We're in the process of moving!

We're in the process of moving all of the brick and mortar store offerings to our online store! Please bear with us. I think this will be a L-O-N-G process.

Mother's health is holding. No recent trips to the emergency room (as opposed to 3 over the summer which had us rethink our shop's long term goals and objectives.) Pearl, an old friend of my parents, and her daughter Sandy, my best friend since kindergarden, visited in August. I think it did Mother a world of good. She hasn't seen Pearl since she moved here seven years ago and they used to be quite close, visiting at least once a week.

Bob, the oldest of my three younger brothers, came for a week over Thanksgiving. We surprised Mother and Dad with his visit. Thank goodness she has a pacemaker now!

To keep on topic..... The Berroco fall yarns arrived in September and they're gorgeous! My favorite is the new Vintage Chunky and we held a class featuring Berroco's Americano vest. Patti, a relatively new knitter and one of our crochet teachers, knit this adorable vest in two days! It took her another day to block it, put it together and sew on the buttons. As of today, she's made two more for Christmas gifts.

Berroco's Vintage Chunky is a wool/acrylic blend and is washable. It's a fast knit with a relatively soft hand. If you'll remember, I made my grandson, Thomas, a sweater out of Vintage worsted weight for Christmas last year. His mother reports that it washes and dries quite well.

Great news from Berroco - Vintage DK will be in their spring line! We should have some of this in February, ready for your spring sweaters.

That's about it for now. We won't be closing for inventory this year, but orders will have to be placed through the website at http://www.thebusyneedlewebsite.com/

We wish you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

-Elise

Classes, classes, classes

Our Spring Class Schedule has now been posted on the website. Lots of new classes!

Patti's newest class, The Dolman Crocheted Jacket, is now on display at the shop. Patti chose burgundy and pink for her jacket and it looks stunning. This is an advanced beginner jacket.

The class is scheduled to start on April 4th. We're making this lovely jacket in Berroco's Comfort so the materials cost, even for the 12 skeins needed in the largest size (3X), will be quite reasonable.

In addition to this crocheted jacket, we have several knit sweaters we're teaching this season.

First, the Sample Stitch Sweater is a beginner project. We almost called this "My First Sweater" because it truly is new knitter friendly. All you need to know is how to knit and purl.

We'll be teaching picking up stitches, increasing by Kfb, and seaming. This class has been quite popular and we already have several sweaters almost completed!

We're also making this sweater in Berroco's Comfort. Ten skeins are all that are needed for the largest size sweater so this project, too, is one which is reasonably priced.

For the intermediate knitter, we are offering the Lace Cabled Pullover. This is a beautiful sweater made in a cotton blend yarn, perfect for our warm shoulder seasons.

If you've ever wanted to learn lace stitches, but didn't want to commit to a large project with fine yarn, this sweater will whet your appetite. In addition to the lace stitches, we'll also be teaching cables, and seaming.

For those of you who, like me, prefer a little more length to those sleeves, I have modified the pattern to suit your needs. If you decide to make this simple modification, it will require an extra skein of yarn.

Worked in Plymouth's Jeannee, the XXL size (51" finished bust) uses only 10 skeins of yarn, making the cost under $40 for the largest size sweater.


We're also teaching Beginner Knits, Beginner Crochet, Shuttle Tatting 101, and Patti's Crocheted Stole, among others!

Check the shop's website http://www.thebusyneedleonline.com/ and click on the button at the left marked "classes" for more details, class fees, materials fees, dates & times, etc.

Join our cookie recipe swap!

I think we need to do a holiday cookie recipe swap. So.....

Email your favorite holiday cookie recipe to me. I'll publish one each day in November in this blog. Check back every day and you'll have a bunch of new recipes when cookie-making time arrives!

Please include your name and a little about the recipe. Was it your grandmother's favorite recipe? Did you eat it as a child? Who do you make it for?

I'll start off the month with my grandmother's recipe for Sand Tarts - a family favorite! Imagine a thin crisp cookie topped with cinnamon and a few chopped peanuts. Yum. Nana would make them by the dozens and would have to hide most of them so they lasted until New Year's Day. I'll post the recipe on November 1st.

Now it's your turn to share. Send your recipe and story to:

wright_elise@msn.com

and I'll do the rest!

Working on the Class Schedule!

Okay, okay.... I'm working on the July-August class schedule as fast as a I can! Hopefully I'll have it posted by Monday, July 13. I promise I'll send out an email as soon as it posts.

Just to keep you appeased (somewhat!) here's a sneak peak of a couple of classes:

Children's Hats - They make great Christmas presents and we have a new teacher (welcome Lilli!) who has made dozens of cute designs from one basic pattern.

Lace Shawl - That new merino/silk blend yarn will be featured in this class. Only two skeins needed for this project! I'm working on the model as fast as I can!

Hardanger II - Bookmarks or Christmas ornaments? Jackie has the bookmark model done, but we have a customer who wants to do Hardanger Christmas ornaments. Which would YOU prefer?

Crocheted Shrug - Do you like the navy blue crocheted shrug hanging in the hall? Patti has agreed to teach a 4-lesson class on this one starting mid-August. You can have it finished by the time our cool evenings arrive in late September.

Coming in September - A Man's Sweater - Great for Christmas, and you have time to get this one done!

Coming in October (we hope!) - The Norah Gaughan Collection from Volume 3 - including the Eastlake sweater on which we'll do a class in November, and the Violette-le-duc Sweater shown on the cover. Can't wait to finalize the details with Berroco!

April and May Classes

April's class schedule is posted on The Busy Needle's website and we're hard at work on May's offerings.

Jackie will be teaching most of the classes in May as I will be in Greece for most of the month. (If you want to follow along on the trip, check out my personal blog where I'll be posting as often as I'm able. www.elisewright.blogspot.com)

If there's something special you'd like Jackie to teach in May, please let us know by April 15 so we may put it on the class calendar. Jackie can crochet and knit as well as do fabulous hardanger. She is already teaching our beginner and intermediate crochet classes and the beginner sock classes, but is capable of a lot more!

Spring Classes

About 2 weeks ago I took some time to put up all the March and April class offerings on the website. Not only are we teaching beginner knitting and crochet, but also a knitted lace sweater perfect for spring (a beginner class!), Sockmaking I and II, Mittens, and a Child's Color Blocked Sweater class.

I am most excited about a new yarn from Berroco called NaturLin - a 40% linen/60% rayon blend - which is exquisite. It has all of the properties of linen but with a nicer hand. Berroco's NaturLin book features table mats, shopping bags, bedspreads, placemats, etc. and we'll be teaching the Table Mat class as well as the Hadley Mini-Bag class on March 15.

Check out the Berroco site for more information on this lovely new yarn.

And finally, we're offering a Basic Punchneedle class. Many of our customers have been asking for this, so we'll be teaching just the basics on March 22. Yes, that's Easter weekend. Space is very limited so please plan to register early.

Now, with a new laptop and the ability to get back into The Busy Needle's blog (for reasons unknown to us, our old computer was locked out of the blog site) I hope to post much more frequently here... so stay tuned!

Busy Busy Busy!

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted on this blog! There are so many new things going on at the shop.

First, the website is up and, while I'm still loading the database for the shopping cart, the site is now operational! We even have the Merchant Mall link up and running under the "Charts" button so you now have 85% of the charts that are on the market just a click away.

Second, last weekend (June 1-3) was needlework and yarn market and so all the new items we've ordered have started to arrive. In fact, I just received an email Thursday that the new Berroco acrylic yarn "Comfort" will be delivered on Tuesday (6/12.) I'm not sure where I'm going to put it... which means we'll be doing a little "cleaning house" (if you get my drift) sometime in the next couple of weeks. Sydney (our teen help) is going to be so surprised when she gets in on Wednesday. LOL!

I urge you to go to the Berroco website ( www.berroco.com ) to check out all the new designs and yarns! While you're there, sign up for their newsletter. It arrives every Friday morning and has LOTS of great information regarding trends and colors, as well as free patterns.

Reynolds yarns will be arriving here in July and August, and we have a second shipment of Berroco yarn due here in August, as well. Watch for more information about the new yarns in a later post.

The Patriotic Sale went well this past weekend. All patriotic charts, as well as red, white, and blue yarn, were on sale to those customers who had made a purchase in the past 45 days. (We handed out discount coupons with each purchase.)

The discount flyers were such a hit that we'll continue the "specials" right through September. You'll receive the flyer with your next purchase... and if you have a full Busy Needle Customer Care Card you may use it in conjunction with the coupon discount, except in September.

One final website note I forgot to mention... Kevin, the web guru, will meet with me at the house tomorrow (Monday) to help finalize the set-up of The Busy Needle's shopping cart. Hopefully when he leaves you'll be able to make online purchases on Tuesday morning. My next goal is to upload the sale yarn next! Yea! Watch for it in the next two weeks.

Well, the Toni Awards are on and I don't take enough time for myself, so I'm going to go and watch them. (Kevin, please forgive me for not continuing to upload data, but my eyes are now crossed!)

More later!