Lindsey Martin of Erin.Lane Bags and New YARN THING Sponsor made room in her busy production time to visit the Yarn Thing Podcast with Marly Bird and share what’s new for 2015.

Lindsey and her Mom, Lisa, learned to knit with her aunt one Christmas. After losing needles and not finding needles cases ‘cute enough’, Lindsey convince Lisa to make on for her. She took it to her local knit night and everyone fell in love with it. At first they made them out of the kindness of their hearts but the demand made them realize very quickly that they had a business! In fact the knit group became market research.

In 2006, dad had to retire with disability, so Lisa and Lindsey began to work on the bags as a wholesale business. The aunt convinced them and supported their adventure to Stitches South in Atlanta to sale retail the first time. Marly was a first customer there! (I love that they had a rule that only one of them could freak out at-a-time, because that first time is a giant step.) They went to Stitches Midwest, Stitches East and then Stitches West, getting feedback from people they meet at these events and others.

Lindsey says her mom was really good at matching fabrics. They often shopped at their local big box store, but they would sometimes have to venture off the beaten path, maybe all over town, to find things that looked good together. Now, she spends a lot of time online looking at several different distributors to match fabrics.

Last year, Lindsey broadened their fabrics available by working with designers. The first was Kristin Omdahl, and they were very popular at Stitches East this past October. Working with Spoonflower, she has also created bags for Marly Bird (!), Buffalo Wool Co., Bar-maids and Knitting Rose.

Marly’s favorite bags are the Two-fer, the Sock Bag and the XL project bags. Lindsey explained how the trial and error process for these designs, and the e-tablet cases made with adjust able magnets the same as the needle cases.  Check out the Erin.Lane Bags website, follow her on Facebook and Twitter and of course Etsy

OFF TOPIC: go and vote at Craftsy for your favorite bloggers!

Nicole Snow, A Darn Good Yarn founder, made for the perfect FRIDAY guest on the Yarn Thing Podcast with Marly Bird.

Nicole shared with us that her company, begun 2008, was a way for her to get her own hands on great fibers to create with, while learning to knit! A Darn Good Yarn gathers recycled fibers and offers about 90% reclaimed through their various products. Many of the fibers are collected by about 300 families and contains silk, saving it from landfills. Thus taking care of families in India, saving waste and filing regular taxes as a business all of which contribute to global economy.

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Yarn Thing Sponsor, Buffalo Wool Co, owners Ron and Theresa Miskin were the guests today on our unique-because-it’s-MONDAY espisode of the Yarn Thing Podcast with Marly Bird. But that didn’t seem to throw them off a bit!

The Year 2014 was how for Buffalo Wool Co, they were nominated for Martha Stewart’s American Made competion. Ron says that one of the nice things about that is that Buffalo Wool Co received an invitation to be part of the next Quentin Tarantino movie (about bounty hunters in Colorado wilderness ~ sounds like they really NEEDED some bison warmth!).

They also have been welcomed to Paris Fashion. This Thursday on the runway of the MEN’S Paris Fashion week, Buffalo Wool Company is part a line of men’s sweaters for Louis Vuitton. Such exciting news! (Ron says it’s not what they imagined when they started picking up bison fluff in the pasture!) They won’t be in Paris, they will be at the National Bison Association in Denver later this week.

In fact, this spring sounds like it’s adventure packed for Betsy, their newly converted delivery van. After this week at the National Bison Association, they will be at Great American Outdoor Show, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in February. Also: they will be at Madison Knitters Guild in Madison, Wisconsin, in February. Dallas Fiber Fest or DFW in March is great fun for them. In April, they will be back in Colorado for the Interweave Yarn Fest, Stitches South in Nashville, Tennesse then back to Maryland Sheep and Wool.

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Craftsy, CEO John Levisay, was invited to join us today because they are a wonderful sponsor of the Yarn Thing podcast with Marly Bird, which also proves how smart they are with their wonderful product (interactive online classes!) but to help us spread the joy of creativity!

John declares himself a wanna-be musician, interested in cooking (the cake decorating course has been a big hit with him and his daughter, almost 7 years old!) and being with Craftsy has reminded him of learning to build models with his father as a child. He finds he’s interested in the process of starting with nothing and creating an end project to be proud of.

Craftsy began with the idea that an online class could be a little more that just a power-point learning opportunity, with high quality video and learning content, to be able to interact with instructors. It began with quilting and knitting and has expanded to cooking (including cake decorating!), photography, metal-smithing & woodworking, gardening, beadwork and other fiber arts, like weaving and spinning. [Read more…]

Kismet Andrews, of Bar-Maids today’s guest so we can introduce her NEW SPONSOR on the Yarn Thing Podcast with Marly Bird. SO exciting! She says she creates ‘remarkable eco-luscious skin-care for everyone who has Skin in the game.’

This was the profile description she sent when we were setting up her show:  Kismet Andrews is a moon-gazing, nature loving, modern day nomad in relentless pursuit of creating balance between the constant flow of creative ideas of her right brain and practical left brained matters like numbers. The love child of a stud muffin and a princess, it was her Grandmother who taught her at a young age how to stir the pot. After studying midwifery in her thirty’s, she spent many years in a conventional healthcare setting providing mediation/conflict resolution, executive support, and developing campus wide projects. She ditched all that a few years ago, returned to the garden, grabbed her bowl and spoon, and gave birth to Bar-Maids. 

Kismet says her other Grandmother, (father’s mother) taught her to knit and crochet at a young age. Her Mother’s mother always made this “goop” and was always being thanked for her wonderful product. It was a cream color and included lanolin, caster-oil, petroleum jelly… Kismet heard the stories of what grandma’s product had done and when she became older developed an appreciation for it, although some of the elements were not something she would put on her face.  [Read more…]