Winter is the time for wool. And there's likely no place in Marlinton with more of it than Cheryl's Beauty and Beyond.

Cheryl Beverage relocated her salon and yarn shop to the town's Riverside section over the summer and has since made the new location as cozy as an old favorite sweater.

Step inside and you'll find shelves brimming with a variety of yarns, an assortment of knitting supplies, lots of comfortable seating for a knitting circle, and a display of Beverage's own handiwork, from booties, socks and fingerless gloves, to headbands, hats and her signature felted purses.

Beverage says she just likes being surrounded by the warmth and sight of all that yarn.

"I just love it," she says. "I love yarn-the feel, the colors."

Beverage jokes that she has a short attention span that keeps her jumping from one project to the next.

"I've always been into one thing or another," she says. "I've crocheted since I was 12. Then I learned to knit. I like to paint and make earrings, baskets."

She says she was inspired in part by her mother, who sewed and did crafts when Beverage was a child.

"She never knitted," she continues, "but I think that's where it came from, because she was always doing something."

Looking closely at Beverage's work, it's clear that her comments about her own attention span aren't justified. She shows a keen eye for detail. As someone who is largely self-taught, she pays close attention to deconstructing the details from the work of others.

Prior to taking up knitting, Beverage learned how to make baskets some 20 years ago.

"I love Longaberger baskets, but I couldn't afford them," she says. "So I learned to make them."

Beverage says she learned basket making from Leslie White, in Green Bank. White showed her how to make a couple of basic basket designs.

"Once you learn, you can just go with it," Beverage says. "I don't use patterns. I just decide what size I want, and if it doesn't turn out that size, it doesn't really matter. It's still a basket."

And Beverage recently started making sterling silver jewelry.

"I just figured it out," she says.

But her skill at knitting was hard-won.

"I'd try every winter," she says. "I'd get my beginner book and try to learn and I couldn't get it. So I finally had to get help."

Help was close by. Her main knitting mentor for the past five years has been her husband's aunt, JoAnn Gardner, of Dunmore. Not only does Gardner knit, she sells yarn made from the wool of her own sheep through Beverage's shop.

At Beauty and Beyond, Beverage is finding a way to pass on her love for knitting. Tuesday afternoons and evenings find a half dozen or more students occupying the cozy chairs at the front of the shop, taking knitting and crochet instruction from Maxine Ratliff, of Buckeye.

"We have some that know how to knit but just want to learn something new or have a question," Beverage says. "Some come in for the whole time, others come in for an hour after work."

Beauty and Beyond also hosts Thursday evening pottery classes with Cynthia Gurreri, and Beverage says she would like to add basket making classes in the near future.

Ideally, Beverage says she'd like to have classes going on all the time at Beauty and Beyond, giving would-be crafters and artists the confidence that she has to create something.

"I just see something I like," she says, "and I think, 'I can make that.'"