Crafty Shakeups as Wool & the Gang, Creativebug Sold

There have been a couple of crafty news items in the past few days that I thought were worth noting for those of you who care about the crafty industry (which, if you buy yarn or knitting books or take online classes, you should care about).

Back on April 11, Jo-Ann Stores announced its acquisition of Creativebug, the online craft and DIY education site.

If you don’t know Creativebug, you should. It was founded in 2012 and now has more than 1,000 classes in all sorts of genres, from knitting and crochet to sewing and quilting, food and kids’ crafts. Some classes are all about techniques, while others walk you through a full project.

And Jo-Ann you probably already know as the nation’s largest craft retailer, with 850-plus stores in almost every state. Jo-Ann and Creativebug had already partnered on projects in the past, and Creativebug says the deal will open them to new audiences.

More specifically knitting related is the announcement that BlueGem, which owns the iconic British department store Liberty and had previously purchased French thread maker DMC, is now buying trendy knitting kit company Wool & the Gang. The company sells knitting and crochet kits, yarn and supplies.

It will be interesting to see what these changes mean for these businesses. We’ll no doubt see advertisements for Creativebug classes in Jo-Ann stores (and maybe kits of supplies to go with those classes), and the Wool & the Gang kits will probably be sold in Liberty. It’s always great to see wider audiences for crafting, so I think these announcements are good news. What do you think?

Next Pattern:

I’ve been enjoying knit amigurumi animal patterns lately (see also: this adorable knit pigeon) and of course being a knitter I love llamas.

So when I saw this little llama pattern I knew I had to share it.

The appropriately named Llama patter from Annie Ahn calls for fingering weight yarn, and it uses two colors for the body and three for the little blanket. The pompom can be made to match or in another color. All of these parts take tiny amounts of yarn so you can use whatever scraps you have left over from socks or other projects and change colors whenever you need to.

It might also be fun to use some mohair or other fuzzy or textured yarn on this one to give your llama a different look. In all the project uses between 100 and 150 yards, or 91-137 m, of yarn and the llama comes out about 10 cm/4 inches tall.

The body of the llama is worked in one piece, so this project is suited to intermediate knitters or those who have comfort working in the round and with all those little pieces.

This one is made to be small so you can carry it around with you (it would be super cute on a keychain or as a zipper pull) but I think it would be a lot of fun to knit this in larger yarn, too, to make a bigger llama. You could even make a whole family in different sizes just by using different weights of yarn and corresponding needles.

The details are so cute, from the shaggy hair to its little accessories, but you could make it plain or change it up by knitting a tiny scarf or even working a little fair isle pattern on the legs or body. So many fun possibilities!

The pattern is available on Ravelry in English and Korean.

[Photo: Annie Ahn]

Next Pattern:

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