WEBS Acquired by LoveCrafts

Kathy and Steve Elkins announced that WEBS – America’s Yarn Store has been acquired by LoveCrafts, but nothing should change for customers.

The WEBS website will stay up, and purchases can be made through them as always. All yarn lines currently produced are expected to continue “outside the range of normal range refreshes,” Steve wrote in an FAQ on the WEBS website.

Our companies’ values align perfectly. LoveCrafts has built a community of smart, kind, and passionate makers who champion craft and the joy of making. Together, we believe we become the destination for yarn enthusiasts in America.
It’s a privilege to work with a community as loving, creative, and kind as you, and we’re excited to continue in the next chapter of our story.

WEBS was founded in 1974 by Barbara Elkins and Donna Muller as a weaving business and its first storefront opened in 1984. Kathy and Steve took over daily operations in 2002, and started their website at yarn.com in 2003.

LoveCrafts bills itself as a global community of knitters and crocheters and was originally launched as LoveKnitting in 2012. LoveCrochet launched in 2015 and the sites merged into LoveCrafts in 2019. The site sells yarn as well as knitting, crochet, sewing and embroidery patterns.

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Throughout the saga of the closing of Joann, I’ve been wondering what would happen to CreativeBug, the subscription-based online craft learning platform that Joann acquired in 2017.

Golden Peak Media has announced its acquisition of the company in a media release.

Golden Peak is “one of the largest media and education companies serving art and craft enthusiasts in the United States,” according the release, and includes in its portfolio brands like Interweave, Sew Daily, and nine print magazines including Love of Quilting and Interweave Knits. They have daily newsletters, magazines, digital patterns, on-demand classes and host live events.

David Saabye, CEO of Golden Peak, calls the purchase a “very natural fit” supporting crafters in their lifelong learning journeys.

CreativeBug general manager Liana Allday will stay on and the company will retain its headquarters in Berkeley, Calif.

Abby Glassenberg of the Craft Industry Alliance collected reactions from some CreativeBug instructors and others with a history at the company, and heard lots of optimism about the news. Ursula Morgan, who was CEO of CreativeBug when the company was acquired by Joann, said Golden Peak is a “perfect home” for CreativeBug as they’re getting an owner that “deeply understands the craft consumer.”

I, too, am relieved to see that this platform will be able to continue. I’ve been a subscriber for years and I love that it has solid instruction in a wide range of crafts (including knitting, of course!) and is always adding new content to keep the platform interesting. It’s also a great service that CreativeBug is available to many for free through their local libraries, so be sure to check on that where you live if you don’t already subscribe.

This feels like the last piece of the puzzle in the story of Joann that’s going on all year, along with the announcement that Michaels had purchased Joann’s intellectual property so its private label brands can live on, but of course I’ll keep watching to see if there’s more to come.

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