworks!

FF&WY: Why/when/how did your shop come to be?

FW: You may be sorry you asked! My current shop took a long time coming to be. I had planned to spend my life teaching French in a small college somewhere, but a 3-day workshop in spinning and natural dyeing led me down a different path. When we moved to Albuquerque the following year, I connected with Las Arañas Spinners and Weavers, and I joined a cooperative of painters, potters, silversmiths, and weavers who operated a shop in Santa Fé. After finding that my handspun yarns were a big success, I helped form Textile Crafts Cooperative, a shop in Albuquerque’s Old Town. When we moved to Omaha, it seemed natural to find a group of fiber artists, stained glass artists, painters, potters, and woodworkers and open Twenty Talents Gallery to sell our work. I also had a home studio where I was spinning, teaching, and selling spinning wheels, fibers, and related books and equipment.

When we moved to the Dayton area five years later, we purposely bought a house that had a large room with direct access from the outside that could serve as a studio/shop. I continued selling my handspun yarn at arts festivals and to knitting shops around the country, and began to carry more brands of carding and spinning equipment, dyes, and wooden knitting needles and crochet hooks. It was wonderful to be able to be home with my children when they were young, but I began daydreaming about having a “real store”.

One Sunday when I was 59, in an adult ed. session, I heard a psychologist speak about “following your dreams”. On my way home, I passed a storefront with a “FOR RENT” sign in the window, stopped, wrote down the phone number, and called the next day. When I discovered that I could afford the rent and no lease was required, I was in seventh heaven. I figured I would turn 60 whether I took a chance or not.

It was fun to create a cozy space where knitters could congregate and enjoy “kindred spirits”, especially on Tuesday and Sunday afternoons and Thursday nights for Knit ‘N’ Knibble. It quickly became obvious that stocking only my handspun yarns in addition to spinning supplies was not feasible, so I began meeting with yarn reps and succumbing to the charms of gorgeous yarns.

After 4 years at that location when we couldn’t possibly have stuffed in another skein of yarn, the city decided to widen the street in front of the shop, taking away our entire parking lot. Our new location, at the crossroads of the two major streets in Beavercreek, is twice the size (but four times the rent) and required a two-year lease (which was beyond scary). Now, almost seven years later, we have expanded into the shop next door, which we have devoted primarily to spinning, dyeing, and felting supplies. Our main room is brimming with yarns from Araucania, Cascade, Crystal Palace, Debbie Bliss, Ella Rae, Hi-Koo, Jojoland, Juniper Moon Farm, Louisa Harding, Madelinetosh, Malabrigo, Misti, Noro, Opal, Queensland, Schoppel Wolle, Sirdar, Universal, and Wonderland, as well as notions, books, patterns, and needles galore. We’ve recently added several styles of Fair Trade African Market Baskets-perfect for transporting every size project.

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FF&WY: What makes your shop unique?

FW: We are open 7 days a week and try to provide a comfortable home away from home with a wide variety of everything a knitter, crocheter, spinner, or felter could want. Deb K., who is here every weekday, provides expert help with every aspect of knitting and crochet, and has a soft spot in her heart for the well-behaved pets who sometimes visit our shop. Her fingers are never still, and she knits most of the shop models. Arlene loves to addict willing victims to spinning, using a variety of spindles and wheels, aided by the lure of luscious hand-dyed fibers (from Frabjous Fibers, of course).

FF&WY: What do you love about your town?

FW: Being close to I-75 and I-70, we receive many visitors travelling both north-south and east-west. Many stop here in the Dayton area to visit sites important to aviation history. Some come because it is the home of Esther Price candy.  Our shop is located between two large malls, the Mall at Fairfield Commons, and the Greene, both with many upscale stores and boutiques, and many dining options. One of the best things about the Greater Dayton area is its support of fibers. If you visit the websites of the Dayton Knitting Guild, the Miami Valley Knitting Guild, the Greater Dayton Crochet Guild, and the Weavers Guild of Miami Valley, you will find meetings, workshops, meet-ups, and knit-ins almost every day of the week. There are no fewer than seven yarn shops in the area, and all are thriving. If you come on the third weekend in September, you can add to your stash at A Wool Gathering, a large (but still manageable) fiber festival north of Yellow Springs.

FF&WY: Do you have regular social meet-ups, like a knit night or KALs?

FW: We have “Knit Knite” on the 4th Friday of the month (or a week earlier, if too close to a holiday) with a pot luck dinner starting around 6:30, and lasting until the last person leaves. A “Lunch Bunch” come regularly on Thursdays to knit, chat, and order lunch. Sunday afternoons are also a popular time for knitters to gather here.

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FF&WY: What’s your best “Yarn Emergency” story?

FW: Since I know what it’s like to have broken a needle or run out of yarn when the LYS is closed, I have my cell phone number listed on the front door under “In Case of Yarn Emergency,” and it’s on the answering machine’s message as well. I live only 7 minutes from the shop, and am happy to help out in emergencies. One year during the first week in January when we close to count everything in the shop, I got a call from a woman who was traveling through the area, had run out of yarn for a shawl she was knitting, and saw on the yarn company’s website that we carried that yarn. She was almost in tears when she arrived and discovered that we were closed for inventory, but ecstatic when I opened the door and she found that we even had the same dye lot.

And THIS (omg, Arlene just sent me this message to add to best-ever yarn emergency, and it’s pretty good): We just had an “interesting” yarn emergency. My son and I were at the shop tonight after closing at 5 to try to organize and price a large shipment of needles seemingly packed by gorillas, when we received an urgent phone call to see if we were open. I said ” come on down” since we would be there for quite a while longer. It turned out to be a very pregnant customer who was already three centimeters dilated and wanted to finish a beautiful shawl. With only five rows to go, she had run out of Malabrigo sock yarn. Needless to say, I wound that skein into a ball in record time!

FF&WY: What are the most popular patterns/yarn bases/colors among your customers right now?

FW: The Eyelet Shawl pattern has been very popular in the Cheshire Cat mini-skeins and the Eyelet Cowl pattern in March Hare. We all know that the most popular colors are the ones used in the model garments. 😀

FF&WY: What is your favorite yarn brand?

FW: That would be like having to name my favorite child! My favorite brand is always one that uses high-quality natural fibers and has a marvelously “squishy” feel. (That sounds suspiciously like Wonderland Yarn, doesn’t it?)

Fiberworks3

FF&WY: We love hilarious, heartbreaking or hilarious AND heartbreaking knitting stories. Entertain us!

FW: Sorry, this knitting story is only heartbreaking…..One of our customers went to a great deal of effort and expense to knit a beautiful afghan for her brother and sister-in-law. When she went to visit, she was somewhat upset not to see it in the living room or family room. The real blow came when she found that it was being used as their dog’s bed!!

Wow, thank you so much Arlene! So far, your yarn emergency stories take the cake. And readers, you all know what to do when you’re in the Dayton area: visit Fiberworks!

Next week, we’ll be visiting Yarn It and Haberdashery in Grandview Heights. Hope to see you there!