Knitting with Company

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!

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.

Would you like to participate in a Knitting-in-Public event at a Kane County Cougars game? Many of the professional baseball teams, including the Chicago White Sox, offer a Stitch and Pitch game each year, and now we can start one locally at a Cougars’ game right here in Kane County.

The game is Saturday, August 14th at 6 p.m. against the Peoria Chiefs, the CUBS farm team. This is a fireworks night at the ballpark. The Cougars play in Geneva at 34W002 Cherry Lane.

If we have 20 or more people attending (includes family members and non-knitting friends, too!), we can get a discount on the tickets. The Saturday night group discounted tickets will cost $12 each. We can sit and knit and enjoy the game. There may be goodies and door prizes to make the evening even more fun, and Wool and Company will have some great coupons and giveaways too.

Please email Gretl gkramer@foxvalley.net if you and your family and friends would like to go, and tell her how many tickets you want to purchase. Gretl will make arrangements to collect the money, and she’ll purchase the group tickets.

Thanks, and batter up!

Join  us on Thursday May 27 at the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles, Illinois for great night out.  Show starts at 7:00 pm, doors open at 6:00.  Tickets are just $25 and are available online at www.thearcada.com.

Skip Mennerick died suddenly and tragically in October 2009. Proceeds from this concert will benefit his wife Erika, son Cole and daughter Kiera.

Chicagoland’s premiere horn band IS AUGUST.   Not just a band with horns, but a band who plays some of the best music ever written; a band whose essence is horn-driven rock, soul and R&B. Experience that music, experience the  band … www.augusttheband.com.

With very special guest, guitarist, singer, sogwriter Greg Boerner (“Burner”).  His music is an original blend of blues, folk, country, roots rock n’ roll and all that comes between — Southern style. www.gregboerner.com.

The Nuss from Berroco – a basic cardigan with a gently flared shape. It has an easily memorized lace pattern that decorates the fluted bottom. Finished with crochet and a cluster of buttons.

The Knitalong (KAL) participants are making great progress.  One of these folks has completed the knitting and is ready to put together the different pieces.  Can you guess who?

There was much discussion as to whether to block and sew, or to sew and block.  The decision was to sew and block using a “Wooly Board” – available in the store.

Come and see our model it’s made in Blackstone Tweed Plum Island – a yarn for the discerning knitter! This super soft yarn has all the rustic appeal of a classic tweed yarn but with a high dose of mohair and angora. With wear these garments will develop a soft and fuzzy halo. A joy to wear and a pleasure to knit.

What is a Knitalong.

First the Oh! So Good …

When I was over in England in September, I was lucky enough to get a ticket to a workshop in London conducted by Alice Starmore, yes THAT Alice Starmore. Because of a snafu with the organizers, one other girl and I were the only two in the room and lucky enough to spend the first 40 minutes of the class alone with her … the others couldn’t find the classroom!

What a gem of a lady she is. One of the eminently and innately intelligent, bright and energetic women that Scotland seems to be so good at breeding. She is interested in absolutely everything and only too happy to share her passions. I assumed knitting would be at the top of the list, but naturalist art, especially photographing the flora and fauna of her native land is way up there, as is taking her grandson out and about to look at bugs, plants and fish.

Yes, I did ask her to come and do a workshop over here, but she pretty much said her days of visiting America are over. But we have the next best thing. The class was on fair isle knitting to coincide with the relaunch of her wonderful Book of Fair Isle Knitting … and now we have the book in stock, waiting for your voyage of discovery with Alice.

This is an extract from our electronic newsletter (email) of November 12th, 2009.  You can continue reading here.

Thank you to everyone that contributed in any way to our food drive.

We managed to collect more than 4 tons of food and delivered it to an almost empty food pantry in Biloxi, MS at the beginning of October.

I can’t tell you how appreciative the people of Mississippi are.

Here’s some pictures of the delivery.

Thank you Wool and Company friends – you helped us to raise more than 7000 lbs of food that we’ll be transporting to Biloxi, Mississippi next week.  We will be delivering it to the Bethel Lutheran Food Bank on Saturday morning October 10th.

You can be sure that many hungry mouths are going to feel your generosity and love.

Here are a couple of pictures of the food that we’d boxed ready to be shipped as of a week ago.  Donations have continued to come in and we have a whole lot more food that needs to be boxed.  We’ll take good pictures and post them here when we return.

Thank you to everyone who supported our Oktoberfestchen and participated in our food drive. Despite a sputtering griddle we had a lot of fun and served more than 100 potato pancakes.  A big thank you also to Graham’s Chocolate who provided the fantastic location.

Here’s a picture of what we collected.   Also, thank you for the kind donations of cash.  We anticipate being able to add approximately 1000 pounds more of food using these donations.

Our customers are the best.

Don’t forget, you can continue to drop of food at the store through September 26th, and if you would prefer to give a cash donation, you can do that online.

Photos courtesy Shelly and Sidney …