10 Year Anniversary of the Yarn Thing Podcast

Can you believe it! It has been TEN years since I started the Yarn Thing Podcast. Time sure does fly when you are having fun. I wanted to take a moment and look back on the 10 year anniversary of the Yarn Thing podcast.

Just incase you don’t know what the Yarn Thing Podcast is, it is a twice weekly show that I run on Blog Talk Radio. I interview different designers, yarn companies, and other interesting people/companies in the yarn industry. The show airs on most Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 10am Mountain Time (9am PST and 12pm EST). There is a chat that you can join on Blog Talk radio or you can watch a behind the scenes Facebook Live chat as the podcast airs. You can get notifications of the shows on my Facebook page. Set your calendar reminders now!

The podcast started all because I left a comment on a fellow bloggers site and they said I was funny and should start my own podcast. When you give me an idea that I like I will run with it, so I did. The Yarn Thing Podcast was the first crochet podcast on iTunes and the only one that talked about knitting and crochet. Over the past ten years the podcast has grown so much. I am so proud of it and love getting to spend some time with you each week.

Early Yarn Thing Podcast Episodes:

When I started the podcast I talked about my life and how knitting and crochet fit into it. It was prerecorded and took a lot of time to edit and produce. The Yarn Harlot was the first episode where I started to talk about designers and others in the industry. I enjoyed it so much that I turned the path of the podcast to start talking about designers in the industry.

Once I started to talk about others in the industry I reached out to review books on the show. Jill Wright used to come on the show and help me talk about different topics. The more episodes I produced the more they morphed into what you hear today.

First Interview on the Yarn Thing Podcast:

The first designer that I interviewed on the show was Annie Modesitt. I am a HUGE fan girl and loved her on Knitty Gritty. I was so excited to have her on the show. Unfortunately the platform that I used to record those first episodes is no longer around and I don’t have those shows to share with you. I switched over to Blog Talk radio in 2009 after the recommendation from Mary Beth Temple.

One of the other first designers that I had on the show was Drew Emborsky. I mentioned to him that I secretly wanted to be a designer. He encouraged me to start my path and the rest is history.

Moving to Blog Talk Radio:

Recording the show and editing it was quite difficult. I was doing everything myself and I had three little kids at home. These factors made me decide to switch over to a live show. I was so nervous to go live for the first time. There wasn’t going to be any time to remove the pauses or times when the wrong thing was said.

My first live show was on March 18, 2009 with Kristin Omdahl. Kristin is a regular on the show and loves to share new things with us. Once I went live I started to produce the show at a regular time once each week. Over time people kept asking me to interview more people and more designers wanted to get on the show. Since everyone seemed excited about the show I added a second date and run the show on Tuesday and Thursday mornings (most weeks).

I decided that the format would work best as a chit chat session between friends. Since the show is live I wanted to allow the listeners to feel like they were sitting in on a great conversation between friends. I try not to talk about what I have going on but rather really dive into what the guest has going on in their business and to hear their story to share with all of you.

10 Years, 4 million downloads, 400+ episodes:

In the ten years that I have been running the Yarn Thing Podcast I have had just shy of 4 million downloads from Blog Talk Radio. Please help me get to that 4 million mark this year! This year I also
reached my 400th episode. The title of 400th episode goes to Benjamin Levisay from Stitches.

I feel so lucky to be able to bring you the show each week. I love getting to chat with my friends while brining you all of the new things in the industry. The best thing about the show for me is being able to giveaway a prize each episode. We give away a prize to the live listeners and one to someone who leaves a comment after the show.