Lion Brand Notebook
News, Ideas and Information for Crafting with Yarn
Lion Brand Notebook
News, Ideas and Information for Crafting with Yarn
In addition to our weekly e-newsletter, we also have a monthly newsletter for kids and those who craft with them. It’s a great source of inspiration for kids, teens, parents, girl- and boyscout leaders, camp counselors and more. BK4K (By Kids for Kids) features beginner and easy knit and crochet projects.
In this past month’s issue, our patterns were inspired by spring. We featured the daffodil pencil (shown above), an easy, breezy headband, and a charming flower coin purse. These projects are great ways to practice simple knit and crochet stitches, and they’re perfect for the warmer months.
For more great kid-friendly ideas, subscribe to BK4K. If you have a Lion Brand account, you can simply add it by visiting the “My Account” page, and selecting it under “Subscriptions.”
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In each episode of our podcast, YarnCraft, we feature a segment called “Stash This–Ideas for Your Crafting Life.” As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a chance for me and my co-host Liz from our Design Department to share with you some interesting tips about knitting, crocheting, and yarncrafting.
In this episode, our focus was on combining knit and crochet, but in Stash This, we discussed great projects for warm weather. Here is just a sampling of the projects we discussed:
Market Bag - We featured a few different carrier bag patterns in Lion Cotton and Cotton-Ease that are great for carrying your groceries, going to the beach, or just running errands.
For more ideas, check out the podcast every other Tuesday by visiting YarnCraft.LionBrand.com or search our Pattern Finder, and tell us about your current spring projects!
Posted in Crocheting, Knitting, Uncategorized, YarnCraft Podcast | Leave a comment »
Last weekend I attended Maker Faire at the San Mateo fairgrounds near San Francisco. Maker Faire is an amazing event for do-it-yourselfers. It’s a family oriented event where everyone from little children to grandparents can interact with and experiment with everything from circuit boards to crochet amigurumi. The atmosphere is fun and the energy is great.
We have been one of the sponsors of this event for the last couple of years. This year at our booth we taught about 200 people to knit and crochet. What a thrill it was for me to see the looks on peoples’ faces when they learned to craft with yarn!
The icing on the cake was that our booth won the Editor’s Choice blue ribbon. And. . . speaking of cake, we offered a workshop on making yarn cakes. It was great fun to see even young children walk out of the booth with smiles on their faces and a finished slice of cake in their hands after working on it for less than an hour. Keep an eye out next week for our newsletter where we announce the new patterns for these cakes.
Posted in Community, Crocheting, Knitting, Lion Staff, On The Road | Leave a comment »
For some of us (especially New Yorkers), getting 10 plastic bags at a grocery store is not an unusual thing. If you’re doing that every week for a year, you’ve collected a lot of plastic bags. Some of you might not know what to do with all of these excess bags, and some may also want to figure out ways to reduce the wasteful usage of these bags. Luckily, Lifehacker posted an easy solution for this by crocheting your plastic bags to create a shoulder tote.
There are quite a few websites where you can purchase your own recycled bags, such as Reusablebags.com, and there are also some people who are creating some very amazing and cool bags out of recycled material. For instance, Cindy at My Recycled Bags does some absolutely incredible things with all types of materials. She’s given me permission to show a couple of her bags here, and she has some incredibly creative ideas. She even created a VCR tote partially using Incredible, a Lion Brand ribbon yarn!
Crocheted Mini Shoulder Bag (Plastic Bags)
Sling Bag (VCR Tape & Incredible Yarn)
Posted in Crocheting, Yarniverse | 5 Comments »
In each episode of our podcast, YarnCraft, my co-host Liz from our Design Department and I like to share some interesting tips about knitting, crocheting, and yarncrafting.
In the podcast episode, “Yarncrafting with Kids,” we were joined by technical editor Jackie from the Design Department to talk about teaching kids. Here are five tips:
For more ideas, check out the podcast every other Tuesday by visiting YarnCraft.LionBrand.com or sign up for BK4K, our monthly newsletter for kids and those who yarncraft with them!
Posted in Crocheting, Knitting, Tips & How To, YarnCraft Podcast | 1 Comment »
Over the past couple of weeks we came across a couple of bloggers who have created some beautiful afghans with our Cotton-Ease yarn.
Bella Dia uses a granny square pattern similar to our Happy Baby Blanket pattern to create her granny square blanket project.
Stardust Shoes takes some yarns and plays around with them to create some VERY cute flowers!
There is also a great group for those of you registered on Ravelry, for people who use Cotton-Ease, called Cotton pickin’. It’s there for anyone and everyone to share Cotton-Ease love and has some wonderful suggestions for new items using the yarn.
Additionally on Bella Dia, she suggests a great way to pick out swatches for upcoming projects using our website.
Posted in Crocheting, Yarniverse | 3 Comments »
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City merged science and art on Tuesday, April 8. Using yarn donated by Lion Brand, they have crocheted an entire coral reef ecosystem and discussed some the current issues facing reefs today, as well as actions that can be taken in the future.
Margaret Wertheim, director of the Institute for Figuring, and Kate Holmes, a marine biologist for AMNH, lead a discussion about the plight of coral reefs, and “hyperbolic crochet,” while touching on handicraft, mathematics, marine ecology, conservation activism, and collective artistic practice.
To learn more about the Institute for Figuring, you can check out the article we wrote in our newsletter.
As someone who is also personally interested in coral reefs and their survivability, I also recently saw an article in The New York Times about some of the efforts being done to rebuild and sustain the reef community. One of these efforts is taking place in Delaware, where they are using old subway cars to create a thriving reef with trains taken from the New York City MTA. It’s very cool!
Posted in Crocheting, Yarniverse | 2 Comments »
In each episode of our podcast, YarnCraft, we feature a segment called “Stash This–Ideas for Your Crafting Life.” It’s a chance for me and my co-host Liz from our Design Department to share with you some interesting tips about knitting, crocheting, and yarncrafting.
In podcast episode about “Selling Your Knit/Crochet Items on Etsy & Tips on Customizing with Color,” our “Stash This” was about working with color, the meaning of colors, and personalizing patterns. Here are five tips from episode #12:
For more ideas, check out the podcast every other Tuesday by visiting YarnCraft.LionBrand.com, and tell us what are some ways you’ve used colors to personalize a project!
Posted in Crocheting, Knitting, Tips & How To, YarnCraft Podcast | 1 Comment »
