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This week Kathy talks with Louisa Harding

Louisa calls in from VK Live and chats with Kathy about her early days taking pattern cutting courses at college and bringing her knowledge of sewing and garment making to the art of hand knitting.

She also talks about the long road from seeing new yarns at an industry trade show to designing, photography and bringing them to market. Louisa is lucky enough to work with her photographer husband to bring an easily identifiable look and feel to her brand.

Steve’s Yarn Picks:

• Cascade 220 Superwash Discontinued Colors – Closeout
• Cascade Greenland – Closeout
• Cascade Yarns Jewel – Closeout
• KFI Cashfine
• Rowan Silkystones
• Rowan Cotton Glace
• Valley Yarns 40th Anniversary Valley Superwash DK – hand dyed by Madeline Tosh
• Dedicated Patterns

Reminder:

We’re collecting Hats for Halos of Hope. Our thanks to everyone that has already sent in hats, keep ’em coming! You can now make a donation in lieu of hats and help out as well! Each $5.00 contribution counts as 1 hat in our total. Donations can be made here.

Make as many knit and/or crochet hats as you can (check here for preferred fibers and free patterns) and get them to us by February 1, 2014. Make sure each hat and package is labeled with “Team RSK!” Please mail all packages to:

We are no longer accepting donations of hats – please send all hat donations to 

Halos for Hope

20987 N. John Wayne Pkwy

#B104-432 

Maricopa, AZ  85139

If you’re posting about your progress on Facebook or Twitter please use #PodcastThrowdown. And please join the Podcasters Throwdown Group on Ravelry and show your support in the Team RSK thread! If you’ve sent in hats let us know who you are.

  

This week the staff at WEBS is buzzing about…

1. Ever since I took Mary Jane Mucklestone’s “Colorful Knitting” class in the spring, I’ve been looking forward to her book. 200 Fair Isle Motifs is a great reference for Fair Isle patterns, and is filled with colorful, well-photographed swatches. Each motif offers four chart options, including a color variation, and a chart showing a suggested way of repeating the pattern.  With so much of the planning done for me by this book, I can’t wait to start plugging these motifs into projects! > Tina M.

2. I am saddened, though selfishly excited by the price, to see Rowan Calmer on our closeout shelves. This yarn has long been a favorite of mine, ever since I knit a log cabin baby blanket with it. A wonderously soft cotton, it has a bit of acrylic in it that adds a great spring. I feel a bit like Mr. Whipple, squeezing the bags of this great yarn. Many people have commented on what a great yarn it is for chemo caps. And judging by the number of bags of Calmer I see on WEBS’ staff desks right now, I think I’m not the only one who will miss it! > Leslie Ann B.

3. This time of year, a lot of future knitters come into the store hoping to find a way to make their family heartfelt gifts for the holidays, or a customer comes in looking for a good gift to help teach a friend or family how to knit. I always point them to the book I used to learn knitting, Debbie Stoller’s Stitch ‘n Bitch, and a couple of balls of Valley Yarns Northampton or Amherst for practice. The book has cute but clear illustrations and some simple accessory patterns, and is, in my opinion, the easiest to follow of any of our learn to knit books. > Elisabeth P.

4. I knit these fingerless mittens out of Louisa Harding Grace Silk & Wool last spring and barely had a chance to use them. Now that it’s cold again they’ve entered my accessory rotation as a regular feature (I have a bit of an accessory addiction!) I fell in love with this deep coral-y peach color the day it arrived as a closeout. I love the way stockinette fabric looks in this single-ply yarn, while the silk content makes them surprisingly warm. > Emma W.

5. We recently added Madelinetosh PDF knitting patterns to our website and I completely fell in love with the Brick Road Cowl. It comes in a short and long version and is knit in the popular Tosh Merino Light. But now the dilemma of color choice. Which two of the 30 colors we carry do I want? > Dena C.

Yes it’s true!  Louisa Harding will be visiting WEBS – America’s Yarn Store on Tuesday, June 15th from 6-8.  We are so excited to welcome Louisa back to WEBS.  She’s here in the US for TNNA and will be doing a couple of shop visits including WEBS.

Louisa will be discussing her new collection including great new yarns and designs.  She’ll have many of the garments with her as well which is always a treat. This event is a preview of what you will see from her this season.  We have our order

Be sure to register for this super event so we can be sure to have enough chairs and munchies!  You can register in the store or simply by calling Customer Service a 80.367.9327 or via email at customerservice@yarn.com.  The event is FREE!  I’m sure that Karen and her team in the store will have raffle prizes and such as well!

I know it’s going to be a great evening.  Louisa is simply lovely.  I will unfortunately still be here in Columbus attending post-show meetings but I’ll be there in spirit!

Enjoy!

Kathy

A big thanks to everyone who joined us on Friday evening for our event with Louisa Harding. What great fun we had! Unfortunately, I left my camera sitting on the desk of my home office, but luckily Skrillaknits was armed and at the ready. I’ll posting pictures shortly, but did not want to let too much time pass before posting.

We’ve also introduced a new Valley Yarn – Springfield. It was in our Spring catalog and we’re working on a couple of patterns to support this great new yarn. Springfield is 88% cotton/12% acrylic and has a textured “crimp” to it. It’s super soft and knits at 5 sts = 1″ on a #6 needle and has 110 yards. Springfield is available in 11 colors and is $3.49/ball – oh and it’s made in Italy.

The focus of our world right now is Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s return to WEBS this Sunday, April 27th. Full details of the event are now available at www.yarn.com. Just click on the button on our homepage for all of the details. It is going to be a great day!

Kathy

Steve and I are just back from a quick road trip to Cleveland. What’s in Cleveland you ask? Well, besides one of the easiest airports I’ve ever navigated, good food and nice spring weather, there is Beachwood Studios. What is Beachwood Studios? It’s a major production facility for PBS. Why, you may ask, were we there? A few years earlier and my boys’ would have asked if we were visiting Clifford The Big Red Dog or going to Dragonland with Max and Emmie. This trip was all fiber related – we were there for the inaugural taping of Interweave Press’ new show – Knitting Daily TV. Knitting Daily TV is the new incarnation of Shay Pendray’s Needlearts Studio, which has been on the air for several years. Interweave has taken over production of the show and is evolving it into KDTV. WEBS is one of the underwriters and we were asked to participate in several segments. So with lots of work in advance and some crazy last minute knitting (thanks Kirsten, thanks Melissa), Steve and I ventured off to Cleveland.

It was a blast (I can say that now) but it was also very stressful. Steve refused to participate in any on-air segments, so I was on my own. Fortunately, each segment included a host – I got to work with Liz Gipson, editor of Handwoven Magazine and Shay Pendray herself. I participated in 7 different segments within the 13 episodes that were being taped this week. I had lots of props and such, which all had to be set-up in advance in the “green room” (it really is green – look at the walls in the background).

I have to also say a big, huge thanks to Mary, who packed up everything I needed for the show, in bags, labeled with which segment they were for and what she had included. I had everything I needed and it was really, really, REALLY easy to set-up my segments. Mary rocks!

I also had to have seven different outfits – one for each segment – which would not normally be an issue since I’m a bit of a clothes horse, but PBS has rules – rules that basically excluded my entire wardrobe (no black or white allowed). Also, no big prints, polka dots or skinny stripes. . .no red, preferably no pastels, nothing too warm as the set can be hot, but no short sleeves or sleeveless because they can be “unnattractive”. Plus, whatever I wore had to be able to have a microphone attached to it. I did figure it out and did not have to appear naked (I’m sure that would’ve broken another PBS rule, although it was not clearly stated).

Knitting Daily TV will air this July. If you previously were able to get Shay’s show in your area, there’s a very good chance you will get KDTV. If you didn’t, now may be the time to get all of your fiber (and non-fiber friends for that matter) to contact your local PBS affiliate and encourage them to pick up the show. Interweave has done a great job of restructuring the show, hosts include not only Liz and Shay, but also Eunny Yang and Kim Werker. They have all sorts of fun topics and interesting guests (if I do say so myself). I”ll pass more information along as it becomes available and if you aren’t a regular subscriber to knittingdaily.com, go there now and sign-up!

This was an incredibly nerve-wracking experience, but I am so glad we did it. If you don’t challenge yourself, you’ll never know what you are capable of (or so they say). What really reassured me that this was the right thing to do, was this sign on the inside of the door to the elevator at our hotel:



Seriously, where have you ever seen a sheep sign on the inside of an elevator door before? Steve and I were both a bit stunned and tickled at the same time, to say the least.

Kathy

P.S. Don’t forget – Louisa Harding at WEBS tomorrow starting at 5:00pm! Don’t worry if you can’t be there right at 5 – pop in when you can. I saw Louisa in Cleveland and she’s really looking forward to her visit with us!

P.P.S. Be sure to listen to this week’s Ready, Set, Knit! radio show/podcast on Saturday. Before Steve and I left we interviewed the Yarn Harlot and Melissa filled in for Pixie! It was a fun show – enjoy!