Just Back

I'm just back from Stitches and about to crawl into bed. I wanted to make a quick blog post to say a great big THANK YOU to everyone who visited our booth. It was an absolute blast seeing old friends and making lots of new ones. I'll have a complete wrap up with some pictures and such in the next day or so. I took some video which I am hoping to be able to add as well!

Thanks again to everyone for making the trip so much fun for all of us!

Kathy

But I Still Haven't Seen a Moose!

Thanks to everyone who emailed and shared in the excitement of the upcoming Harlot event. I've made the registration link live on the previous post. Just remember - if you are registering a group of folks, we need everyone's name and contact info. There are lots of details to still be coordinated and we want everyone to be kept in the loop.

In the excitement of all things Harlot, I completely forgot to post pictures from our event with Wenlan. This was one of those events that we knew would be fun and not overwhelming, but we had no idea how AWESOME it really would be. For those of you who missed it - shame on you! It was simply one of the loveliest events. Wenlan was charming and funny and entertaining and very informative about her life as a fashion designer. We learned a lot about her view of garment construction and saw how beautiful her garments are when worn. Most importantly - how beautiful they are on different body types! Here are a few pics:

The ultimate star of the day has to go to Milan:

She wouldn't pose for me, but for Jackson and Jonathan she was workin' it! Thanks to our friends at Classic Elite for making this event happen and to Wenlan for making the trip up from NYC.

That's it for events for awhile - at least in-store. Next up for us is Stitches West! The show is this weekend, February 22-24 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Show hours are 10-6 Friday & Saturday and 10-4 on Sunday. If you are already registered, there is a special shopping night on Thursday from 7-10pm. We will be in booths 701-709 and 800-809. That's 10 booths full of yarn, garments and lots of fun and inspiration. We've got 14 folks in tow with us - the biggest contigent we've ever brought west. Be sure to stop by, say "hi" and stock up on yarn at incredible savings! We're especially excited to be brining our own Valley Yarns with us again, including our brand new Colrain Laceweight. We'll have most of our garments with us as well.

Lastly, we took a quick weekend trip up to Maine with the boys. It was part business and part family escape. It's been so crazy here that we just felt like we needed to hang with the kids before taking off to California. What's wonderful about what we do is that no matter where we go, there are knitters:

This wasn't the only sighting we had, but the only one I was able to capture.

We took the kids to Delorme where we saw this:

Jonathan is a huge geography fan so he thoroughly enjoyed this visit. We also visited here:

I know it needs no further explanation.

The only disappointment of the weekend comes from Jonathan - he never did get to see a moose :)

Can't wait to see all of our West Coast customers later this week (and Teri from Hawaii - please bring warm weather Teri!).

Kathy

Make Your Plans NOW!

The Yarn Harlot
April 27th (it's a Sunday)
2pm
The Calvin Theater
Book Signing and other festivities at WEBS (probably stuff before and after the Calvin)
FREE - but we need you to register (which is now live!).

Stayed tune for LOTS more info on parking, the festivities, etc.

NOTE: IF YOU ARE REGISTERING A GROUP, WE'LL NEED EVERYONE'S NAME AND EMAIL!!!

We are so excited!!! It's going to be a blast!

Kathy

Twinkle Event Tomorrow

Hey Everyone

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow, February 9th, we are hosting fashion designer Wenlan Chia here at WEBS from 2-4:30pm. Come meet Wenlan, check out her beautiful Twinkle line of yarns, see her amazing designs AND check out her latest book, Weekend Knits, the much anticiapted follow-up to her book Big City Knits. She will be giving an informal presentation and signing her books. Wenlan is a 7th Avenue fashion designer - the opportunity to meet and discuss knitwear design and the latest fashion trends with someone like Wenlan is a rare treat!

Feel free to drop in an join us for this fun afternoon. As always, we'll have refreshments and fun giveaways!

Look forward to seeing you all tomorrow!

Kathy

Win Some and Lose Some

Well, our beloved Patriots did not come through for us. They were simply out played. Congrats to the Giants and all of their fans. There was much sadness here - Jackson went to bed in tears and Jonathan, who had fallen asleep during the game, got up on Monday morning, asked what the score was and when I told him, burst into tears, ran back to his room and flung himself on his bed and pulled the covers over his head. A hard lesson in losing was learned.

Not all is lost - hope springs eternal as they say and if not that, a mother's determination to limit crying at 6:30am on Monday morning is without bounds. For one thing, spring training is nearly upon us so the boys have come to terms with the loss and are gearing up for a great season here in Red Sox Nation.

For another, we had a great celebration at WEBS on Sunday afternoon during our "pre-game" festivities:

Many thanks to our special guest, Mary Beth Temple, author of The Secret Language of Knitters. Charming as always, Mary Beth entertained a packed house with several excerpts from her book. Rumor has it there was serious snorting of water. . . . . .

I love our Super Bowl Event - everyone just comes and spends time together, working on projects, socializing and relaxing.

I am always tickled to see the spinners join in the fun too!

We were demonstrating the Schacht Flip Loom, which is a WEBS staff fave. It is a great way to dip your toe into the weaving pool. The loom is inexpensive, compact and easy to use. It's great for using up stash yarns or venturing into some of those coned yarns we have. Tons of possibilities and if you find you love the loom but want to be able to do more, there's our Weaving I class. We'll be offering a class this summer featuring the Flip, so if you have any interest, come into the store for a test drive and certainly watch for our class brochure coming this April.

Thanks to Gail and Leslie Ann for getting this organized!

Thanks also go out to everyone who has sent along well wishes for new adventure into the world of beading! We've been working this week to get new inventory into the store and plan to open this coming Monday, Feburary 11th. We'll be at the old location until April 1st, but we encourage everyone to come on over to the store and meet the great staff!

Finally, our next big event is this Saturday, Feburary 9th. Wenlan Chia, knitwear designer and author of Weekend Knits and Big City Knits will be at the store to discuss her yarns, her designs and all things fashion. This is an incredible opportunity to spend time with a 7th Avenue fashion designer! She just had her show at Bryant Park in NYC this past weekend as part of Fashion Week and less than a week later, she'll be at WEBS! I had the chance to meet her at TNNA and Wenlan is lovely and friendly and really looking forward to spending time with us so I encourage you to make every effort to join us on Saturday. Please be sure to register here so that we have enough chairs and of course food and goodies! A special thanks to our friends at Classic Elite Yarns for making this event happen!

Kathy

No, Not Beans. . . . . .And Not In California!

For the past few months, I've been alluding to some behind-the-scenes-happenings at WEBS. I've been able to share with you some of the renovations that have been taking place. I know it's hard to appreciate the impact in a few two-dimensional pictures, but the changes are incredible. At the end of the day, I can't blame any of you for not being overly excited about new shipping areas and stockrooms and fancy order pickers and fresh paint and such. There have been some of you that have been enthused for the evolution of my office space into a more comfortable environment (read as: WARM).

Today, I hope I can generate a bit of excitement among you, get the blood flowing as they say. Steve and I are simply bursting like proud parents (no - we are not "literally" going to be proud parents to anyone that isn't already on the proverbial roster). I finally get to share with all of you another of our secret projects. This one came upon us unexpectedly but has turned into what we think is something awesome - a wonderful opportunity.

This morning, Steve and I purchased this:

Beader's Paradise is the local bead store in Northampton and it is now ours. I get goosebumps just typing those words! It's a small store that was founded by two lovely woman, Judy and Cindy seven years ago. Many of you may remember it being located on Pleasant Street, just a couple of blocks up from WEBS. They moved to Main Street and they are currently in a bit of a hidden spot on "the Button St. side of Masonic St.".

Steve and I are very, very excited. We know there is a lot of synergy between our business and beads. We also think there there is a lot of potential within the industry itself. We have a lot of work ahead of us!

How can you not be excited when you look at these:

We'll be re-opening the store within the next week or so and staying in the current location through the end of March. We'll then be relocating to Service Center Road in a space attached to Smith Glass. This means customers can easily walk between the two stores. Now we know for Beader's long-time customers another move is simply making you groan. But look at it this way - we'll be in a bigger, brighter, easier to access space with plenty of FREE parking. Plus lots of new and exciting products and classes and samples and. . . . just lots of great things. We will also be changing the name - we just think the WEBS name has too much recognition to not use it. We will be selling on-line as well, but that probably won't happen until this summer. Hours will be the same as the ones we have at the yarn store (M-Sat 10:00-5:30, Thurs 'til 8pm and closed Sundays).

If you are a beader, local or otherwise and have thoughts on things we should carry, please share your thoughts with me in the comments or privately at kathy.elkins@yarn.com.

Now I"m sure you are wondering about the bean reference in the title.

My mom will be 82 this year and her hearing is less than stellar. She refuses to do anything about it, so we just deal with it as best we can. I called her from California to catch up and realized I had not told her we were going to buy this business. She was quite tickled, which made me happy because as I've said in previous posts, she is not easily excited. A couple of days later, still in California and my sister emails me. She states she hopes there is a job opening at our new California store. I call her back and ask her what the heck she is talking about. Seems my mom told her we were "buying a bean store in California". To say my sister was bewildered would be an understatement. She had been trying to figure out why we would buy a bean store, what kinds of beans we would have, where the beans would be coming from, etc. Between the conversation with my sister and the visual of the conversation she and my mom must have had, I was laughing so hard I was crying. My sister and I will forever reference the store as "beans".

But beads are way more interesting than beans - imho :)

Kathy