Winners: the fiber obsessed who shop, teach or take classes at [tag]Springwater Fiber Workshop[/tag].

A pledge drive raised the $100,000 necessary for the beloved shop and school, which have been in [tag]Alexandria[/tag] for twenty-two years, to stay open. (Actually, they’re going to close the store and then reopen it all fresh and new in January). You can read more about it here: “Pledge Drive Saves Fiber Workshop.”

Losers: Everyone.

Sorry, I was really sad about this one when I heard about it.

[tag]A Likely Story[/tag], a phenomenal [tag]children’s bookshop[/tag], closed it’s doors in November, just a year after being named the most outstanding children’s bookshop in the country. Kids really liked going there. To read. The Old Town fixture had also been open for over twenty years. Although it was always full of children, most of them dripping some sort of viscous [tag]mucous[/tag] as children are wont to do, it was a really cool store.

There’s also an article in today’s Washington Post about it, For Children’s Bookstore, an Unhappy End – A Likely Story, Beloved by Families, Faces Fiscal Reality.”

Stephanie Landrum, of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, was interviewed for the story:

Landrum said that in the past year, 10 small businesses in Alexandria have closed. Some, such as the Cash Grocer on King Street or a piano store on N. St. Asaph Street, closed because the owners wanted to retire. Others, like the ReMix in Del Ray, relocated. With a hotel slated to go up across the street from A Likely Story, Landrum said she isn’t sure what kind of business might want to locate there. “Another bookstore?” she said. “Who knows. But the odds are slim. Independent booksellers are few and far between.”

It was surprising to me to read how few people at A Likely Story’s events actually stayed to buy books. The only time I ever went in was when I was with someone who needed to do actual shopping, so it didn’t occur to me that the mobs of people I always saw inside weren’t leaving their cash behind.