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Weaving and Spinning Expert Liz Gipson

March 25, 2014 By admin 6 Comments

Today on the YarnThing Podcast with Marly Bird: weaving and spinning expert Liz Gipson!

Listen in below to hear Marly and Liz talk about Liz’s journey through the industry, weaving, spinning, video production in the yarn world and much more!

Liz learned to weave from her mother while she was teaching crafts as occupational therapy at the mental health ward of the University of Virginia Hospital. She has always loved weaving and soon became interested in sheep. In college she minored in fiber arts, ended up at Interweave (convenient as she lives in northern Colorado) and has been in the industry ever since. In addition to weaving, Liz also spins and can knit. She was one of the original people who worked on Knitting Daily TV (and was one of the first 4 co-hosts). Liz also worked at Schacht Spindle Company. Schacht produces many of the tools used to make yarn, like spindles and spinning wheels, as well as weaving equipment like looms. One of the founders, Barry Schacht, also got into making bicycle tech as well. Liz worked in the sales and marketing department and loves connecting to people.

A few years ago, Liz decided that she needed a change (her back was happy to not spend 2 hours a day in the car as well) and made a leap to self-employment. As she was well versed with video technology as well as yarn and fiber crafts, she decided to do video production for crafty people. She also started a website for selling weaving patterns called Yarnworker.com. Liz’s weaving expertise is with the ridged-heddle loom (she even wrote a book in 2008 called Weaving Made Easy: 19 Projects Using a Simple Loom, check it out) and wanted a place for designers to sell their patterns and hopefully get more people into weaving. The website is also a great resource because weaving is not jet on Ravelry yet, so it is a place for people to find inspiration as well.

Liz is also involved in Spinzilla, a spinning competition that runs during national spinning and weaving week. Teams from all over compete to see who can spin the most yardage in a week. Spinzilla sponsored by TNNA (the National Needlearts Association) and the Spinning and Weaving Group. Last year, they collectively spun over 1 million yards of yarn! (Liz also did the video for them, check it out below!)

Important links for today’s show:

Schacht Spindle Company website
Yarnworker website
Yarnworker blog
Spinzilla website (make sure to check out the video)

Popular Knitting Internet Radio with MarlyBird on BlogTalkRadio

And we won’t forget the Giveaway! Leave a comment that includes Liz’s keyword for your chance to win a full set of weaving patterns from Yarnworker.com!

Let’s give some love to our sponsors!

XRX Books, Knitter’s Magazine, STITCHES Expos
Craftsy.com/yarnthing
Indian Lake Artisans
Fiesta Yarns
Drew Emborsky
Bijou Basin Ranch
Buffalo Wool Co.
Green Mountain Spinnery
KnitCrate

Laura Nelkin

March 18, 2014 By admin 40 Comments

Today on the YarnThing Podcast with Marly Bird: knitting expert Laura Nelkin, returning designer guest!

Laura Nelkin is not a stranger to the YarnThing podcast, she was on a couple of years ago and is back today to talk about her Mystery KAL. So just to get everyone up to speed on Laura, she is an independent knitwear designer who lives in upstate New York. Laura learned to knit in 2004 when her daughter was a toddler, got obsessed with knitting and then designing her own patterns. Soon after she got a job a Schaefer Yarns as their design director and worked there for 5 years. She has published lots of patterns and several books so check them out on her website an Ravelry. She is also an instructor at workshops and shows around the country and on Craftsy.com.

One of the big things that Laura is known for are her Mystery Knit-a-Longs, which is what she talked about today. She runs several of them per year and they are usually one of three things: a cowl, shawl, or wrap (basically accessories). Her newest way of doing the KALs is her M Club, the Mystery KAL club. With this club, you sign up at the end of the year for the next year’s KALs and then throughout the year you get a kit for the KAL, which includes the yarn and other necessary items(an example of the latest one is below) , and the instructions come on a schedule. No worries if you missed out for this year, you can still by the patterns and participate in the KALs (and you might even be able to get kits for past KALs as well). The next KAL coming out is the Magnify pattern and incorporates one of Laura’s favorite things, beads! Listen in below to hear Marly and Laura talk all about the KALs, Laura’s design process and more!

Important links from today’s show:

Laura’s website, Nelkin Designs
Laura’s Ravelry designer page
Laura’s classes on Lace from the Inside Out and Knitting with Beads
Laura’s Etsy shop page
Laura’s Facebook page
Laura’s Twitter

Online Knitting Radio at Blog Talk Radio with MarlyBird on BlogTalkRadio

And we definitly won’t forget the Giveaway for this show! Leave a comment below with Laura’s keyword for your chance to win free entry into her newest Craftsy class due to come out in early April!

Let’s give some love to our sponsors!
XRX Books, Knitter’s Magazine, STITCHES Expos
Craftsy.com/yarnthing
Indian Lake Artisans
Fiesta Yarns
Drew Emborsky
Bijou Basin Ranch
Buffalo Wool Co.
Green Mountain Spinnery
KnitCrate

Webs America’s Yarn Store owners: Kathy and Steve Elkins

March 13, 2014 By admin 48 Comments

Today on the YarnThing Podcast with Marly Bird: the owners of Webs America’s Yarn Store, Kathy and Steve Elkins!

Kathy learned to crochet, along with several other crafts, when she was small from one of her neighbors, an older German lady. She tried to learned to knit around the same time, but it just didn’t really click until much later in life. Kathy can knit, but as she said, most of her staff could knit her into a corner and she might not be able to frog herself out ;). Steve doesn’t knit or crochet but he can weave. His parents founded Webs originally as a weaving store so knitting and crochet were not a large part of their business. Kathy and Steve met when they were both sales analysts for a Budweiser distributor. While they had a bit of friction at the beginning, they eventually found themselves in love. After moving around several companies in the New England area, Steve was going to be moved again but not to anyplace that really appealed to both of them. Steve’s parents were ready to move on from the store and asked them one last time if they would like to take over for them. After talking it over, Kathy and Steve decided to do it.

A few particulars about the business. Webs was founded in 1974 by Steve’s mother Barbara Elkins and her business partner, Donna Muller. Originally based out of their basement, they moved to a store front several years later and Donna sold her share to Barbara. Soon after Steve’s father retired from being a professor at UMass and joined his wife in the business. After moving house several times, they ended up in their current location in Northampton Massachusetts in 1992. Steve and Kathy took over 10 years later and they are still going strong! They offer both their own line of yarns, Valley Yarns, as well as all of the big yarn lines in the knitting, crochet, and weaving industries. Their brick and mortar store in Northampton offers a LYS experience in the front, with most of the yarns they sell displayed, and they also have the warehouse area in the back where they have their inventory. One of their big draw points is their bulk discount. If you order/buy enough in yarn and books, they will automatically give a percentage discount based on your original total, 20% off if you spend at least $6o and 25% off if you spend over $120!

Hope this has piqued your interest to hear more about Webs and everything going on with Kathy and Steve. Listen in below to hear all the details about their blog, podcast and Stitches events!

Important links:

Webs America’s Yarn Store website, yarn.com
Webs podcast, Ready-Set-Knit
Webs Facebook page
Webs on Twitter
Webs Ravelry page
Webs blog page

Find Additional Knitting Podcasts with MarlyBird on BlogTalkRadio

Heather Zoppetti and Stitch Sprouts

March 4, 2014 By admin 28 Comments

Today on the YarnThing Podcast with Marly Bird: Heather Zoppetti and Stitch Sprouts!

Heather learned to knit in college when she and her roommate decided they wanted to learn a craft. Her roommate wanted to learn crochet but Heather had tried to learn already from her mother and it just hadn’t worked out. Heather decided to learn how to knit instead of crochet. They went to the craft store and bought the I Can’t Believe I’m Knitting and I Can’t Believe I’m Crocheting books by Leisure Arts. After learning how, Heather kept knitting, not letting so called difficult techniques stop her. For several years knitting was just a part of her life. She became a programmer after college and met and married her husband. One day Heather came to the realization that she enjoyed knitting and designing more than her job as a programmer. After talking with her husband, she decided to give designing as her full time job a try. As we know now, that was a great decision and she is still going strong.

Heather’s first published pattern was the Tamarix Quilt in the Fall 2010 issue of Interweave Knits. She has continued publishing with Interweave and been in Knitscene, Jane Austin Knits, Holiday Knit Gifts, and knit.wear. Heather also worked for the Alpaca Yarn Company for a while and has several designs with them and has a pattern in the book Free Spirit Shawls 20 Eclectic Knits for Every Day from Lisa Shroyer.

Heather’s newest venture is Stitch Sprouts. Part of Stitch Sprouts is a designer collective. Because there are so many things involved in publishing and distributing patterns, working together can help designers be stronger. Stitch Sprouts brings those people together and markets their patterns to yarns shops (the paper patterns you can get at a shop). Stitch Sprouts also offers a wide range of services for designers including tech editing, logo design, pattern layouts, chart making, and many more. In addition to the designer services, Stitch Sprouts also is the distributor for Crabapple Yarns and they just started offering stitch markers (both of these they distribute to yarn shops so check and see if your LYS carries them!). Later this year they will also debut their own yarn line!

You can find Heather many places on the web:

Her website Hzoppettidesigns.com, (she doesn’t update that often so check out her other sites)
Her blog, Digital Nabi
Ravelry designer page
Facebook page
Stitch Sprouts website

Current Knitting Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with MarlyBird on BlogTalkRadio

And we won’t forget the Giveaway! Leave a comment on this post that includes Heather’s keyword for your chance to win 3 free patterns from her Ravelry store!

Crochet Expert Tammy Hildebrand

February 25, 2014 By admin 13 Comments

Today on the YarnThing Podcast with Marly Bird: Crochet expert Tammy Hildebrand!

Listen in below to hear Marly and Tammy talk about how Tammy got started, her books, designs and lots of other things!

Tammy learned to crochet from one of her teachers when she (her teacher) offered to teach anyone who wanted to stay after school to learn. Tammy has kept going since and still has that first floppy purple hippy hat she made. Before she made it in the yarn industry, Tammy worked in a customs house where she met her husband, a truck driver. After moving around the country (and Canada), she became a stay-at-home mom. She got into designing when she saw an add in the paper for contract crocheting for Maggie Weldon. After several months of contract crocheting, Tammy decided she could do the designing too and went for it. Her first design was a soap holder and appeared in Crochet World. Sending in swatches and proposals left and right (quite a few for one book in particular), she made her way in to the industry and has now been published in many places including the magizines Interweave Crochet, Crochet!, Crochet World, and Crochet 1-2-3 as well as with various yarn manufacturers and distributors.

Tammy is also involved in the Crochet Guild of America. She started going to the guild conferences when she was contract crocheting and has been to every conference since. Now, she is Vice President of the Guild and previously served as the professional development chairperson and the mentor coordinator. She also participates in the mentor program herself, which matches up new designers/crocheters with an established professional.

Tammy has several published books the newest of which just came out and is called Crochet Wraps Every Which Way. The book has 18 designs that use 6 basic techniques to make wearable wraps. Some of the designs are show below and you can see the book and patterns here (Rav link). Tammy also has another book coming out this year, Crochet for Baby All Year, which has a baby outfit themed for every month of the year and they are cute! In addition to books and magazines, Tammy publishes with yarn companies like Red Heart and online with websites/companies like Knit Picks.

Important links from today’s show:

Tammy’s Facebook Page
Ravelry Designer Page
Tammy’s Blog Hot Lava Crochet
Tammy’s Healthy Begins with You Facebook page and weight loss page

More Hobbies Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with MarlyBird on BlogTalkRadio

And we can’t forget the GIVEAWAY! As always, leave a comment below with Tammy’s keyword for your chance to win!

Knit and Crochet Now! Season 5

February 6, 2014 By admin 1 Comment

Well, if you subscribe to their newsletter you already know but if not…take a look!

NEWS & VIEWS

Knit and Crochet Now!

Season 5 Premieres This Month!

The new season of Knit and Crochet Now! will begin airing on public television stations in February. Check your local listings for dates and times.

We’re excited to bring you 13 all-new episodes featuring projects that will have you reaching for your hooks and needles. Presented by host Brett Bara, along with crochet experts Ellen Gormley and Marly Bird and knitting experts Kristin Nicholas and Amy Herzog, each episode includes both knitting and crochet, as well as our Scarf of the Week segment. The projects were selected to teach you interesting techniques you can use right away.

As always, full instructions for each of the featured projects will be available on our website at KnitAndCrochetNow.com.

If you can’t find Knit and Crochet Now! in your area, there are two things you can do. First, write to your local public television station and let them know you would like to see the show. Second, watch this space. We’ll let you know when streaming video and DVDs of season 5 are available.

What’s New for Season 5?

The first thing you’ll notice is our new set. We’ve changed the color scheme and the furniture to keep things fresh.

We also have two new experts joining us for season 5.

Amy Herzog is joining us as a knitting expert. Amy is passionate about great clothes. She is the author of Knit to Flatter (STC Craft, 2013), and the creator of CustomFit, a website that produces custom sweater patterns. She teaches classes across the country and her figure-flattering designs have been published in Twist Collective, Knitscene, Interweave Knits, Knitty and more.

Marly Bird is filling in for Robin Chachula as a crochet expert this season (Robin gave birth to a healthy boy just weeks before the new season was taped). Marly is the host of the Yarn Thing Podcast With Marly Bird. Her knitting and crochet designs have been published by many yarn companies and magazines. She is the author of I Can’t Believe I’m Knitting Entrelac (Leisure Arts, 2013) and is the co-author of Knitting for Dummies 3rd edition (Wiley, 2013) and Curvy Crochet: Fashion for the Plus-Size Woman (Leisure Arts, 2010).

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