Lion Brand Notebook
News, Ideas and Information for Crafting with Yarn
Lion Brand Notebook
News, Ideas and Information for Crafting with Yarn
I may have missed my chance to become a stand up comedian when I joined the family business, but over the last year I’ve made personal appearances at knitting guilds in the New York, Connecticut and New Jersey area. I love talking to people who use our yarn, sharing some “inside” information, showing our garments and answering questions. I’m always looking to test out new material and willing to go on the road, so if you have 50 or more knitters or crocheters who will attend a talk, let me know and I’ll try to schedule a visit . You can reach me at Jack@lionbrand.com
Here’s a video montage of me visiting the Bergen Knitter’s Guild:
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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 »
We had a lot of fun visiting Etsy a month ago. David, Zontee, Liz and I went to their offices, located in a beautiful building called the Clocktower in an one of the many areas of New York named with an acronym: Dumbo. That stands for down under the Manhattan Bridge overpass.
Etsy is an online marketplace for buying and selling anything handmade. We did a podcast while we were there and interviewed some of the staff about this phenomenon. We found a very creative group of people and a devotion to customer satisfaction that was impressive. Their site is fun to look at and as crafters, we particularly value anything made by hand.
Etsy featured an exclusive interview with Vanna for their web site.
After our visit, we enjoyed an over-the-top lunch at the famous Junior’s Restaurant.
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We presented our annual fashion show hosted by Vanna White at the Crafts and Hobby Association Show in February. Here’s a video of the show, including conceptual pieces, as well as practical fashion and home dec items. The coat shown below is a longer version of the Extra Easy, Extra Fabulous Sweater, which is one of our most popular patterns. We’ll be posting a pattern for this longer version when our new catalog is comes out in September. The Easy Does It Blanket can be found on our pattern finder right now.
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