The Adventures of Woolgirl and Abby

Figs and Thanksgiving Trivia

For other fruits my father was indifferent...

He'd point at the cherry trees and say,
"See those? I wish they were figs."



In the evening he sat by my bed,
weaving folktales like vivid little scarves.



They always involved a fig tree.



Even when it didn't fit, he'd stick it in.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

I thought it might be fun to start the day off with
a bit of Madtosh - I'm almost done with my 2nd Fig Sock
from the Magnolia Society first club shipment
(these pics were taken about a week ago). I absolutely
love this colorway and would really like more I think.
No, I KNOW I want more. I want a scarf, mitts
and hat out of this colorway - that's how much I love it.

And Amy has done it again with another gorgeous
selection this month - the lovely Tourmaline in
100% Silk Lace arrived today and ummmm...it's gorgeous!



Now...what to knit with it? More on this in the
weeks to come...

And by the way, if you're interested in the
next installment of the Magnolia Society, sign-ups will
open up next Friday, December 5th. You can either
sign up on the Woolgirl website or directly on the
Madelinetosh website. We'll be posting more about
the details of the club next week.

Now, on to some Thanksgiving trivia!



Thanksgiving is a day for giving thanks, spending
time with family and friends, and scrumptious food,
including my favorite...turkey!



The National Turkey Federation estimated that in
the year 2007, 46 million turkeys were eaten at
Thanksgiving - this is one fifth of the annual total -
consumed just on Thanksgiving!

So, the trivia question is this...

Do you know which state is the top turkey
producing state in America?

For extra credit, do you know the 6 states which were
responsible for producing two thirds of the turkeys raised
in the U.S. last year?

Out of all of the correct answers a name will be chosen
randomly, and that person will win a fabulous
Turkey day prize, consisting of a skein of yarn
(winner's choice), a fun fall sock knitting accessory
bag, and a set of handmade fall cards from
yours truly. :)

Hope you each have a lovely Thanksgiving
and we hope to see you this Friday for the start of our
"After Thanksgiving 3-Day Sale".
Details about the sale can be found HERE.

Do you get the hint?

This Friday, November 28th - Sunday, November 30th
we're having an After Thanksgiving



Almost everything in the shop will be on



and the


will include items marked 10% - 75% off.

Do you get the hint?

We're having a



a BIG



See you this Friday!

Sunday Surprises & More

The new Zuma bag by Namaste has finally arrived here at Woolgirl,
and let me tell you, it's fantastic design!



It's quite possibly my favorite Namaste bag yet (and I have
quite a few Namaste bags I like to call my own...) :)



It has just enough room for your essentials
and then some, and the bags come in the Namaste
assortment of colors you've come to love:

Lime, Turquoise, Hollywood Pink, Charcoal,
Olive, Peacock, and Saddle. Egglplant, the new limited
edition color, will be available in January 2009.



We also have the new Mini-Cozies from Namaste,
which are perfect for your DPN's and crochet needles...

As well as the new Oh Snap! pouches from Namaste ~
a set of 3 to keep your knitting items well organized
in any situation!



In addition to all of the new Namaste products we'll
be adding to the shop this Sunday, we also have
a HUGE shipment of Miss Babs that just arrived ~

I LOVE the new Fraser colorway, don't you?



and is Spice to dye (no pun intended) for or what?



and we can't forget Frog Belly (Cooper's baby blanket color)



or Storm (how fitting for the weather we're having!)



and Nell...so glad to have her back in the house!



and what about Loden (OMG!) ~ Simply Gorgeous Miss Babs!



AND...another of my favorite yarns has arrived ~
Unique Sheep Cotton ~ super scrumptious to knit with.



And look at some of the many colors to choose from!

This cotton is perfect for those baby projects you're working
on or planning for this holiday,
as well as dishcloths, hand towels, blankets -
perfect for a little cotton sweater or tee -
just right for a new tote project.

And we'll have plenty of Oxblood sock from Madelinetosh
this Sunday too...get it while you can, as we haven't been able
to keep this in stock yet.



Also from Madelinetosh, the super cute
Candy Cane Knee Sock kits have arrived and will
be available in the shop this weekend.

  

We'll also be adding lots of new Knitspot patterns



As well as some really cute new tape measures...



Oh, and did I mention the Malabrigo Lace will be here too?



Lots and lots and lots of colors to tempt
your lace knitting needles. Click, click, click...

I can hear them now!

And Pattern Tamers are here...lots of designs to
choose from...





Such a cool idea!

Lots of things to check out this Sunday -
we hope to see you there!

And to announce our Thanksgiving Trivia Contest
winner this week...

The answer was 4 inches AND the winner is:
Gerri! Congrats Gerri! I will email you today regarding
you're winning Thanksgiving loot! :)

Happy Friday ~ see you Sunday!

Cute little bears and Thanksgiving Trivia

The picture of the day:
Is this not the cutest little bear you ever did see?
It's baby Cooper in his warm winter bear suit..
He's the definition of cute, isn't he?



And yes, we are holding a Thanksgiving Trivia contest
this week! Yes, it's the week before Thanksgiving, but why
not have 2 Thanksgiving contests - one this week and next?

More opportunities for fun and more chances to win
some gorgeous yarn, right?



This week's trivia contest is based on the ever
popular cranberry. Cranberries are a favorite dish this time
of year - in fact, I can't imagine having Thanksgiving
without cranberry sauce, can you?
And isn't it just the best to have a turkey sandwich
with cranberry sauce the day after Thanksgiving?

So, let's see how much you know about cranberries...

Before being harvested and sold, an individual cranberry
must bounce at least how many inches high to make sure
they aren't too ripe?

a) 1 inch
b) 2 inches
c) 3 inches
c) 4 inches

Can you guess which one it is? Answer correctly
and your name will be entered to win one of our
Thanksgiving Trivia prizes, which each includes a skein
of yummy yarn, a sock accessory bag, and a set of fall gift cards.

The winner for this week's prize will be announced this Friday
on the blog. We also have a fun shop update this Sunday, and
will post about that on Friday as well.

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Shop News & the announcement of a Lace Club

Today is a happy fall day here in Oregon - sun is shining, there's a cool crispness in the air, the leaves are this amazing assemblance of colors. A perfect day in every way.
Today is also the day we announce and start accepting sign-ups for our new lace club, called Embrace the Lace! I'm so excited about this and am bursting at the seams to share the details! But first, I have a few things to announce and a few shop things to mention...

1. This Sunday we will be updating the shop with gorgeous Little Feet kits from Stitch Jones.

The Little Feet kits come in 6 different handpainted colorways, all in bright, kid-friendly colors.  There are 2 different patterns to choose from, "Bows & Arrows" and "Chutes & Ladders", both designed by Kathleen Fajardo.  Kathleen has cleverly made the patterns customizable, so there are actually 2 patterns in each design, and different sock sizes (2-4-6) can be made by simply changing needle size--no different stitch counts to worry about! 

 

Kits come packaged in a clear vinyl drawstring bag and are as cute as can be! Perfect for knitting child-size socks without having to buy way more yarn than you need!

2. Our Namaste Zuma bags will be shipping out to us next Monday - so we hope to have them by the end of the week next week. We will have all colors available, except the new colorway "Eggplant", which has been delayed until January. More on this next week.

3. We are still working on web-site design issues, and we thank you for your continued patience as we change things around here and there. You might notice a few glitches with the website over the next few weeks - please know that we are working through each issue one by one and as quickly as possible, so if you notice something awry, please either send us an email at jennifer@woolgirl.com, or wait for a few days and chance are the issue will be fixed.

4. We have made some changes and are making a few additional changes to our Wooly Woolgirl Club. This is the club you become a member of once you reach your 7th order with Woolgirl. Please note that I am behind on sending out emails and welcome packages for this club, and will be working on doing this over the next couple of weeks - so, if you've placed your 7th order (and some of you placed it quite some time ago I know!), we ask that you just be patient a couple of weeks more and we promise to get your information sent out. There are several reasons for the delays, but the main one is that our old website had a very cumbersome method for us to be notified as to when a customer placed their 7th order. Our new system is much better, so once we get caught up on this, it should go more smoothly in the future. Thank you to everyone for your patience!

5. We will also be adding some Dream in Color to the website this Sunday! You can never have too much Dream in Color!

Now on to the fun part...the details about the "Embrace the Lace" Club!

We are happy to announce that we have decided to offer a lace club, which will begin in March 2009! I really love lace knitting (in fact, I prefer it to anything else!), and felt that it would be really fun to offer a lace club that focused on lots of different lace projects. So, even though this lace club will offer some traditional projects, such as a couple of shawls, a scarf/stole, and a wrap - the club will also offer some non-traditional lace projects - such as some wonderful lace mitts knit with a DK weight camel yarn. Yummy! I want the projects to be mostly a surprise (similar to our sock club), so I'm only giving those little clues and no more. :)

We have posted details about the lace club on our website under Kits and Clubs. The club is offered at about 15% off the retail cost to start, and for our 2009 Sock Club members - if you decide to sign up for the lace club in addition to the sock club - you will get an additional 10% off the price of the club. This is a year long club and you must sign up for the entire year, even though invoices will be sent to you every other month.

We hope that this is your year to Embrace the Lace! 

Velvet Grapes, Stonechat, and Chocolate Amargo

What do Velvet Grapes, Stonechat and Chocolate Amargo
have in common? Malabrigo, that's what!

We finally received our Malabrigo sock yarn in and will
be posting it in the shop this Sunday, November 9th.



The colors are luscious - everything you would expect from
Malabrigo yarn - and the sock yarn is no exception.

Just to let you know also - Malabrigo lace weight is
not far behind. In another week or so we will have
lots and lots of lace weight arriving.

We will also plan to have a few odds and ends up
in the shop this weekend, like the following:

Some Oxblood...



Some Dahlia...



Both Madelinetosh fingering weight.

And just in time for holiday knitting...
we have "Really Red" sock yarn from Pagewood Farms.



In addition, we will have a few more skeins
available in our special Charlie Brown Fall colorway
from Miss Babs...



New bamboo needle gauge tools designed by
Karen from Karatstix will be here...





And all magazines will be 35% off this Sunday only...



We also have just a few colors we're adding
to the Miss Babs collection this weekend...

One of them in Rainbow -



One of my favorite Miss Babs colorways.
Perfect for socks, sweaters, baby items...
can't you just envision a baby sweater, hat or blanket
out of this colorway?

And of course, we have a winner to announce for
the Werewolf contest from last week!
Thanks so much to everyone who entered - there
were so many entries and only one winner. For those
of you who said "Tatoo", you were correct.
At least for our contest! As it turns out there are quite
a few different interpretations of which characteristics
signify a werewolf, but for the ones we listed, the
characteristic that matched was the tatoo!

Linda W is the lucky winner! Linda, I will be emailing
today to discuss your yarn preferences. :)

We hope to see you this Sunday!

Oh, and one more thing...
Next week we'll be announcing details about and
opening sign-ups for our new Lace Club!



We hope you'll decide to join us!

Meet Lake

Meet "Lake"
Well, actually it's called "Nocturne" and it arrived in
my newest Magnolia Society shipment.

Once upon a time, in the planning phases,
it was called "Lake", and since I have been calling
it by it's first name ever since, I'm going to continue
to call it "Lake".
So...meet "Lake".



"Lake" decided that she (yes, "it's a "she" now)
wanted to become a gorgeous scarf.
Something elegant, which speaks loudly -
but something simple - like her name - "Lake".

"Lake" is a lovely blend of 50% merino and 50% silk
A pure statement of heaven in this worsted weight yarn.



Lake, lake, lake...I just love saying that name.



And doesn't she knit up beautifully?



"Lake" is knitting up into the most gorgeous
"Punch and Judy" scarf designed by Anne.



But because I'm knitting the scarf with "Lake",
I've determined that it's going to now be called
"The Punch and Lake" scarf.



"Lake" is just THAT gorgeous.

Lake, lake, lake......