 So here we are - 10 months in and the virus is hanging out a lot longer than we ever could have imagined. The statistics are grim and scary and we are all fatigued by our concern, the huge shift in everything about our lives - and let's acknowledge that it is isolating, lonely and despite the emergence of some vaccine developments, it feels remote and a long way off. And now we have the laser focus on the holidays as another milestone is shadowed by the pandemic. It's not the way we want to live. Some of us are knitting and crocheting like fiends - some of us can't muster the energy. Some of us are clearing out and organizing our homes with a vengeance - some of us could care less. Some of us are exercising and getting our minds in a great state of focus and purpose. And some of us are eating too much, drinking too much or whatever too much. Where is the grace? Where do we hang our hats so to speak? How do we keep on keeping on for the long stretch when we don't know how long it will be? We get it! Some days are good. Others, we sink down into our sofas and wonder how we came to be a binge TV watcher when we were inspired and intentional about what we did every day. While we would never assume to have answers to these big things, these sorrows and worries for you, we want you to know that you are not alone. You are not isolated away from everyone and everything. We simply have to reach out to each other. An email, a text, and better yet a phone call would mean the world to someone right now and it does give us a lift too. It provides community where we desperately need some. Even just leaving a phone message for someone, gives them our voice to hear and knowing we were thinking of them fills the heart. As the holiday commercials pound us with jolly images and pleas for frenetic shopping, either in-store or online, we are dedicated to thinking about what gives our holidays meaning this year. Maybe it would be fun to pull out some cookie recipes and remember the fun times baking them. And maybe we will bake some cookies. Maybe it would be nice to actually tackle the linen closet/drawer and figure out how to make that a bit more organized. Or not. Little things are big during this time of covid. Clearing out one drawer might energize us a bit and lift our spirits. Making a washcloth or hat might just be that much-needed sliver of fun as we choose a pattern, explore our yarn options - regardless if we give it someone or donate it to a clothing drive. Little things are big during these times. We will find our way, each of us, as we walk tentatively or with a swift stride during this difficult time. Remember that we are here for each other! Call us, text us, email us or stop in for a few minutes. And the best thing is that with a mask, no need to wear make-up! How lovely!
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 This year marks the success of one of the most important campaigns in the 20th century: women's right to vote. My own great-grandmother, Ernestine, chained herself, along with several other women, to the wrought-iron fence around the Pittsburgh National Bank Building where several of her male family members were high-ranking financiers. Her grandfather came out of the building, unchained her, put her in his car and took her home, proclaming that she would never make a display of herself and embarrass her family like that again! I think she was absolutely awesome! Do you have a family story about your relatives fighting for women's rights? Share it with us this year and we'll give voice again to these courageous people by sharing your story on our website!
The Artful Yarn is delighted to be one of a few local yarn shops joining Knitted Wit's HerStory journey every month this year! Each month, Knitted Wit, one of our favorite inde-dyers, will share the story of a woman who was the first in some endeavor - and create a custom yarn color in that woman's honor. The first women that we will learn about in this series will be announced in a few days. We're so excited to be part of HerStory!  Many of you know that I was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer last December and into the early months of this year. I have always had to have repeat looks at my mammograms and this time, it was the real deal. I was very fortunate that my breast cancer was found very early and was non-invasive. It makes me nervous to even write that as I have my first mammogram post-treatment this October. I'm hoping and expecting all will be clear. You don't live through something like that and not think, What if?
During that time I call Cancer Land, I had so much emotional support from my family, friends, staff and customer friends. Everyone asked me "what can I do for you?" My answer was and remains, "get a mammogram." Most of the doctors and nurses who have treated me have said that if found early enough, most breast cancers are curable. What a blessing that is! And yet, we are so afraid to get a mammogram, because we don't want to hear that diagnosis. I have one friend who has not had a mammogram for 5 years. I've been begging her to go. To my knowledge, she has not done it yet. I have offered to go with her. I know it's scary, but we have to go. Please! Take my experience as the one that helps you go get that mammogram. Want me to go with you? Call me! I will go with you! On Saturday & Sunday, October 19 & 20, The Artful Yarn will be collecting donations for The Gathering Place and sharing info for you to give family and friends. Be ready! We'll be serving Pink Fun and other light refreshments. The Artful Yarn will match total donations up to $500. Cathie Davidson, one of our sales associates, facilitates a fiber support group, Close Knit Friends, at The Gathering Place which has provided support and comfort for many people affected by cancer. Sadly, all too many special people are affected by breast cancer and this has to end! Support of breast cancer research is having a great impact and many people are benefiting from early diagnosis and improved treatment. Let's keep that support going. Please join us this weekend! Your donation in any amount is greatly appreciated!  While we're not quite ready for pumpkin spice lattes, we are pretty jazzed that Fall is just around the corner and with it comes the Yarn Discovery Tour and Fall knitting projects seem less crazy now. Many of you are familiar with the Yarn Discovery Tour (YDT) and are eagerly snapping up passports and free totes. For those of you who are new to the whole YDT thing, here's what it is: an almost, month-long love fest for all things yarn across 19 shops in Northeast Ohio. We know, right?! It's the most wonderful time of the year! You need to purchase an $8 passport (yep! Just $8 for your ticket to awesomeness!) With your passport you also receive a free, souvenir tote that is super-cute. Then from Tuesday, September 3 through Sunday, September 22, shop as many shops as you like and get free stuff. What free stuff?? Spend a minimum of $10 at a participating yarn shop and receive that shop's free pattern, receive a free pin for your bag, a stamp in your passport AND a ticket in that shop's $100+ Prize Basket!! How great, right?! But wait! There's more. When you visit 5, 10, 15 or all 19 the shops, the YDT has prize baskets for you to win too! And when you visit all the shops, there's a great little notions bag that you get free too! You can check it all out at the YDT website by clicking here.
The Artful Yarn has some major fun planned for the YDT, so keep an eye out for email updates and info posted on our site as well. Passports are available for purchase now on our website or in the shop. Looking forward to seeing you in the shop soon and get ready for a wonderful month!  OTN Rally Day, our daylong retreat held at the historic Chagrin Falls Township Hall, has become a summer tradition. It's our kick-off to Fall knitting. You can count on The Artful Yarn to bring in new trending projects and techniques as well as great new yarn for the highlighted class sessions. We added a Participant Fashion Show a couple of years ago - it's super fun! Most everyone wears or brings something they have made and, of course, we all want to know all about it. The Fashion Show provides all the details and a chance for us to applaud each other's work! Everyone loves the free Chinese Auction too. You get a ton of free raffles tickets and then over the course of the morning, you can use your tickets to win something from our 20+ item raffle. Shopping?? Oh yes! There's a big hour and a half break for lunch and shopping around Chagrin Falls and to use your participant discount at the shop itself. Everyone loves the chance to hang out with fiber friends during OTN Rally Day and we keep the fun going with the option of "retreating" to Jekyll's Kitchen for appetizers by the Falls. It's a great summer day and we hope you will join us again this year. What does OTN mean? On The Needles! And we hope you enjoy starting some great new projects for the Fall. Register early for best class selection!
Looking forward to seeing you in the shop soon! Cathy  The Artful Yarn is hiring seasonal sales associates for September through December. We're looking for yarnies to work during the weekdays or if you're only available on a weekend, we're hiring for Saturdays or Sundays too. If you would like to be a part of our team, please review our job description below. Send your ONE PAGE RESUME via EMAIL ONLY. Phone calls will not be accepted. Accepting resumes until July 12th. Sales Associate for The Artful Yarn The Artful Yarn is a fun, boutique yarn shop, a friendly retreat for local and visiting fiber friends! We love meeting fun knitters and crocheters from all walks of life, all skill levels and all connected by a love of fibering - whether it's classes, new projects, new skills or a special event. Our intentionally-curated yarn and gift collection features companies owned by women or families, many of them from the United States. We support fair-wage, companies and those that foster ethical treatment of animals and responsible disposal of dye. Even our gift bags are made from recycled paper, not plastic. We constantly strive to be fresh, fun and contemporary in our marketing, class projects and yarn collection while creating great experiences for our customers. We are a shop that builds community around yarn. Requirements A Sales Associate must love a high-energy, fast-paced environment and a fun, engaging personality that brings customers back again and again. A Sales Associate is responsible for all sales activities and sales associate job duties, from greeting customers, answering questions, providing assistance, suggesting items, lending opinions and providing product information. Individual responsibilities as a Retail Sales Associate include demonstrating outstanding customer service and selling skills, great knitting and/or crochet skills, keeping the selling floor stocked with merchandise, assisting in display of merchandise or organizing the selling floor and stock areas. A Sales Associate must process payments by totaling purchases; processing checks, cash and credit cards. Maintains a professional attitude with sincerity and enthusiasm reflecting The Artful Yarn’s commitment to our customer. Develops product knowledge by staying current with trends through social media, reading current vendor tags and pamphlets and attending staff meetings in order to communicate information to the customer.
Top Skills & Proficiencies:
The Artful Yarn pays hourly and offers a great employee discount. Located at 100 North Main Street, Suite 230, Chagrin Falls, Ohio, 44022 info@TheArtfulYarn.com www.TheArtfulYarn.com  Local Yarn Shop Day gives us all the opportunity to share some love for the bricks & mortar stores that make it all possible! Local yarn shops celebrate the excitement of really great news with you (a finished project, new job, new baby, retirement) and hug you along tough journeys where you need that yarn to get you through. We’re your friends who commiserate ripping out that row ONE MORE TIME and rejoice with you when all the ends are finally woven in. We’re your real fiber friends unlike any other place you can purchase yarn or get a pattern. The National Needlearts Association created LYS Day as our chance to celebrate how the LYS is That Place in our local community and in our hearts. Here’s how The Artful Yarn plans to celebrate:
Friday evening, April 26 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM Kick-off LYS Day the evening before with our Yarntini Night exclusive appearance by LeeAnn Halley, owner of the Village Herb Shop. LeeAnn premieres her newly created natural homecare line of cleaning products as a nod to Earth Day and support of our shop’s own mission of championing happy, healthy yarn made ethically. Reservations are required as we are limited to 15 guests. Refreshments and a goodie bag from the Village Herb Shop along with great beverages and little bites. $5 ticket/person refunded on any purchase that evening. Saturday, April 27 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM >For the first 20 customers: FREE, small wooden, garment care tag, FREE pattern booklet from Berroco Yarns and a FREE Hedgehog Fibres stash-busting knitting pattern >10 extra Yarn Card Dollars on every purchase >Exclusive yarn and kits created by Stitch Together Yarn for Rebels and Dream in Color >LYS Day Raffle for a Denise interchangeable Needle Kit (retail value $89) >Mimosas in the morning & snacks all day long Please join us! We can't wait to see you!  So here's our newest crush for a project! Thank you Linda G for bringing this new amazingness to our attention because since you told us about THE SCARFY THING by Beata Jezek on Friday, there are about 4 of us jumping in this knit already! You need fingering weight yarn (guess you can use any weight because it's just that easy to knit in any yarn, any way, you want!) You can get the recipe on Ravelry. We think this is a great spring break, cruise, trip knit. Are you in? Let us know! We might start a fan club at the shop and knit together! We've also added a new page to our website! So many new things are coming into the shop that we thought you might like to know about all of them - of course - and our What's New page just doesn't cover it all, right? We're still going to have the What's New page, because we love to just put it all out there, but thought a little highlight on some new awesomes that arrive every week would be as exciting to you as it is to us. So check it out! We obsessively update our website so there's always something updated every other day or so.  After 25+ years totally addicted to all things yarn, we've seen a few books, more than a few, tons! Have bookshelves full of them and love every one. Books are like friends. They all have their own character and we turn to them when we need different things. The Artful Yarn just received PomPom Publishing's newest awesomeness, Knit How: Simple Knits, Tools & Tips. We really don't stock books, but we couldn't get this one fast enough. No matter where you are in your knitting journey, we highly recommend Knit How. It's a fantastic resource!
So why another beginner, how-to book? Lots of beginner books, we find, are tough to slog through. They try to do too much and it's overwhelming when you're new baby knitter. We like the fact that Knit How gives newer knitters just what they need to be successful without trying to be an encyclopedia of all things knitting. We love that the editors chose to focus on younger people in the book and highlight a younger person's take on the craft of knitting. The editors say this about their book's approach "We love knitting, and we love our knitting pals so much we thought there should be many, many more of them. We also thought that these new knitters might like a really straightforward, plain-talkin' and frankly, stylish book to learn the ways of the modern knitter." We couldn't agree more! We particularly like the ideas of stylish and modern knitter! Knit How is full of amazing, beautiful photography plus clear illustrations of techniques. It covers knitting basics, tools and vocabulary - something we do in our LTK classes! The book covers the joys and importance of knitting swatches and THE BEST projects that help build your knitting skills while creating pieces you would actually wear and give as gifts.The projects start with coasters and move into fingerless mitts, simple cowls in 3 ways, cable scarves, two-color hats, pullover sweaters, a lacy cowl, cropped cardie and 2-color socks. The editors also added some great extras including how to fix mistakes, how to wash & block your knitted pieces and a chart that deciphers UK vs US measurements. We also love the little vocab lesson on Knitters Lingo (Yarn Barf, Startitis, 2nd Sock Syndrome for example). Even the book's covers do double-duty as page savers and a ruler! A ruler! Knit How is everything you want! Youthful and fun with easy projects and great info! The Artful Yarn offers a 7-month blanket course that teaches many of these same skills. And now you'll see many of the Knit How projects appearing in our class line-up. Already we've added the Ce Fingerless Mitts and the Mary, Bobbie & Juju Simple Cowls to our February & March calendar. We hope you'll join us for some great knitting how-to! Looking forward to seeing you in the shop soon! Cathy  We've decided to start the Christmas Eve Cast-On tradition at The Artful Yarn - we just love the idea so much and feel that so many holiday traditions have been lost in the modern rush that this one seems really doable. You can check out our Ravelry thread where we are beginning to post knit and crochet patterns that would be fun to start on Christmas Eve. And we're asking you to post your suggestions too. The only criteria is that the project has to be fun, fairly easy and that you include the weight of yarn used. No specific yarn names unless it's something people can find at The Artful Yarn. That's fair, right? You know, it's okay to take a few minutes on Christmas Eve to sit down and reflect on the holiday, enjoy the smell of the tree, look at the lights and pretty packages, eat a cookie or two and start a fun little project! Here's to tradition!
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November 2020
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