Wag Tails Yarns is a yarn shop, of course. And we’re so much more. We carry a great selection of yarns created by local and regional spinners and dyers. We also stock products like soaps and buttons and stitch markers and fur pompoms made by artisans in the Pacific Northwest. And we’ve created kits for everything from headbands, and market bags, and mitts, to Doggie Duds™ large enough to fit a Great Dane, and small enough for your favorite Yorkie. Wag Tails is a design house. We’ve developed patterns for shawls and scarves and fancy little evening bags and sweaters for people and their dogs. We are teachers. We help everyone who walks in the door with a knitting, or crocheting question, or problem, and we never ever charge for this service. Our classes are also unique. We teach the principles of knitting and crocheting, so when you finish a class you walk away with more than a sweater or a scarf or a shawl. You’ll know that a pattern is a place to start. When I was a kid, once, or twice a year, my Mom, and I, would play hooky. She from the unending tasks of a housewife’s life, and me from schoolbooks and homework. We would take the train to Penn Station in New York City, and walk the few blocks to the Garment District. I remember the noise, and the commotion, and dodging the men hauling huge racks of clothes from the manufacturing shops to the show rooms, and back again. Our destination was a store that sold fabrics, and yarns remaindered from the design houses. It was an amazing place. There were two rooms, and bolts of fabric, and cones of yarn were piled everywhere in both of them. I remember the heavy softness of the velvets and the brocades and the delicacy of the lace. Chiffons so light it seemed like they could float on the wind. My Mom and I would spend hours digging around in the stacks to find just the right fabric for the winter coat, or the Easter dress or, as was done the last time we made this trip, my dress for the senior prom. I remember the yarn she kept in cones, and skeins, in bins on the walls, and the floor. It was a melange of colors and textures and fibers.