Happy 4th of July

Tomorrow is firecracker day! I hope everyone stays safe and has a lot of fun. It's too hot to go camping, Grand Lake has blue green algea which sounds really nasty, so they've advised people to stay away. So I think you're better off to stay in the nice cool A/C and enjoy a movie and some knitting. I'll be open tomorrow, so if you feel like swinging by the shop, you can soak of some of my A/C.

Lots of things have been going on at the shop.

We've had fun with the classes the last few months. Everyone loves the Nook/Kindle Cozy covers and I think a lot of people will be getting them as Christmas gifts.

Last month the shop hosted a charity drive sponsored by the Claremore Toastmasters. One of my customers, Mike, who is a member of the Toastmasters wanted to do a project to get his next level in the organization. He thought a charity project would be fun and asked if I'd like to be involved. We began brain storming trying to figure out who we wanted to knit for. Janie, his wife started looking on line and found a group on Ravelry called Mitts of Steal. It is an organization that provides fingerless gloves for dialysis patients. I immediately thought of Freda, she's another customer who had just had surgery to have a port put in her arm so she could begin dialysis. It was like it was meant to be. After a few discussion with the sponsor and several others, we came up with Warm Hands from Warm Hearts. We contacted our local clinic, DaVita, and they were thrilled that we wanted to donate gloves to the patients. So it began...from June 1-15 we had a big push for fingerless gloves, knit or crocheted it didn't matter. Our goal was 100 pairs by the 15th. We were able to collect 113 pairs. The following Monday, Mike and I met at DaVita. There were 16 patients in the clinic at that time and Tina, the manager asked if we would like to give those patients their fingerless gloves. It was so nice to see the smiles on their faces as we showed them the gloves and asked them what color they would like. It really makes your heart feel good to help others.

The shop will continue to accept gloves until August 15th. At that time another charity drive will be announced. I plan on chosing a new charity each quarter to focus on.

I've been working on the coolest thing. Illusion scarves! Have you made one? There are tons of patterns on Ravelry. I just finished the OU (Oklahoma University) scarf. While I was working on it, a customer came in. I showed her the illusion and she said it would be much prettier in orange and black (OSU colors) I told her I had been trying to work up the OSU logo, but it just wasn't turning out quite right. I then told her I'd probably just knit in the work COWBOYS down the length of the scarf. She ordered 4 on the spot and didn't care what the cost would be. I think this will be a big hit at the Holiday Boutique. I'm going to have to work up a scarf for the local High School the Zebras, I've had requests for Arkansas Razorbacks and Texas Longhorns. It takes me about 4 days to finish a scarf, I wonder how many I can get designed and knit by November 4th?

Most of you who read my blog no that I love to write. I'm in the process of writing a sequel to The Best Seller (AJ Freeman Series) plus I've been writing a knitting story. Each time I publish a new newsletter, there is a new chapter. It's called A Knitting Diary. If you'd like to receive my newsletters send me a note and let me know. My email address is unwind.ayarnshop@att.net

It's time to get started with the holiday knitting...don't wait until September or October and then be knitting all day and all night. You might turn into a knitting zombie and we wouldn't want that now would we.

Keep knitting and crocheting!