July 2025 Newsletter

Cam’s Corner
No. 13 July 2025

Hey y’all! Hope you’ve all been staying cool in this brutal heat!

Let me apologize for the horrendous typos in the last few newsletters. Apparently, I can’t proof my own work no matter how many times I review it. Let’s see if I if do better this time. Thanks to everyone who pointed out incorrect dates and/or names of fairs and events.

Reminder - the shop will have different hours for the month of July and August:

Wednesday and Thursday 10:00 - 3:00
Thursday 10:00 – 6:00
Saturday 10:00 – 4:00

As always, please call before heading out, especially if you are coming from a distance, particularly if it is above 90 degrees. Sometimes life just happens and prevents us from being there but more importantly, the shop gets extremely warm in the summer. The a/c doesn’t always provide sufficient cooling and on very hot days we may close earlier than the stated
hours. If we know you are coming, we are happy to stay so let us know.

Follow Up

• We are still awaiting arrival of the thread display. It seems they needed to grow it, spin it and wind it before sending it out. When it does arrive we should have a display containing 52 colors of 250 yards each. We hope to see it soon…...

• We have begun making experimental batches of lotions and lip balms. While our first batch of lotions came out great, we found subsequent batches of both the lotions and lip balms didn’t hold the scent or flavor. We planned to have samples ready by August 1st for people to try and still hope to achieve that goal. We made some interesting lotion scents such as: lilac and lilies; lemon cream (this is my favorite, it smells sooo good); rose geranium; carnation, along with several others. For lip balm, we made: sweet orange and cinnamon, lime (my favorite), black raspberry (another favorite) and of course, unscented in both the lotion and lip balm. 
  All natural and not tested on animals – unless you consider the two bats making it! We’ll keep tweaking things and let you know when samples will be ready. Stay tuned!

Now on to wool…...

New Things

• Margo, who worked at the shop when Diane owned it, has graciously offered to create a few new rug hooking designs. She is currently working on a couple bird and flower designs. We look forward to having them in the shop.
  
  
• We have implemented a rewards program! Christine finished the coding today; visit the webpage to sign up!

• Christine has also created a YouTube channel. Check out “Wool & Dye Works” to see what she has put up so far. More will be added in the future. Let us know if there is something specific you would like to see and we’ll do our best to create it.

• We now have wool bags lined with cotton made by Christine and myself in the shop. Perfect for gifts or stuffing full of wool when shopping or just using as a pocketbook like I do. Come check them out.

Time for me to get on a soap box:  We have had several repair jobs brought to us and have found that often the rugs are very dirty, smelly, and full of sand and dirt and downright disgusting. Granted they are rugs but please remember, we have them on our tables with our hands on and our faces close to these items as we repair them and we request that they be brought to us cleaned up a little, or at the very least thoroughly shaken out. Hence, since we are not a cleaning service, we will charge a $200 fee on top of the repair cost if we have to do any cleaning. In some cases, depending on the level of dirt needing to be addressed, we may choose not to repair it at all. We appreciate your consideration with this.

Fairs

We planned to attend the New England Weavers Guild Seminar this past weekend but unfortunately due to a nasty knee injury on Christine’s part and severe exhaustion on my part, we were unable to attend.

We still hope to attend the following fairs:

• September 23rd - 24th – Hancock Shaker Village Country Fair in Pittsfield *
• October 4th - 5th – Cheshire Quilters Guild in Keene, NH
• October 11th – 12th - Berkshire Botanical Harvest Fest in Stockbridge

*due to poor internet connection, attending this fair is still undecided

Happenings

Please note: the shop of not affiliated with any of these events. They are only listed as things you may be interested in

• Tie-Dye a Book Tote at High Five Books, Florence, July 18th and July 19th
  
  
• Northampton Vintage Sewing Machine (VSM) meeting, Saturday, July 19 th at Hill Institute, Florence  2:30 pm -4:30 pm
  
  
• Glasgow Lands Scottish Festival, Saturday, July 19th at Look Park, Florence 9:00 am - 9:00 pm
  
  
• Northampton Elks Flea Market, Saturday, July 19th, 9:00 am - 3:00pm
  
  
• Monson Vintage Sewing Machine (VSM) meeting, Sunday, July 20th at the Unitarian Universalist Parish of Monson 2:00pm – 4:00 pm
  
  
• Young at Heart Chorus Magical Mystery Tour, Tuesday, July 22nd 7:00 pm at Look Park, Florence
  
  
• Northampton Sidewalk Sales, July 24 th, downtown Northampton
  
  
• Smith College Museum of Art Sidewalk Sale, Northampton Thursday, July 24th– Sunday, July 27th
  
  
• 2nd Annual Vet Fest, Sunday, July 27 th 10:00 am at Nonotuck Park, Easthampton

Hope to see you soon!
cam