Leanne's "Habitat" in Sweet Grass Wools Mountain Silk 2ply We recently added Sweet Grass and Wolf Creek Wools to the JBW family and couldn’t be more excited!  In fact, Leanne grabbed a sample skein and immediately knit Jared Flood’s “Habitat” out of it.  You can see it on the project log here.  Patti the owner and dyer behind all of the color magic is just as nice as can be and offered to participate in a blog interview with us!  Here is what she had to say about her company:    JBW- Would you give us a brief history of Sweet Grass and Wolf Creek Wools’ and a little info about your yarns? Patti- I bought Sweet Grass Wool around 2004 from the woman who raises the sheep. She loves the animals and never was a knitter or a dyer, and I was carrying her yarn...

The front view of our new-old little house! It’s true! Spring is here in the High Desert, and we are racing to wrap up winter knitting and crocheting projects in order to begin planning out our warm weather activities-- which in my case means gardening! I may have mentioned this back in the fall, but my husband and I bought a house last September and went to work preparing for the impending cold months.  We didn’t have a chance to put a winter garden in our hoop house before the holidays, so we just decided to wait until spring.  You can see the plastic hoop house in the background and the messy overgrown garden in the foreground. Oh garden-I have big plans for you! Now that spring is here, I am busy crafting a massive plan! Pinterest, my go-to place for inspiration, has...

Happy Friday everyone! Today I wanted to share with you a video that you might find helpful if you have joined in on the recent ruffle yarn craze.  Most Ruffle yarns work pretty much the same way and in this video, Leanne shows you how to crochet with Rozetti Tundra.  Don't let the yarn fool you though, the same technique could be applied to Trendsetter Flamenco, Cha Cha and Poppy, KFI Flounce and Flounce Metallic, Katia Triana and Triana Lux, Crystal Palace Tutu, Plymouth Joy Metallic, Rozetti Spectra, Filatura di Crosa Moda and Moda Lame, Berroco Ric Rac or Lacey...the list goes on and on!  I hope this is helpful to all of you crocheters out there wanting to jump on the funky and fun ruffle train! Hope you all have a fiber-tastic weekend and happy crocheting! Kristen PS....

addthis_pub = 'laurazander'; addthis_brand = 'Jimmy Beans Wool'; addthis_logo = 'http://www.jimmybeanswool.com/images/headerlogoSmall.gif'; addthis_options = 'favorites, digg, delicious, email, google, myspace, facebook, reddit, newsvine, live, more'; I have been with my family since March 1st as my son Chris was in the hospital (I just came back to work on the 14th). Now I know you just gasped, but rest assured that he is healing well and all is really good now! I can't thank my JBW family enough for all they have done for me, Chris and my family! They all pulled together, covered my shifts for me and encouraged me to stay with Chris and be a Mom. So that's what I did. Now, with that covered, let's move on to the title of the blog and why I grabbed my knitting when I got the call...

We recently had the opportunity to chat with Dora Ohrenstein about her stunning new book: "Custom Crochet Sweaters- Make Garments that Really Fit."  She was nice enough to write the following post and send us a copy of her new book for a giveaway!  Here is what she had to say about her book:   Dora modeling the "Shrug Hug" design I'm so excited about this opportunity to talk to Jimmy Beans blog readers about my new book, Custom Crocheted Sweaters: Make Garments That Really Fit.  While there have been a number of excellent books on this topic for knitters, I believe this is the first one offering crocheters in-depth knowledge of how sweaters are put together, and how to alter them when necessary. It may not be widely known that garment making with crochet has a long...

Amy with her Knit Collage studio managers in India Jimmy Beans Wool recently began carrying Knit Collage yarns and we couldn't be more excited! Knit Collage's spinning studio is based in Punjab, India where they sought to create job opportunities for women. Knit Collage now employs 36 women to card and spin all of their lovely and unique yarns as well as crochet tiny flowers and quality check all of the finished skeins. Knit Collage's stunning yarns are like nothing we've ever seen, and after interviewing the owner of Knit Collage, Amy Small, we now know why!  Here is what she had to say about her company, knitting, and her other passions: JBW- Can you give us a brief history of Knit Collage yarns/products? Amy at the spinning wheel!  Amy- The short story is that I started...

I know it’s been a little over a week since we returned from Stitches West, but whew it’s been busy!  I finally feel like things have calmed enough around here to catch you up on the fun time we had there.  Thanks so much to all of you who visited our Stitch Red booth at Stitches.  It was so fun to see all of your faces and meet you in person! Our main goal for this booth was to get the word out about our Stitch Red campaign and wow, did we ever!  Our booth looked as if the color red had exploded everywhere—it was so great!  We arrived and unpacked and set up our booth in now time at all, and it went surprisingly smoothly.    We were selling tons of great Stitch Red Products like the Shibui Silk Cloud, Artyarns Rhapsody Light...

addthis_pub = 'laurazander';addthis_brand = 'Jimmy Beans Wool'; addthis_logo = 'http://www.jimmybeanswool.com/images/headerlogoSmall.gif';addthis_options = 'favorites, digg, delicious, email, google, myspace, facebook, reddit, newsvine, live, more';To swatch, or to not swatch...that is the question! Well, I think Autumn, another Bean who works here, would agree that swatching is the way to go on big projects, such as sweaters and garments we want to fit us. We all seem to have an aversion to this process. I know I do! However, I am here to tell you it really is an important step!I recently got to take a workshop with Diane Soucy of Knitting Pure and Simple fame, and boy when she stressed the importance of swatching, I listened! Before the class, she had us work up a swatch in stockinette...

Hi everyone and happy Friday!  I hope you've all had a fabulous week!  We've been recovering from Stitches West, but I'll post more on that next week... I have been teaching quite a few classes lately and one question that comes up often is when you are first learning to knit, how to tell the difference between your knits and your purls.  This can be tricky at first, making it difficult to do things like a Seed Stitch pattern which I show how to do in the video.  Hopefully this helps those of you who are just starting out remember how to tell the difference between your stitches so that you don't get confused (as I did quite a bit in the beginning.) One trick with seed stitch that I don't outline in the video is if you cast on an odd number of stitches when you begin...