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.

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.

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