We are less than 48 hours away from the event of the YEAR! The Yarn Harlot’s return to Northampton and WEBS! I am so excited and so stressed about all of the details, I’m not sure which emotion I’m feeling at any given time.

Orchestrating an event of this size is no small feat and it involves not only a lot of planning, but an immense amount of teamwork and cooperation from all of you!

As of today, our pre-registration has officially gone over the estimated attendance at the book launch at FIT! Little ole’ Northampton will beat the largest metropolitan area in the United States! Now, I know this may not matter to Stephanie, she has much higher goals with her tour than simply numbers. But as I’ve said before, I am competitive – wicked competitive. Call it a fault, call it what you want. I was asked to deliver Knitters to Represent – I take my job and this particular assignment seriously (and a bit personally). As of this morning, we have 602 pre-registered attendees. I did the happy dance. Now to just make sure we don’t end up with a mess of knitters on our hands!

So, here’s the info you need to know, the links to find it, etc. Please take the time to read all of this. It will also be coming to those of you pre-registered via email tomorrow (if you opted to provide us with an email).

GENERAL LOGISTICSThe doors to the Calvin will officially open at 5:00 PM. For those of you coming from outside the area, we’ve posted information about directions, parking and local restaurants on our website. Here are the links to each one.

Directions to the Calvin

Parking in Downtown Northampton

Nearby Restaurants

GIVING BACK

We are supporting two charities with Stephanie’s visit that are very important to us, so we hope you will find time to support one or both of them while you are here. First is the Northampton Survival Center’s Kids’ Summer Food Program. This critical program feeds kids all summer long that ordinarily receive free breakfasts and lunches at school. When school is out, the Survival Center is their only food source. Let’s fill their coffers for the entire summer. The link below details the foods we would like folks to bring. Please bring them to the store, not to the Calvin as we won’t have the ability to collect food there.Kids’ Summer Food Program – Food List
Scroll down the page to see the list!

For those of you who have been working on hats for charity, please bring them to the store and we will make sure they are distributed. Please bring them to the store, not to the Calvin as we son’t have the ability to collect hats there.

GOODIE BAGS

Everyone in attendance will receive a goodie bag with yarn donated by Webs and needles donated by Storey Publishing/Boye. During Stephanie’s talk, we would like you to knit a square and those squares will be sent onto Warm Up America to be sewn into afghans and distributed to a variety of individuals who are in need.

THE BOOK SIGNING AT WEBS

Finally, as there are 600+ folks joining us, we are going to have a process for getting your books signed at the store. Stephanie will be pre-signing a group of books that will be available for purchase at the store if you don’t want to stand in line after the talk.

If you would like to meet Stephanie and get your book signed, we will be handing out cards at the Calvin with designated times for folks to come back to get their books signed. Cards will be handed out based on your time of arrival at the Calvin. The only exceptions are the elderly, handicapped, anyone with a small child or expecting – you get to go to the front of the line. This is Stephanie’s rule!

If your time is later, you may want to grab a quick bite to eat or an adult beverage at any one of the nearby establishments in downtown Northampton (caution: the bars near WEBS are a little scary!)

Of course, you are more than welcome to join us any time at the store for a little yarn shopping (there is some nice Regia sock yarn in the warehouse!), but we’d like to try to keep the line from snaking all around the warehouse. You are also welcome to just come back to the store, find a spot and hang out an knit!

The store will open at 10:00 AM on Wednesday. We’ll be open during the entire event, including Stephanie’s speech and we will not close until the last person leaves!

We will have plenty of staff in the store and at the Calvin to help you out. This is going to be a great night! I hope Northampton is ready for us!

Kathy

P.S. IT’S DONE! The catalog project that is standing in my way of every other project I want to do is done!!!

I know I’ve left some of you hanging regarding the Yarn Harlot Event. Until I had all of the details finalized, I didn’t want to start handing out info.

As many of you know, we sold out the event. Yup, 375 spots filled in a heart beat. So, out of pure FEAR that we would end up with a riot on our hands, we cancelled the Clarion Hotel (they are not happy with us. . . . .) and we are now booked at the Calvin Theater in downtown Northampton. It is a beautiful, beautiful theater with a seating capacity of 1000ish. Hah! See if you can fill that! So, registration is back open – we still need you to register so we have a headcount. No change in time – the Harlot goes on at 6:00pm! (Note – do not panic that our “private event” is not listed yet.)

With the move to the larger (read more expensive) location and the fact that we had to break our contract with the Clarion (read – we had to pay a penalty) we will not be serving food. It goes against every event planning bone in my body, but it has to be. More people and no food seemed better than leaving people out, just so a mere 375 of us could enjoy Stephanie AND munchies. . . .I know you will all understand. So please, plan accordingly. There are lots of places in Northampton to dine from fast food, to casual, to ethnic to fancy. If you don’t have time before the event to eat, you should feel confident that you will have time afterwards – we will be moving the book signing line at the store along as fast as possible, but it will take time to get through everyone, so feel free to take a 1/2 hour to stop and grab a bite.

Also, this event is FREE, but we are hoping to help out a local charity. We often do this with our free events. We are partnering with the Northampton Survival Center and their Kid’s Summer Food Program. The program provides meals for school age children in 16 area towns that normally received subsidized breakfasts and lunches at school. During the summer there is no school for these kids and thus, little or no food. The link to the items they need is here and we are asking to bring what you can. If the budget is tight and a jar of peanut butter and bottle of jellly is all you can do, that’s great. If you can bring more, we (and the kids) would be deeply appreciative.

More info to come regarding parking and other fun things!

Kathy

Some of you may have heard our podcast interview a couple of weeks back with Peta Bailey, founder of Yarn Safaris. Yarn Safaris is based in metro Boston and organzies bus trips to fiber related events, yarn stores, etc. They made their maiden voyage to WEBS this past Saturday and I think our staff had as much fun as they did.

Well, due to customer demand, Yarn Safaris is offering a trip back to WEBS for The Yarn Harlot’s appearance. Just think, catch the bus with other knitters and Harlot lovers, cruise out to beautiful Northampton, enjoy some time at the store, attend Stephanie’s talk, come back to WEBS for the booksigning and shopping and then, just relax and let the Yarn Safari bus get you back home to the Boston area.

This is your chance to REPRESENT Boston knitters! I am a native Bostonian, so please don’t disappoint! Get complete information about the trip by clicking here or on the Yarn Safaris link above. I hope to see many of you out here on May 30th!

Kathy

P.S. For those of you making your way here on your own, be it from Boston or elsewhere, I am working on discounted hotel arrangements. More info should be available next week.

UPDATE/NOTE: For those of you coming via Yarn Safaris – your registration for the bus trip is your ticket to the event. You DO NOT NEED TO REGISTER WITH US. We have spots set aside for Yarn Safaris. Please do not double register – that would take a spot away from someone else!!! THANKS!

 

So how many of you read The Yarn Harlot’s blog on Friday? If you have not read it as of yet, go there now, read Friday, February the 16th’s post and then come back. For those of you who read Harlot regularly, you know the post I am referring to, the one about representing. I posted a comment, which I don’t think I did correctly, but since there’s somewhere around 800 comments now, I might just be passing it by.

Anyway, she really struck a cord. Steve and I have experienced first hand what she is talking about. We travel to at least one or two conferences each year that are not industry related, but business related. Sometimes it’s marketing, sometimes it’s technology. The technology/internet conferences are the best example. Steve and I go to learn, there are work sessions, networking opportunities and the always dreaded “marketplace”. The marketplace is where vendors set-up shop and try to get you to spend your money on their products that will supposedly help us make more money. There is no question that we are a small fish in a very large, scary pond at these events. So there we are, in the marketplace and we approach a vendor to discuss their products/services. We introduce ourselves and undoubtedly they hear nothing past “WEBS”. We talk about what we are lacking/needing/hoping to find. They are smiling and nodding and then their eye catches our name tag and you notice just the slightest face crinkle. The vendor asks “What type of business do you have (they’ve read past WEBS) and we say “We own a yarn store”. This is when their eyes glaze over and the nice smile freezes on their face. I swear if we touched their face at this moment, it would be like a clip out of a cartoon – their entire face would crumble into a million pieces. More often than not, the vendor hands us their card, a free pen and says “we’ll be in touch”. Not. They do not take us seriously and I’m sure they cannot possible envision a yarn store needing whatever slick product/service it is they are pedaling. This is their really big mistake.

So read Stephanie’s post, the comments and her subsequent post today. If you can be in NYC on March 22nd, with a sock or any knitting for that matter, I urge you to go. Steve and I will be in Florida, otherwise we would be there in a heartbeat.

Although I am sad to miss, what has the potential to be an event of epic proportions, I am actually highly energized by the whole thing. I am working diligently with “Jayme-the-wonder-publicist” to get The Harlot back to Northampton and in a BIG way. For those of you who attended last year’s event in March, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! And if Stephanie’s plans really start to take hold, trust me, WEBS will be on board and making it happen right here in Northampton. Stay tuned.

In other news, I am interviewing Ann Hood, author of The Knitting Circle tomorrow for this week’s radio show/podcast. This is the first interview I’ve done that is outside of the industry and with somebody I don’t “know”. She is a big time author and I have to say that I am just a wee bit nervous. Steve is off at Stitches West (well, actually he’s in Minneapolis on his way, but you know what I mean) so I will be flying solo. The book is really good, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it. So tune in Saturday to the show or the podcast for what I hope will be a very interesting and in-depth interview.

And while we’re talking books, just a reminder that Kate Jacobs, author of The Friday Night Knitting Club, will be at WEBS on Monday, March 12th at 12:00ish for a book reading/signing. We’ll be serving a light luncheon and it promises to be a really nice event, so make your plans now to be there!

My next post will be from Stitches. I arrive on Thursday, just before the show opens. Had to hang back for some business reasons and to give the kiddly winks less “sitter” time and more “parent” time. We have an awesome sitter, but Steve and I are both harboring a bit of parental guilt. We have quite a bit of travel this year and we’re trying hard to keep it all balanced.

Watch for some amazing pictures from the show. If you are in the Santa Clara area this weekend, do not miss the show! Remember, if we hit our goal, my darling, dark-haired honey will be getting some lovely blond tips. There will be photos. Please come and shop ’til you drop!

More knitting next time.

Kathy