Wynona Studios

The very first First City Celebration in historic downtown Oregon City is tomorrow from 11am-8pm.  As some of you may know, Oregon City was the first city west of the Rockies to be incorporated. And you might know that it was the first capital of the Oregon Territory and had the first federal courthouse and land office. But did you know it was where the plats for the brand new little gold rush town of San Francisco were filed? And that they are still here (they might have asked for them back, and we might have said we wanted to keep them)? And did you also know that in 1846 the first newspaper west of the Rockies was in published in Oregon City? And the first telegraph message in Oregon was sent from Oregon City to Portland in 1855? That the first long distance commercial transmission of electricity in the United States was from Willamette Falls in Oregon City to downtown Portland to light up 55 street lights? Or that in 1842 the first book of fiction written in Oregon was authored right here in Oregon City? Oregon City is a city of FIRSTS!

Currently, historic downtown Oregon City is well known for its arts scene, with the cool and hip shops here like Wynona Studios, Oh Shiny!, This ‘n That, Howden Art Gallery, and more but also because of the fun and happening First Fridays Art Walks. The First City Celebration will have over 60 booths of unique artists all down Main Street to celebrate this artistic and creative spirit. There will also be children’s crafts using locally made paper products and my personal favorite, a wine tasting area with local wineries. The party goes from 11am-8pm and we are really excited about it here at Wynona Studios. If you come down to enjoy the day, make sure you stop by and say hi! We are sponsoring the children’s scavenger hunt around downtown, so make sure you pick one up in the children’s area and complete it! Its quite fun!

Details:

First City Celebration

Historic Downtown Oregon City

July 31st 11am-8pm

Art, Wine and Children’s Crafts

Argyle Sock Knitting Class with Anne Berk at Wynona Studios in Oregon City

The August classes are up on the website in our new shopping cart. You can sign up for classes and pay for them right on the website, with the secure shopping cart, through either Paypal or Google Checkout.

Our theme for the month of August is Sock Knitting! We have Beginning Sock Knitting, Baby Socks, Kitchner Stitch, Argyle Sock Knitting, and a Knit-a-long for the famous Monkey Sock by Cookie A from Knitty. We also have a class on How to Read a Knitting Pattern, Knitting a Swatch, Kids Learn to Knit (taught by Emma), a class on how to turn Recycled Felted Cashmere sweaters into Fingerless Gloves (think holiday gifts!)and how to take a cute but orphaned pillowcase and turn it into a darling tote bag.

We are just thrilled with our teachers this month including Anne Berk, who has taught at Madrona and Sock Summit among other places, teaching an Argyle Sock Knitting Class. I love argyle socks, but have always been a little intimidated myself, but Anne says it is a great way to learn intarsia techniques. Elizabeth Howley was our first ever member and has agreed to teach a beginning spinning class for us this month. We have a lot of folks that have said they wanted a spinning class…so here we go! You can bring your own wheel or use ours or Elizabeth has a couple she will bring as well. Please consider a membership if you use one of our wheels, so you can come in and practice after the class. Our spinning wheel is an Ashford Traditional.  Joanna rood is teaching Tatting and that class is filling up quickly! This is becoming a lost art, so come learn not only how to tat, but also ideas for modern projects using this old craft.

The first newsletter went out early this morning.  It was a  lot of work, but a lot of fun to put together too. I hope everyone enjoys it! If you have any feedback or thoughts on the newsletter I am all ears! Just send me an email or use the contact us page here on the website.

I hope to see everyone in the studio soon!

I have recently been crocheting tons of cotton washcloths/dishcloths. I like to use recycled cotton yarn, from old sweaters we have recycled, that way I can get lots of colors for very little expense. They are a fun way to experiment with stitch patterns, but I like to experiment with different edgings the best. It is so much fun to try different things…ruffles, scallops, picots, straight edges, lace. I love to crochet them as that is faster for me. They are all different, and that is part of the fun for me. I think I have made about 25 in the last week alone. I used to make them at Christmas and my birthday and take a big basket to work. All my coworkers at Disney would then dig through the basket looking for that perfect dishcloth. It was always so fun for me to see what each person would choose. The quiet ones that chose the rainbow dishcloths, the wild ones that would choose plain white, because it would always look clean. The boys that would choose a girly pink one to take home to the woman in their life (mom usually). 

Do you like to make washcloths/dishcloths? Do you knit or crochet them?

Crocheted washcloths at Wynona Studios in Oregon City.

Portland’s Stitch and Pitch is this coming Wednesday at PGE Park. Apparently the usual publicity for this fun event was lacking this year, so there is a shocking lack of people attending. So gather up your knitting, crocheting or what have you (macrame, embroidery, fly tieing) and come cheer for the Portland Beavers! Amanda is coordinating it and says: “Tickets are $10 (which is the group rate–you save about $2.50). Call Andy McCullough at (503) 553-5443. The game is Wednesday the 21st at 7pm.” There will be goodie bags and we have added a little somethin’ somethin’ to them. The kids and I are going so we will hope to see you there!

Wynona Colorway Kathee Nelson Art Yarns available only at Wynona Studios in Oregon City.

We got this GORGEOUS yarn hand delivered to us this week. We only carry “emergency yarn” and generally refer people to one of the local yarn stores when they need yarn, but could not resist yarn in our very own colorway. It is an exclusive, limited edition colorway called….WYNONA!  It is dyed by the lovely Kathee of Kathee Nelson Art Yarn http://www.katheenelsonart.com/ and there are only 20 skeins available. She used our colors of lime and aqua and created this stunning sock yarn in her Little Lambie merino base yarn. Each skein is 400 yards of wonderfulness. So come down and grab yours before they are all gone!

Exclusive and limited Wynona colorway available at Wynona Studios in Oregon City!

but we have air conditioning and a ceiling fan! So if you want to come knit in a cool, well-lit, fun place come on down! We would love to see you.  And bring that wool afghan you are working on before you pass out from heat exhaustion in your chair in the living room.

Tile mosaic birdhouse at Wynona Studios in historic downtown Oregon City!

Independence Day Window at Wynona Studios in historic downtown Oregon City!

We here at Wynona Studios would like to wish you a happy Independence Day! We feel as though we have declared our own independence this year by going into business for ourselves and following our passion. We hope you also have found some independence in your life, be it in your knitting, work, family or tv watching.

We will be taking the afternoon of the 4th off. We will open as usual at 10am but will close at 1pm to go find a good spot for some fireworks. We will be closed Monday and Tuesday and open again on Wednesday at 10am and staying open until the farmer’s market closes at 7pm.

We have had a lot of traffic through the studio this week, and a lot of folks have found things they could not live without in the studio. Birdhouses, doorstops, cool buttons, garden bells and more have all gone home to live with someone else this week. The Art Walk was a lot of fun, if you have not been to one, mark your calendar now for August 6th and come down. Our good friend will be one of the musical guests and we are excited to hear her song about Willie, the Studio Dog.

We hope to see you soon!

Tonight from 5pm-8pm there will be live music, art and artists on the sidewalk, and lots of friendly fun people wandering about in historic downtown Oregon City. We will be open with our handmade items out this month, but next month we are hoping we will have some of YOUR handmade items out for display! We have large gold frames on our wall just waiting to display your newly knitted sweater, crocheted baby booties, spun yarn, dyed skein or whatever you have made during the month at Wynona Studios.

Come say hi if you are in the area tonight! We would love to meet you!

Well, we are open for business today! Lots of people have been stopping by, thanks at least in part, to the article in the Oregon City News (http://www.oregoncitynewsonline.com/features/story.php?story_id=127785083530544100) and the podcast with Knit Happens (http://knithappensshow.com/). I feel like I should have brought my sunglasses and looked more like a celebrity!

WWKCIP Day was great fun and I promised pictures and more information, so here they are:

Our new friend Sherri the tatter!

The lovely and beautiful Janet, enjoying her pink lemonade.

Ellen with Isidious Plans, LLC, enjoying some handwork time.

Sherri's tatted heart pins were the hit of the party!

We hope you stop by soon to say hi and sign up for your membership! We look forward to seeing you.