Yarn

Clayton, Dana and Edward got a crash course this weekend in where wool sweaters come from — and it's not the store. The first strand of the story was told to the Pickett children beside a field where a pack of border collies were corralling sheep and moving them in and out of pens. It was a well-attended demonstration at the 38th annual Sheep & Wool Festival, the largest such event in the country with thousands of participants. It's part marketplace for spinners and knitters, part family outing and part instruction from the Maryland Sheep Breeders Association.

They sit hunched over a single needlepoint canvas that is bathed in astoundingly bright light, fingers flying. "Where am I? My needle is under here," Joy Wiley of Lothian says to herself as she stops to examine her work while feeling around beneath the canvas for her dangling yarn and needle. "We hate these tails," says Sheryn Blocher of Crownsville with a sigh, glaring at what look like weeds standing up from the canvas. She will imperceptibly secure the base of each wisp of yarn, or tail, before trimming it away.

THEY ARE CALLED the yarn ladies - five retired schoolteachers who used to work in the North County area and are members of Patapsco Valley Chapter 3850 of the American Association of Retired Persons. Doris Barker, Bernice Chenowith, Dorothy Street, Ruth Knight and Margaret Cutchins have been meeting for 10 years to crochet and sew articles for five nursing homes in the area. Their projects consist of crocheting lap robes, cloth bags that can be attached to walkers and wheelchairs, and pillows.

Maggie Jackovitz grew up in Towson but chose Harford County as her home almost 25 years ago. Owner of Ewenique Yarns, a knitting/yarn shop, Maggie says, “It's a simpler life here in Harford County. It's a neighborly place and a wonderful place to raise a family.” Married to Steve since 1987, Maggie is a mother of three and lives in town where she can walk to her store and hears church bells on her way down the street. The small town charm of Bel Air drew her to the area, but her lifelong love of knitting prompted her to open up her business in 2002.

Karen Thiem and Cindy Jones, owners of All About Yarn in Columbia, met in 2002, at a practice for Special Olympics basketball. The women soon discovered they had a lot in common. Both lived in Columbia, and both had daughters with special needs. And both liked to knit. "We would sit in a corner and knit and talk," Thiem recalled. "We've both been knitting since we were 10 or 11." One thing they discussed was what the future held for their daughters. "We talked about what are we going to do with the girls," Jones said.

LEONARDTOWN -- Donna Wagner was working on a crayon box sweater, a confection of pink, mauve and light-green squares. Nellie Daugherty had a solid start on a scarf that she had dubbed "a study in four blues." Jackie Spence was knitting a yellow seahorse doll for a colleague's soon-to-arrive baby. The jagged, half-finished projects emerged from knitting bags. Skeins of yarn piled up on the table next to glasses of wine. Needles clicked. They call it Wednesday nights or sit-n-knit or knitting happy hour.

Unlike Britain, America isn't known as a country of needlepoint mavens. But a new mail-order business in Ellicott City is launching an effort to change that.Ehrman Tapestry -- an 18-year-old needlepoint kit company based in London -- opened an office earlier this month on Dorsey Hall Drive, its first office outside London.The office -- and the six Howard County residents who work there -- are key to the company's plan to market its kits in the United States, officials said."The market in America is a very good one," said Marjorie Adams, Ehrman's U.S. branch president.

On Wednesday nights, about a dozen women gather after hours in an Ellicott City shop to indulge their shared obsession. Solid or multicolored, thick or thin, plain or fuzzy, yarn is a passion they all share. "It's so addicting," said Laurie Muldawer of Olney, one of the knitters last week at the Celtic Knot Yarn Shop on Main Street. The women are part of a resurgence in knitting, as more people - including men and children - take up the craft or return to it after years away. "It's so relaxing, and it's so creative," said Carole Ferguson, owner of the Celtic Knot.

Editor's note: Geraldine, a goat, describes each step as she and her Navajo friend make a rug. My name is Geraldine and I live near a place called Window Rock with my Navajo friend, Glenmae. It's called Window Rock because it has a big round hole in it that looks like a window open to the sky. Glenmae is called Glenmae most of the time because it's easier to say than her Indian name: Glee `Nasbah. In English that means something like female warrior, but she's really a Navajo weaver. I guess that's why, one day, she decided to weave me into a rug. I remember it was a warm, sunny afternoon, Glenmae had spent most of the morning sharpening a large pair of scissors.

They are known as the "Yarn Ladies," and they have crocheted hundreds of lap covers for Anne Arundel County's nursing home residents.Last year, the five women, all members of the Retired Teachers Association of Anne Arundel, made 177 lap covers."

When it comes to keeping a business in the family, fathers and sons are the classic combination that typically comes to mind. But for a few small businesses in Howard County, it's the team of mother and daughter that brings a special touch to the enterprise. From memories of long-ago shopping trips to the newness of cutting a ribbon and opening the doors for the first time, mother and daughter business owners say they share a special bond that, quite simply, no other business partner could ever match.

Clayton, Dana and Edward got a crash course this weekend in where wool sweaters come from — and it's not the store. The first strand of the story was told to the Pickett children beside a field where a pack of border collies were corralling sheep and moving them in and out of pens. It was a well-attended demonstration at the 38th annual Sheep & Wool Festival, the largest such event in the country with thousands of participants. It's part marketplace for spinners and knitters, part family outing and part instruction from the Maryland Sheep Breeders Association.

No winner of the Mark Twain Award has been more in tune with Twain than Bill Cosby. He not only feels an affinity for the giant of American literary comedy. He also knows the underlying principles of Twain's oeuvre. Over the phone two weeks ago, when I ask him what he feels about winning the award, he asks me if I know what Twain said about the difference between American humor and English and French humor. Twain's definition of our native genius for yarn-spinning pinpoints what's distinctive about Cosby's achievement.

You know him, you love him - Tom Hanks!" said David Letterman on Monday night as he called the Everyman superstar to the stage. But how well do we know him? What makes Tom Hanks run? That question races through your mind during the technologically phenomenal yet otherwise middling antics of Angels & Demons, the sequel to The Da Vinci Code. Although it's come out second, it's based on the first Dan Brown thriller to center on Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, an academic with a habit of butting heads with zealots.

Professionally speaking, Jack Shagena and Henry Peden are as different as night and day. Shagena worked as an aerospace electronic engineer, while Peden earned a living as an administrator for Bethlehem Steel. However, both men, now retired, have a passion for historic preservation. As a result, they collaborated on a book in 2006 about blacksmiths. After the book was published, they discussed other possible topics for a second collaboration. The result of their conversations was a 255-page book called The Lofty Barn - A Farmer's Castle, Harford County's Rural Heritage.

The Wackness is a funny, touching mood piece about a New York City high-school grad named Luke (Josh Peck) and marijuana dealer who spends three months before college trading dope for therapy with his shrink (Ben Kingsley) and falling in love with the shrink's stepdaughter Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby). It's set in the summer of '94, and underneath its jiving, wise-cracking surface, it's the cousin of Summer of '42, a previous generation's male fantasy of losing virginity to a beautiful and understanding woman.

Unlike Britain, the United States isn't known as a country of needlepoint mavens. But a new mail-order business in Ellicott City is launching an effort to change that.Ehrman Tapestry -- an 18-year-old needlepoint kit company based in London -- opened an office this month on Dorsey Hall Drive, its first office outside London.The office -- and the six Howard County residents who work there -- are key to the company's plan to market its kits in the United States, officials said."The market in America is a very good one," said Marjorie Adams, Ehrman's U.S. branch president.

Their hands are filled with colored yarn: filmy pink, eggy yellow and white, thick, warm turquoise, beige or maroon. The 20 women seated around long tables turn it all into lap robes for nursing homes, or tiny caps for babies so small you wouldn't believe they could live. "This is God's work," said Betty Roberts, who coordinates the women's knitting and crocheting group at Kiwanis-Wallas Recreation Center. "We take blankets [to Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center] because when they get people on their feet and started again, that is their going-away present.

A chorus of crickets chirped on an unusually balmy autumn night in Historic Ellicott City. Antiques showcased in store windows cast silhouettes on Main Street's brick sidewalk. Neon signs advertising beer, tattoos and tarot card readings flickered in the darkness. As Linda Joy Burke began to tell a ghost story - a firsthand encounter - she motioned a group of about 25 people closer to the dark entrance to a former department store and its lone occupant, Mr. Bob the tabby cat, who appears behind the glass door to watch.

10868 York Road, Cockeysville 410-628-9276 blacksheepyarnshop.com Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday Summer might not seem like the time to think about scarves, sweaters and mittens, but this new yarn shop is keeping its customers in stitches. Joyce Norton-McCormick of Ruxton and Tracy Russell of Roland Park opened the store June 1, when they expected business to be slow. But they say they have been surprised at the number of people who have dropped in to buy yarn, needles, patterns and knitting accessories.