Late Opening Saturday, 1/21/12!!!
Hi All,
Due to icy conditions on the roads and parking lots this morning and a still-freezing temperature reading, the shop plans to open at NOON. Please be safe out there and we will hope the weather clears a bit by midday!
Thanks for your understanding. Having a bit of knitting time this morning is not such a bad thing!
2012 Arrives in style at Woolworks!
As hard as it is to believe, another holiday season has passed and a new year is in full swing. We had a wonderful and busy time over the holidays and saw many new faces. It’s gratifying to meet and establish new relationships, based on a shared love of fiber, color and the desire to craft beautiful things. We know that many of our beloved long-time customers are our best ambassadors out in the world. We are very grateful for the kind words and encouragement to “newbies” to join the ranks.
We are excited to head into the cold months with so many great warm woolies to make and share. Our On the Needles page is freshly updated with what we’ve just finished or are working on. These thumbnails should whet your appetite!
Be sure to check out the Classes page this coming week to see what we have in store for learning new techniques, Knit-a-Long opportunities and special events in the next 4 months. One of the most exciting opportunities will come in February when Ann Weaver comes for two days of workshops over Saturday/Sunday, 2/18-2/19. Ann did a “drive-by” visit before Christmas and we were all charmed by her youth, enthusiasm and interesting designs. We will do two separate workshops that weekend and hope you can join us for one or both.
We hope the New Year brings your thoughts to knitting and crocheting. We’re here and ready to get you on your way, whether it’s your first project or 200th!
Hitting it Hard for the Holidays
Leaves are falling in all sorts of colors….
When it comes to Fall, leaves turning and throwing on a sweater or scarf is the first true sign of the season. It has taken until this chilly October 22nd weekend to truly feel the effects of the season change in Baltimore. We’ve seen an influx of customers wanting projects that not only keep a body warm, but might fulfill a gift need for the coming holidays. We’ve rearranged our center display to inspire everyone and to show off some of the myriad choices of yarns for this, our busiest time.
Cowls continue to be popular in all of the magazines, single patterns and online blogs. Fingerless mitts are another popular, stylish and quick-to-make item. A new publication, Weekend Hats from Interweave Press is chock full of hats of all kinds, from berets to slouchy caps for men, women and kids. Shawls of all varieties continue to populate Ravelry’s “most favorited” projects and pop up in each and every knit and crochet publication. We anticipate the arrival of Stephen Wests’ WestKnits Three any day – a designer who has been wildly prolific and popular in the last 2 years. Coastal Knits by Alana Dakos & Hannah Fettig arrived last week and has numerous accessory patterns, including a quick to knit cowl that we’ve already popped on and off our needles. Churchmouse Yarns & Teas rolled out a new batch of single patterns two weeks ago, including a great poncho, quick crocheted scarf and many other irresistible ideas.
The holiday prep continues as we move into deeper fall with an upcoming Felted & Embellished Christmas Tree 2-session workshop this November. Inspired by a Purl Soho online tutorial, we are crafting knit, then felted trees in various sizes in the first session, then meeting the next week to apply embellishments of all kinds. Our November Knit-a-Long will concentrate on fingerless gloves and mitts of all varieties so you may perfect your skill and crank out a pair or two in short order. Going into December, our Knit-a-Long will be about hand-knit accessories and gifts for the holidays – so we’ll be making hats and small items to give as gifts. The research and development of these “must make” items is ongoing!
We are really proud to offer what we think is the best selection of yarns that Woolworks has had in quite some time. Our choices have expanded to new lines, some very select independent makers, and hopefully represent the best and brightest of what is out there for our customers to use and enjoy. With all of the hard work and energy it takes to provide this selection, we are constantly energized by the response of our customers and friends. It’s a joint effort at Woolworks and things are coming right along.
Is it really September…..?
Would you say an earthquake and and hurricane Irene constitute summer ending with a bang, rather than a whimper? Yeah. Us too. While the shop dogs, Casey & Isabel enjoy their last days of summer vacation in Upstate New York, the Woolworks crew has been hitting it really hard to get the shop ready for fall. New merchandise started arriving August 1st and honestly, there has been no rest since then! Rowan came first and we could barely get the yarn on the
Rowan Magazine 50
shelves before people were clamoring for a
project for August vacations. Rowan Magazine 50 is a wonderful tribute to the 25 years of twice yearly design and inspiration. We have re-ordered Rowan Magazine 50 four times since August 1st. It’s a keeper.
Shibui Yarns came rolling in mid-August with “Heichi” silk, “Silk Cloud” and solid Staccato making everyone drool. The depth of color in Shibui’s yarns, especially the Silk Cloud is something to behold, to say nothing of the feel and drape of the materials on the needles.
As all of us took turns w
ith vacations, the feeling at the shop was of anxious yearning to dig into all of the new materials and get started on samples for fall. This is where owning a knit shop is glorious – so many new products to choose from and NEW, NEW, NEW everything!
Noro Yarns arrived mid-month as well, bringing with it new pattern booklets and COLOR like you’ve come to expect from the Japanese design house. Knit Noro, Noro Style by Jenny Watson, Noro Magazine 30 all have oodles of designs, as if you need more than to just knit and see what happens…
There is really too much to report….You should really come in and see. We PROMISE you won’t be disappointed. Get the kids back to school and think about what would be perfect to knit. Or crochet. Or needle felt. We have it all. Casey & Isabel can’t wait to see 
you……………..
Blogging into Summer….
We’re on the cusp of summer of course, with the Memorial Day Weekend upon us. The shop has been abuzz with many exciting happenings since we last posted. We had an amazing response to our GROUPON two weekends ago and have been greeting customers, old and new ever since. We’ve learned that everyone loves a deal every once and awhile. We’re just sorry we didn’t dream up the GROUPON concept ourselves…..
The Fall buying continues with sales reps coming out of the woodwork. We are pleased to report the addition of Shibui Knits in the last week. We’ve started our offerings from Shibui with “Staccato”, a fingering weight merino and silk in multis designed for socks, baby items and whatever else you can think of. For fall we are bringing in several other fibers, including Heichi, a 100% silk that is to die for, with a great pattern booklet to support it. Samples are being worked up as we type with pictures to follow. Shibui Baby and Shibui Sock booklets are in store now!
Happy to report our Summer Class & Knitalong Schedule is posted in Classes on this site. Join us this summer as we while away the hours on new and exciting projects. Knitting and crochet are year-’round pursuits with the Woolworks crew and we encourage all to join us, with or without your sheep.
Enjoy the Memorial Day Weekend. See you soon!
New & Enticing @ Woolworks!
Spring is one of our favorite times of year at the shop. Despite being an obsession that surrounds itself in WOOL, fiber enthusiasts delight in the silk, linen, bamboo, soy and cotton that surfaces during the spring and summer months. Color saturates each of these fibers in a different way, making these fibers bring new life, color and texture to our shelves.
- Gaia Shoulder Hug/Noro Taiyu Sock
Noro Taiyu Sock yarn makes this lovely triangular shawl with a combination of simple increases and eyelet transition rows. We have 6 colorways of Taiyu Sock in store for your color knitting pleasure. The Gaia Shoulder Hug pattern is free on www.ravelry.com and uses one skein on a size 5 needle.
- JUL shawl pin
Laura Bellows of JUL Designs has expanded on her line of shawl pins, sticks and bag jewelry and we’re delighted to have a great selection in stock now. Using gorgeous woods and semi-precious stones like onyx and turquoise, Laura marries the materials into lovely and functional jewelry for your wraps and shawls. We’ll have buttons and bag/belt jewelry coming for fall and we can’t wait to show you!
Road to China Light is the newest fiber from The Fibre Company to grace our shelves. Elegant and sumptuous in look and feel, Road To China Light is featured in many patterns both free on the Fibre Company website (including piece pictured) and in Modern Vintage Knits, available at the shop.
Road to China Light
- Spud
Spud & Chloe
If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Susan B. Anderson’s latest work, Spud & Chloe at the Farm, you really should. We made Spud and can’t wait to add animals from the clever and whimsical book to our own farm. The easy to follow patterns make this toy knitting experience very worthwhile.
Madelinetosh Knitalong Begins!
Join Kim and Karen each Thursday evening in May to knitalong on a project of your choice using the popular and beautiful Madelinetosh yarns. Thursdays, 6:00-7:45pm
- Toddler Tea Leaves Cardi/Madelinetosh
Knit & Noshers
Knit & Nosh Friday mornings!
Join the ever-growing group of Noshers each Friday form 9:00-10:00 am with Mindy.
Happy Spring Everyone! We look forward to knitting and crocheting with you!
Introducing: Madelinetosh!
We are extremely excited to introduce 4 Madelinetosh yarns to the Woolworks family today…Tosh Vintage, Tosh Sock, Pashmina & Tosh Lace. We have a group of Madelinetosh patterns as well and the yarn is literally flying off the needles of the Woolworks staff tonight. When you search “Madelinetosh” on Ravelry, 13 pages of projects come up, proving how very popular this company has become with designers and knitters worldwide. Here are a few pictures to whet your appetite. But please, come see for yourself!!!!!
Tea Leaves Cardigan
Pashmina
Creature Comforts Cardi
Tiny Tea Leaves Cardi
Tosh Lace
Railroad Vest
Tosh Sock
News & Events
Woolworks e-newsletter Be sure to click on this link to read our e-newsletter with News & Events of the week!!!
Izzy Recommends the Woolworks e-newsletter
Have a great weekend!
March = Color
March = Color
Now that we’ve sprung forward, everyone at the shop has been going full force into spring cleaning mode! We’ve taken winter samples down and replaced them with lighter weight wraps and transitional sweaters to get everyone in the mood for warmer temperatures. Spring Breakers came in for a project this week to take along on their trips and lots of our knitters and crocheters are ready for something new. We love spring merchandise for the color and texture of non-wool fibers and our shop takes on a lighter look and brighter palette. We are busy whipping up new samples to inspire the spring knitting bug in all of you.
Our Newsletter goes out today with new products showcased and news and events highlighted. If you don’t get our newsletter, please subscribe in the box to the right of this post by entering your email. A confirmation email will be sent to you from Constant Contact in our name, so be sure to reply to the email to complete the process.
Stay tuned for new On The Needles photos over the weekend…everyone has new projects to share of all varieties.
Also coming is the addition of yarns for sale in our SHOP. We’ll start small, but build up our stock of fabulous fibers so our online store looks and feels complete.
Don’t forget to check out our Classes page and see if there’s something that strikes your fancy.
Tomorrow is Knit & Nosh with Mindy at 9:00am…she’d love to see you there!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
The Week in Review…
Woolworks Week In Review
We had a great week at the shop, despite some nasty and torrential rain yesterday. For those of you heading off for Spring Break, we wish you fair weather. Things are pretty scary around the world today, with weather being front and center in everyone’s minds
What’s New?
Taiyo Sock Yarn
This is the time of year when spring and summer merchandise comes streaming in and this week was no exception. Whenever we order for a “season” from all of our companies, we stagger delivery so that we can open boxes and organize over a period of weeks, the materials that arrive. This week we unpacked some lighter colors of Angel’s Kiss Alpaca worsted, Noro’s Taiyo Sock Yarn & Furisode, Debbie Bliss Eco Baby and the accompanying dedicated pattern booklets. We welcomed a new company to our “stable” with Imperial Stock Ranch “Tracie”, a sport weight 100% wool in 4 colors. Even though it is a wool, it’s lightweight and we thought perfect for a 3-season cardigan. We have a pattern for just such a sweater in stock. In the book department, we have Rebecca Danger’s new book The Big Book of Knitted Monsters which is a must-have for anyone who enjoys irreverent knit animals! Also new this week is Cascade Yarns’ 60 Quick Baby Knits -adorable baby patterns for worsted weight yarns.
60 Quick Baby Knits
Debbie Bliss Eco Baby
The Big Book of Knitted Monster
Knitting and Donating for a Cause
There has been a great response to our call for oddments of yarn for a friend who is helping incarcerated women in Afghanistan. We now have boxes of leftover yarns that have been dropped off and we will happily hand them over on or before March 15th. Thanks to everyone for their donations. On another charity knitting note, we are in the process of getting a Comfort Doll pattern from our friends at Gilchrist Hospice so that we can make and send dolls to their new pediatric hospice program. Stay tuned for those details. We know we’ll have lots of knitting support for this project.
Book Signing Event!
We’re delighted to report that local author, Lynn Buchheit Janney, will be visiting and signing her new book, Purls of Wisdom: Knitting Life’s Lesson for Little Ones at the shop on Saturday, April 2nd from 11:00am-1:00pm. Lynn has published this great book of patterns for knitted items for children with charted designs. Books will be available that day for $24.95. We hope to see everyone there!
Knit & Nosh!
Every Friday from 9-10:30am, Mindy hosts Knit & Nosh at the shop. This is a great opportunity to come for some friendly group knitting or crocheting. Bring your coffee or tea and enjoy a bite to eat before the demands of the day and weekend. Mindy has a great group of followers already, so please feel free to join in!
Reaching a Broader Audience
It’s been a lot of fun watching our Facebook &, Ravelry Groups and E-Newsletter list grow now that our website is up and running. We’ve always known that knitting and crochet are communal hobbies, so we’re excited to welcome people from all over to be a part of what we are doing. We are very appreciative of all the nice emails we’ve gotten with your feedback. Share our site with your friends in and out of town – we’d love to have them join us! www.woolworksbalt.com
Have a great weekend. Next week we’ll post new “On the Needles” pictures. In the meantime, we hope you’ll be getting your knit on…….We know we will!
