First Thursday - A sale of olympic proportions!

We've checked our sales and awarded our top selling yarns gold, silver and bronze medals! 

Get 25%, 23% or 21% off depending on where they fall on our podium!

Plus! Enjoy a discount on some top qualifiers!

Knit your own medal with 19% off anything with metallic or sparkle.

Sprint to the finish with bulky yarns! Get 19% off anything with a stitch gauge of 2.5 = 1" or less.

Vote for your own medal winner - the yarn with the most votes at 6pm on Wednesday is also 19% off!

(select your choice on the poll to the right of this post!)

Sale Date: Thursday, August 2, 2012*

*Sale does not apply to previously marked down items

As always on First Thursday - shop from home at hillcountryweavers.com and get 20% off on all eCommerce purchases**. Just use code: PODIUM when you go to checkout!

**Online sale excludes kits and previously marked down items

Ready for Some Olympic Knitting Fun?

Clever use of yarn, no?

Hey Y'all,

One week from today the Summer 2012 Olympics kickoff in London. To celebrate, Ravelry is hosting the Ravellinic Games to inspire you to achieve some Olympic-esque achievements in with your knitting and crocheting. They've got all sorts of categories for folks who want to enter what they make into competition.

For those of you less interested in competing with others, but still excited to be a part of the fun, all you  need to do to take part is cast on one or more projects at the start of the Olympics and bind off by Olympic's end. 

Hill Country Weavers will host an Opening Ceremony Cast On Party at KnitBuzz! Just show up at KnitBuzz a little before the 6:30 broadcast begins, settle in, and get ready to get started. (Note: technically the official cast on time is 3 pm to coincide with the realtime start in London, but the TV broadcast is at 6:30, so that's when we're starting as a group but if you want to get a 3.5 hour lead, go right ahead). 

We'll meet again for a Closing Ceremony Bind Off Party at 6 pm on August 12th so you can finish up your projects then. We'll have an HCW Awards Ceremony for those of you who finish projects, with voting on our Ravelry page and shop gift certificates for our Bronze, Silver and Gold Medalists. In order to be eligible to win, you must follow the Ravellenic Guidelines for tagging posted at Ravelry, and you must post your completed entry to both the main Ravelry thread and the HCW group thread within 48 hours of the Closing Ceremony. 

Find out lots about the Ravellenics Group RIGHT HERE.

You can follow Team HCW info RIGHT HERE. 

Okay, your assignment for the coming week-- decide which events you want to participate in, gather your supplies, and rest up. It's going to be a very excited couple of weeks!

It's Not Too Late to Have Fun at Camp!

We've been having so much fun with knitting and weaving camps! And the fun's not over yet. There are three more weeks of camp left, including this week. You can see the full schedule over on the Kids' Page at our website. 


Plus, in addition to camps just for kids, we've got a couple of K1P2 sessions coming up-- these classes are for adults and kids who want to learn together. So if you have a daughter, son, niece, nephew or other young friend, consider signing up together. All the info you need to sign up for one of these two-part sessions is at the K1P2 section of the website. Don't wait-- sign up today. It's going to be super fun!

In the Bag!

Oh sure, it looks like a classic ugly Christmas sweater. But soon it will be an amazing bag! 

This past spring Austin City Council passed a ban on disposable paper and plastic bags at all retail stores. That means that starting in March 2013 you’ll have to bring your own bags or else wind up paying to buy bags at the store. 

While there’s no doubt that some people are unhappy at the prospect of BYOB, as you can imagine, we at HCW are PDE (pretty darn excited). Not that we really needed any excuses to knit up more bags, but still, knowing that we’re in charge of our own bags from here on out does inspire.

Toward that end, on Sunday, July 8, 2012, we are starting up our Every Other Week Bag Class Series. Once every two weeks, we’ll be offering cool classes featuring ideas for different kinds of bags and lessons on how to make them. The first class is all about taking old sweaters and converting them into bags. In the future we’ll have classes for knitting, crocheting, felting and weaving your own reusable bags.

These sweaters will also become groovy bags soon enough.

And for those of you too busy working on other projects to stop and make a bag—NTW (not to worry)! As ever, we have an awesome selection of readymade bags, and it’s a selection that’s getting bigger by the day. Currently a super hot seller is the self-contained, convertible Flip & Tumble 24/7 bag. They fold up into their own little pouch so you can squish them into the bottom of your purse or knit bag. Then, when you need them, they open up into full size, sturdy shopping bags. And they weigh about negative nothing. Tres fab in design and style.

To sign up for the Recycled Sweater Bag Class, call the shop asap 512-707-7396. For more info on upcoming classes, check out website. And remember— the more bag classes you take the more you save! $5 off bag classes if you take more than one... i.e. the first bag class you take is full price and each one after that is $5 off.

Felted bag that was once a sweater.

Flip & Tumble bags

Flip & Tumble Unfurled!

Another example from our vast collection of ready made bags.

We have many, many bag patterns in our book & pattern room.

We're Celebrating the Fourth on the Fifth!

Hey Y'all,
Happy Fourth of July! 
We're taking the day off down at the shop, though you can always shop online! On July 5th, which also happens to be a First Thursday, we've got a great sale going on. Here's all you need to know:

Save a 4th for the 4th!

 LET'S CELEBRATE THIS FIRST THURSDAY!
July 5th 2012
$ave a 1/4th (25%) on any yarn containting a plant fiber!*
(or any fiber made in a plant, like acrylic)
Basically anything that doesn't have a leg to stand on!
Hey you July babies!
This means 30% off (25% off plus extra 5% birthday discount)
Summer Reading - save 15% on all books!
*sale includes yarn containing ANY percentage of a "plant" fiber - 100%, 50% or 5%
if its got a plant in there somewhere its on sale! 

BUY ONLINE!
Order online from for 25% off your online yarn purchase.
Just use code 4THFORTHE4TH when you go to checkout to claim your discount!

Sale starts at Wednesday 12:01am July 4th and ends Thursday 11:59pm July 5th!
(WEBSITE ONLY )
HOLIDAY SHOP HOURS(1701 S Congress)
Wednesday July 4th - CLOSEDThursday July 5th - 10am - 9pm

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!!!

Sneak Peek for All You Dream Weavers and Knitters

Ah, yes, at last-- the heat is upon us. Time to move slower, put up your feet when you can (or immerse in a baby pool filled with cold water) and work on those small, portable projects (I'm talking to you, socks!). Moving slower means more time for dreaming. And to feed your dreams, today we offer a sneak peek at the HCW Wonders to Come!! 


In August, we're releasing a new edition of the Prairie Bliss collection which will include some new patterns in addition to the patterns that were in the first edition. Then, in November, HCW is releasing Kismet, a weaving book with projects created exclusively for the Rigid Heddle loom. These projects feature knitting and crochet finishing and embellishments. Stay tuned for more news about Kismet-- we might just offer an in-person, up close sneak peek during the Hill Country Yarn Crawl.


For now, here are some delicious pictures to feed you daydreams during these slow, muggy days. 

Summertime and the Knitting is Easy! Camps for Kids & Parents, Too!

Hey Y'all,
School's out and you know what that means: It's time for CAMP HCW 2012! In addition to our great camps, we've connected with ParentWise, the local magazine with all sorts of great info for parents. Our CAMP HCW flier, which includes a 15% off yarn coupon, will be distributed in the goodie bags being handed out at Children's Day Art Park this summer.

What's Children's Day Art Park, you ask? It's a cool event for kids and parents that happens Wednesday mornings, 9:30 - 11:30 am, June 13 - July 25 (except for July 4). The event is at Symphony Square Amphitheatre at 1101 Red River in downtown Austin. Cost is 50c for kids and free for adults who accompany kids. There will be music, crafts, storytellers, dancers and lots and lots and LOTS of fun. We're excited to be included in the gift bags the kids will receive.

Now, about our camps. For all of the details:
CHECK OUT OUR CAMP WEB PAGE HERE.


Here's some basic info:

We've got weeklong camp sessions happening in June, July, and August! We've got Knitting Camp and also Weaving Camp. Weaving Camp happens during the first half of the day, and Knitting Camp happens in the afternoon, so kids who'd like to attend both can do that and there's a discount if you sign up for the combo.

Also, we're introducing a new camp: K1P2, a two-part class for parents and kids who want to learn knitting together! Actually, you don't have to bring your parent-- you can bring an aunt, uncle, grandparent, or other enthusiastic adult. There are sessions available in June, July and August.


ALL THE DETAILS FOR K1P2 ARE RIGHT HERE.

Spaces are limited and camps do sell out, so please check the links listed above to get the skinny. Cost for materials is included in some classes, and for other classes it's extra-- that's listed on the web pages, too. You can call during store hours to register: 512-707-7396.

Don't miss out on the fun! We'll see you at CAMP HCW and Symphony Square for Children's Day Art Park!