Knitting with Company

Around the World in Knitted Socks: 26 Inspired Designs.

Announcing our Fourth Annual Cruisette.   A two and a half hour mini cruisette up the Fox River on a Paddle Wheel River Boat! Leaving from Pottawatomi Park in St Charles at 4:00pm on Sunday, September 12th, we will serve wine, drinks and desserts, and you can enjoy the lovely scenery and company of your fellow knitters and crocheters.

All levels of knitter and crocheter (and non-knitter / crocheter) are welcome.   You’ll be able to walk to the jetty from our new store! Sign Up Today!

We are thrilled to be hosting Amy Swensen (Indigirl) who is coming to do a workshop for her fabulous Cloudchaser Vest – a Ravelry favorite. The workshop will run for 3 hours on the morning of Saturday, September 18th and for 3 hours on the afternoon of Sunday, September 19th with all that knitting time in between. The cost for the workshop is $55 which includes the amazing pattern. Space is very, very limited, so please get your name on the list ASAP. We will be giving the information on homework and yarn selections etc. after we have moved.

Help to make women aware of the symptoms of ovarian cancer while also helping to subsidize research into finding an early detection test for the disease.

To help make that happen, in conjunction with Skacel, we are very proud to introduce the “Egg-stra” Special Sock Kit. This sock pattern was designed by Rosemary “Chappy” Chapman, this time in honor of Susanne Skacel, a three-year survivor of ovarian cancer. The Teal color of Trekking in this kit is the official color designated to ovarian cancer, and has been specially dyed just for this cause. Every design aspect of this sock, from the cuff to the toe, is a reminder to us that ovarian cancer can be beaten if we, as women, unite.

All the proceeds from the sale of these kits will be donated to the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research (marsharivkin.org).

We have heard from Citizen Sam that the armed forces will not take any kind of knitted hats, helmet liners or scarves in the future.

Please do not send us any more liners – we will not accept any more as we cannot send them on, so please, please, please do not send them.

After August 15th we will let you know how many liners (close to 1000) you have donated and we will be letting you know about other charities that we are supporting that you can knit for. For example, Prayer Shawls and Baby Blankets always seem to be in demand, so you can always have things to make. But stay tuned to emails and ‘like us’ on facebook.

By the way, did you know that we have plenty of charity yarn available in the store? Come in and ask for it – you can take whatever you need, and there’s no charge. We simply ask that you fill in a form to tell us about the charity knitting that you’re doing and when the project is complete you can send us some pictures so that the generous folks who donated the yarn know what good it did. Also if you have yarn for us to pass on, just drop it off here (whole skeins only, please – and must have the original yarn band).

Save the date: The crawl starts next Friday, August 13 (yes, that’s correct, Friday, the 13th) and continues through Sunday, August 22. Welcome to the first Chicago Area Yarn Crawl. About 20 stores are participating in this exciting event. Come and pick up your passport on, or after August 13th.

Each participating store will have a gift basket worth at least $100 to raffle off. Stop in and get your passport (available at all stores) stamped and enter your name for a chance to win the store’s gift basket. Each store will also be offering a discount for purchases along with a free exclusive store pattern.

If you visit at 10 stores, you’ll get a chance to participate in the grand raffle prize – a gift basket with items worth over $500. There are additional raffle tickets for visiting one store in each 5 regions and also for visiting fifteen stores. So there are opportunities to get three raffle tickets for the grand prize.

You probably know by now that we are moving to a different space, back to Saint Charles, and we expect to open our new spot on September 1st. We will keep our Geneva location open until everything is ready to go in the new one, so never fear, you will always be able to get yarn.

We have just finalized the paperwork, and can officially announce that we are moving to 107A West Main Street, in Saint Charles which is right on North Avenue (route 64) and backs onto the new plaza in the new First Street Development of Saint Charles.

This lovely old bank building has an entrance on Route 64 as well as an entrance from the Plaza area of the downtown area. We have the same amount of space as we do in Geneva and there is loads of 24/7 parking.  There are lots of fun places to eat, and we are right next door to the new McNallys! We are all super excited about our new space and we hope you love it too.

So over the next month we will be moving things over and getting it all organized and plan to be completely open there by September 1st. Keep checking your emails and like or ‘like us’ on facebook to stay up with what’s going on.

Just in case you don’t know what Fliegende Untertasse means, it is German for Flying Saucer (or literally “flying under-cup”), and that is exactly what landed in the store on Tuesday. These super colorful disks of yarn are created so that you put a piece of yarn or string through the center, hang them on a doorknob or something similar, and then you can unroll TWO STRANDS AT A TIME of the same space dyed yarn, thus making identical socks! Fun, Fun, Fun … Christie started a pair at the store yesterday so come and see them and grab your Flying Saucer while we still have them … they are literally flying out.