Congratulations to Sarah, who won our last contest! Thanks everyone for your links. We know it takes a good deal of generosity to willingly create more competition for yourself at our booth at Sheep & Wool.

Our vendor for today is 2 Buttons. If you’re wondering why, take a gander at Leung’s cool bags:

The drawstrings on are secured by two buttons on the sides! Is that not so cute? As cute as a button! Total cuteness attack! The bags come in two sizes: a large big enough for a sizeable project, and a sock size which happens to also be reversible.

The prize for the next contest, kindly donated by its creator, is one of the large size bags:

Here’s how this contest is going to work: The first person to come into the store and mention the contest gets the bag. It’s that simple. Ready, set, go!

zippy pins

Zippy Pins are the perfect accessory for the knitter who whishes to declare herself!  Pin a couple on your knit bag, coat’s lapel, or even your wips (to remind yourself that you do, in fact, like knitting — even when it doesn’t go smoothly!).  The one-liners and puns are spot-on.  See them in person at Sheep and Wool at the Cloverhill Yarn Shop booth!

Hi Cloverhill Fans!

Coleen here!  (though I think I’m logged in as Rebecca, it’s really me - Coleen!)

Next Saturday, April 24, I will be participating in the Columbia area Walk MS.  My best friend Cheryl has MS, so I will be joining her team to raise money for the National MS Society.

Would you consider donating to my cause?

As an extra enticement, Jolene has generously donated a skein of her hand-dyed sock yarn to be offered as a prize!

I will also be stash diving to add another skein of yummy sock yarn to the pile! For now.. it will be a surprise!

So, here’s how it works:

Donate $10 to my MS Walk and you get one entry into the yarn give-away.  $20 = 2 entries, and so forth…

So, you could win two gorgeous skeins of yarn for a measly $10 AND support a fantastic cause.

You can donate online here:

Coleen’s Donation Page

Or, you can drop by the shop and donate in person.  If you would like to donate by check, please make the check payable to the National MS Society.   (While you are in the shop - be sure to check out all the fabulous new yarns that are coming in for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival!!!)

If you donate online, please comment here or send me an email at Coleen@cloverhillyarn.com and let me know so I can enter you into the drawing.

Thanks in advance for your generosity and for being a loyal Cloverhill Customer!

Here’s the official “beg for money” directly from the MS Society:

Every hour of every day, someone is diagnosed with MS. That’s why I registered for the Walk MS and that’s why I’m asking you to support my fund raising efforts with a tax-deductible donation.

P.S. If you would like more information about the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, how proceeds from the Walk MS are used, or the other ways you can get involved in the fight against MS, please visit www.nmss-md.org or call 443-641-1200.

Entries are officially closed for the comment contest that started on April 7th. The winner, selected by a very scientific process of randomization (something like picking a number out of a hat), is Jollie. I sent you an email, so if you think you are Jollie, check your inbox.

Our next contest is one of linkeage - namely, you linking to us. If you have a blog, or a website, or any internet space where you influence where people click, your task is to Link to our blog: http://www.cloverhillyarn.com/blog. Post a link on your website, then post a comment about it with a link to where you linked so we can check your link. That straightforward enough for you?

The winner(s) of this contest (who will be selected in some way that I cannot anticipate) has(ve) my undying envy, as he/she/they will receive the following:

Three impossibly beautiful rovings from Woolgatherings, whose stuff we’ll have for sale in quantity at Sheep & Wool. These three are 2.0 oz each, composed of Merino/Bamboo/Tussah Silk.  Link away, my friends!

Let’s kick this shindig off with Rock Creek Yarns. RCY is a hand-dyer based in - can you guess? - Montgomery county, and she’ll be providing us with her specialties.

Most of what we’ll have from this vendor is her beautiful sock yarn. She does semi-solids and multis, which tend to be graceful and muted (with a few noteable exceptions - the halloween candy corn sock yarn comes to mind). We’ll have several different colors to choose from in this luxurious stuff.

Secondly, we’ll have something really unique - 100% mulberry silk lace. These gorgeous variegated skeins have over 1000 yards in them! Make an enormous shawl into a one-skein wonder with one of these babies.

As Sheep & Wool rapidly approaches, the next vendor on our countdown is Osborn Fiber Studio - which happens to be dyed by Rebecca Osborn - Yours Truly!

I have two main emphases - natural dyeing, and recycled yarn.

Brand new sock colors, available only at Sheep & Wool at the Cloverhill booth. From Right to Left: Turmeric & Pokeberry, Black Bean, and Turmeric & Black Bean.

All my dyes are, for the most part, Things You Have Heard Of. They either come from the grocery store - like turmeric and black beans - or from things I find in the great oudoors - like black walnuts and pokeberries (That giant purple weed in your backyard). So you always know from the tag on the yarn exactly what went into dyeing them!

This lace spent a few hours outside draining on an overcast day. From right to left: Pokeberry purple, turmeric yellow, and a green from black bean juice overdyed with turmeric.

My yarn is divided into two types - variegated sock yarn, and semi-solid recycled yarn of various weights. To make recycled yarn - called “Second Chance” - I buy sweaters at thrift stores, rip them apart, re-twist it, and re-skein it to make it into something you’d like to use. Since each lot comes from a different sweater, each has a different fiber content, and each takes the dye differently, making each lot an adventure. Add in the natural dyes, and you’ve got something really unique! I’ve got lots of lace to bring to the festival, along with a good bit of worsted and DK.

One of my favorites - a recycled DK dyed with pokeberries - the marled effect comes from the blend of silk and angora in the yarn.

Thanks for supporting a new, local, natural, recycling yarn artist! I can’t wait to see what you think.

Many of you got a tantalizing taste of Shibui Knits yarn with the sock yarn we got from them a few weeks ago. Considering that the display is kind of demolished, you must have liked it.

Well, there’s plenty more where that came from, and we’re getting most of it for the Sheep & Wool festival.

In addition to the 100% superwash merino shown above in all its wildly multicolored glory, andthe same in muted multis and semi-solids, we’ll have: Baby Alpaca DK, a fairly self-explanatory 100% baby alpaca in nearly-solids; Silk Cloud, a luxurious blend of mohair and silk, and an extensive supply of Patterns and Books put out by Shibui. I can’t wait to get my fingers into this stuff.

Between the perpetual display of rainbow wonderment, and the trunk show we held in March, most of you are probably familiar with Shiela Rovelstad Designs and her gorgeous Wüllenstudio sock yarn.

Well, for the Sheep and Wool festival, she will be bringing us no fewer than Fourty-two colors of this stuff.

I know!! That is a lot!! We’ll also have loads of her fancy hand-made stitch markers. And these sock samples you’ve been ooh-ing and ahh-ing over, asking for the patterns? A few of them will be available for sale as well.

If you’re like me, you probably want to just buy the entire display and hang it on your wall at home. If you’re not like me, you should still come early to get your favorite colors. They are so yummy!

23 MORE DAYS!!!  Can you believe it?  It’s almost time for the happiest time of the year!

Personally,  I think The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is better than Christmas!

As a teaser to all the yummy yarny goodness we will be carrying at our booth, I wanted to tell you a little about Dragonfly Fibers.

Kate from Dragonfly is one of my favorite hand dyers.  Her colors are vivid and beautiful.  Last year, I got a skein of her gorgeous Dragon Sock yarn in a beautiful blue/teal/brown/black colorway.  I was taken with how intense the colors were.   I made myself a shawl out of it that I wore all winter long.  She really does beautiful work.  Recently, I bought a skein of Dragon sock in greens and blues that I am just in love with.  I can’t wait to cast on for a new pair of socks.

I am really excited to see what Kate brings to our booth at S&W… in 23 DAYS!!!

Here’s a sample from Kate’s blog of some of her beautiful yarns!

Sheep & Wool is coming, and our yarny countdown is about to begin! To celebrate, we’ll be having a few giveaways as May 1st and 2nd approach. To kick us off, here’s a donation from Osborn Fiber Studio (that’s, um, me, Rebecca):

A skein of Second Chance Lace in “Turmeric Tawny.” It’s a recycled cobweb lace (really really fine - wind it by hand, it’s so fine!), made of 90% wool, 10% cashmere. There are 500 yards in this wee skein, plenty for a generous triangular scarf or something of the sort. It’s just a taste of what I’ll have at the Cloverhill booth… but you’ll learn more about that later.

To win this prize, all you have to do is… comment! Leave a comment to this post telling us what you’re looking forward to the most about Sheep & Wool. And be specific! We’ll pick a commenter at random (so if you say “your booth!” you won’t get extra points for flattery) and let you know you won.

I’ll start - I am most looking forward to shopping, of course - specifically, for seeing bunches of hand-painted rovings I wouldn’t be able to see anywhere else. Uf, wait until you see what we’re starting to get in that category… I’ll be lucky if I get out of our booth with anything left to spend elsewhere.

Ready, set, go!