What does that mean?

It means that Stitch n’ Pitch will be televised, and we’ll be able to show our yarncrafting pride with the whole nation!

That’s great! Does anything change because of this announcement?

The date will stay the same (June 3rd) but the game will now begin at 8:05pm, with the Stitch n’ Pitch Marketplace running from 6:00 – 8:00 pm.

What about my tickets?

• If you already picked up your tickets, then you’re good to go! Those tickets will be valid for the new game time.
• If you picked up your tickets but would prefer to go to an afternoon game, you can trade in your ticket for admission to the game on Sunday, July 8th at 1pm ( New York Mets vs. Chicago Cubs, no Stitch N’ Pitch, just the game). Call Christina Andrews to make the exchange at 718.559.3069. This is a special offer from the Mets just for Stitch n’ Pitch fans: the Mets will honor our ticket price of $22 and seating section will be in the same section, Promenade Reserve (regular tickets for this game and section are currently selling for $40).
• If you have not already picked up your ticket and cannot attend the game, please call the Lion Brand Yarn Studio at 212.243.9070 no later than May 22nd.

Da Vinci Da Vinci is a category 6 yarn that is perfect to create colorful masterpieces with! This self-striping yarn features both sophisticated tonals and exciting multicolor shades. Light and lofty, this super-bulky wool-blend is perfect for warm winter accessories and cozy sweaters. From left to right, top to bottom: Sunset, Oceania, Onyx, Wine, Quartz, Autumn, Orchid

Discover beautiful new shades of Tweed Stripes, Casey & Jamie!

	Tweed Stripes Tweed Stripes is a category 5 chunky weight yarn that creates subtle stripes as you knit, perfect for sweaters, scarves, accessories and more. A perfect blend of fashion and function this easy care, bulky yarn stitches up in a cozy, but lightweight fabric that looks and feels great. From left to right: Popsicle, Apple Mint, Fruity
	Casey Casey is a category 3 DK weight yarn that is snuggly soft and super sweet. Its 7 speckled confetti shades include sophisticated tonals and fun brights, perfect for both classic and modern palettes. Casey is ideal for every baby project from afghans to sweaters. From left to right: Sorbet Spots, Parfait Spots
	Jamie Jamie is a category 3 DK weight modern update of our classic Jamie® yarn, and features a sophisticated sherbet color palette and a versatile DK weight. Snuggly soft and machine washable and dryable, this yarn is perfect for every baby project. From left to right: Pink Stripes, Pastel Stripes, Summer Stripes, Carribean Stripes, Mardi Gras Stripes, Blue Stripes, Twinkle Stripes

The way your project looks begins with your cast on choice and ends with your bind off.

This workshop will go over some of the coolest ways to start and finish your projects, including the tubular cast on and bind off and the amazing disappearing loop cast on (for the start of a circular piece).  We will also study how to pair cast ons with bind offs to get a perfect finished look.

A tip for estimating yarn for your long tail cast on: try wrapping your yarn around the needle 10 times, leaving a tail.  This will be the approximate amount of yarn you will need to cast on 10 stitches, double it for 20, triple for 30 etc.  Come learn other tips, like how to avoid creating a gap when binding off stitches in the middle of a row, and how to close up that big loop you get on the last stitch of your bind off.

Many of you know that in addition to all the fun events and groups the Lion Brand Yarn Studio hosts, we also run nearly 100 classes a month. We have classes every week day and night and all day on Sunday in 3 classrooms!

To view our class page, click here. To book a class online, click here. Call 212-243-9070 for more details.

Melissa Leapman is the author of several bestselling knitting and crocheting books published by Random House/Potter Craft. Her most recent titles are Color Knitting the Easy Way & Mastering Color Knitting. Her newest release is Stashbuster Knits, and her next book, Knitting the Perfect Fit, will be published in August 2012. The featured guest on numerous television shows, Melissa is the host of several Leisure Arts knitting and crocheting DVDs. Nationally, her workshops are popular with crafters of all levels.

	Flatter Yourself: Fully-Fashioned Secrets of the Pros In this fun hands-on workshop, learn how designers use fully fashioned shaping to create flattering sweaters. No matter your shape, use your knitting prowess to create knockout pieces that fit and flatter. Sunday Aug 19th 10:00 – 1:00 pm Tuition: $65
	Celtic Cables Learn how to use basic cabling techniques to create Celtic inspired panels and motifs. (Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but these gorgeous cables are much easier to knit than they look! Sunday Aug 19th 2:00 – 5:00 pm Tuition: $65

Franklin Habit (goes on sale July 1st)

Writer, illustrator, and photographer Franklin Habit is the author of It Itches: A Stash of Knitting Cartoons (Interweave Press, 2008) and proprietor of The Panopticon, one of the most popular knitting blogs on Internet.  On an average day, upwards of 2,500 readers worldwide drop in for a mix of essays, cartoons, and the continuing adventures of Dolores the Sheep. Franklin’s other publishing experience in the fiber world includes contributions to Yarn Market News, Interweave Knits, Interweave Crochet, PieceWork, Cast On: A Podcast for Knitters, Twist Collective, and a regular column on historic knitting patterns for Knitty.com. These days, Franklin knits and spins in Chicago, Illinois, sharing a small city apartment with an Ashford spinning wheel and colony of sock yarn that multiplies alarmingly whenever his back is turned.

	Garter Jacquard: Garter Stitch Gone Wild Poor, plain garter stitch. So often confined to the edge of the party, so seldom seen in anything but the same old blocks or stripes. But not today. Today, garter stitch breaks out into fully-fledged stranded color patterns, courtesy of an intriguing but little- known technique called garter jacquard. We’ll work charted garter jacquard patterns both flat and in the round, look at possible applications for it in sock knitting, and perhaps even chart our own patterns to play with.Prerequisites: Fluency in the basic techniques of knitting flat and in the round; prior knowledge of stranded color knitting may be helpful but is not essential. Friday Sept 7th 2:00 – 5:00 pm Tuition: $65
	Photographing Your Fiber Bring your own camera and a project or two, and learn the basics of lighting, depth of field, styling and common fiber- photography problems like capturing true color, capturing stitch definition and photographing lace. We will also learn how to make a light box at home, cheap! No prior knowledge of photography necessary. The emphasis will be getting the best possible shots using your camera. Sunday Sept 9th 10:00 – 1:00 pm Tuition: $65
	Lace Edgings: Before, During and After Lace edgings are among the most beautiful, varied and useful patterns in the world of knitting. Applied with care and skill, they can lift an ordinary project into the extraordinary. In this class, we’ll practice several techniques for working edgings, including knitted-on, sewn-on, and simultaneous.Prerequisites: Participants must have completed “Introduction to the History, Methods and Styles of Lace Knitting” or be comfortable with basic lace knitting techniques, including simple chart reading. Sunday Sept 9th 2:00 – 5:00 pm Tuition: $65

More Master Classes at Lion Brand Yarn Studio!

Click here to book one of our upcoming master classes!

Our Weekend with Brenda Dayne

On Thursday night we took a trip through the “Memory of Stitches”.  Together, we explored why our stitches hold our memories.  Why, when we look at a sweater we knit, can we see where we were when we knit it and who we were with? Brenda Dayne took us by the hand and led us through the story of making a memory.

For fans of Cast On (like me), it was wonderful to spend an evening listening to Brenda spin a yarn (sorry, please excuse the pun) of a memory with one particular sweater.  After hearing the tale of her project (and her ripping it out, re-knitting it, still not loving it . . .)  out came the sweater in question, and she began to rip it out again before our eyes! There were gasps throughout the crowd, to which Brenda in her signature style replied, “I don’t mean to cause you physical pain, it’s art people.”

On Friday Brenda took us on a journey exploring glove design.  After learning how to correctly measure our hands, everyone drew their own personal “hand turkey” and started gauge swatching and knitting up a storm.  Once we learned the simple math behind creating a glove, it was up to our imagination to decide on the stitch pattern and details.

Sunday brought a wonderful class on beading and making the Mrs Beeton Beaded Wrist Warmers & a thrilling workshop on the amazingly clever No Math Sherman Toe & Heel Sock!  We all learned so much about knitting this weekend, and have got the memories, gloves, socks and wristers to prove it!

Thank you Brenda, for helping us spin a memorable yarn together!

Lauren & her grandmother:

At the age of 5 I was taught to knit by my Grandma Margaret. She cast on for me, taught me the knit stitch, and I proceeded to make the world’s longest 3 stitch wide “scarf.”
When I’d made garter stitch scarves for everyone I knew, I put knitting away for a few years and then picked it up again when I moved to New York City, and found I spent the majority of my life on the subway. That’s when knitting became an all-consuming obsession that obliterated everything else in my life, and to support my yarn habit I found work in a yarn store.
When I told my Grandma that I now give knitting lessons and work at Lion Brand Yarn Studio, she said “Knitting, really? But you were so bad at it before!”
Thanks, Grandma!

Claire & her mother & sister:

I came late to the knitting game – my mom has knit all my life so whenever I wanted something I just bugged her to make it for me! It wasn’t until I came home after my first year in college and discovered that my sister had learned in my absence that I was inspired to pick up the needles. I wanted to be a part of the club too!

The memory of that afternoon, sitting outside in the deck chairs and concentrating so hard on my stitches in the bright orange yarn, is one that I will cherish for a lifetime. Knitting was suddenly something very exciting, an activity that the three of us could do together pretty much wherever we went. Even though my sister and I have now moved several states away we still keep one another up to date on our knitting through Ravelry, and our current projects are often the first topic in any phone call home. I feel very lucky to have fellow yarnaholics in the family.

Mom, thank you for teaching me how to knit.

Michelle & her best friend:

I remember wanting to learn to knit at a young age, but I didn’t know anyone who did. To me, knitting was something that you learned from another person. It never occurred to me that I could use a book or take a class (and this was long before the days of YouTube). I filled the creative gap with other things; theater, music, beading, drawing, stuff like that. Then when I was in college, pursuing my theater degree, I started noticing all the other girls knitting in the theater lobby during our breaks. There was never time to get one of them to teach me in our all-to-short down times, but I mentioned to my roommate that I wanted to learn. As it turned out, she’d learned from her grandmother. I immediately commandeered her into teaching me the basics.

She’s now my roommate again (and best friend), and since then I’ve far surpassed her in knitting skills (having become slightly obsessed with it in the years since college). But I’ll always be grateful to her for opening the door to what has become a passion, recreation, and now a career. Thanks Gin!

Grace & her little cousin:

One year when I was home visiting my family for the holidays my little cousin Erin told me that she had learned how to knit and that she could teach me. I thought it sounded like fun so we grabbed some yarn and some HUGE needles and she taught me how to cast on and knit. When I got back to New York I got some smaller needles and one of my friends was able to teach me some more.

Here’s a picture of the first knitting lesson, Erin was 9 and I was 22. You can tell from this picture, we both took the lesson very seriously!

Kelly Fleek’s Fiber Art

Kelly Fleek is an accomplished creator of sculpture, painting, textiles, installation projects and music. Her work is the sum of a love affair with the commonality in the smallest and largest elements of life.

The selection currently on display in the Studio is from the series ‘Nature Drag’ and embodies wearing nature and being a part of nature. These pieces reflect Fleek’s interpretation of the natural forms that lie within us and surround us. Her work is designed to activate our minds and remind us of the deep, abiding connection all people share with their surroundings. Kelly Fleek lives in the Pacific Northwest in a converted barn with her husband and two teenage daughters.

Click here to register for the 5 pack of Skill Builder Workshops. When you see drop down menu, select “Summer Skill Builder 5 Pack” to purchase.

Topics include everything from pattern reading, gauge, cabling without a cable needle, joining new yarn, increases & decreases and so much more! To search the various Summer Skill Builder classes available, open the Workshops tab and select “Summer Skill Builder” from the drop down menu.

You can register for a single Summer Skill Builder class here, or select the 5 classes you’ll be taking as part of your 5-pack. Just be sure to register for the 5 pack first.

On Friday the 11th and Sunday the 13th (Mother’s Day itself) we will be offering our entire stock at 15% off. Bags, supplies, tools and of course yarn are all on sale so you can treat the crafters in your life to gifts, and our doors will be open from 11:30 to 5 on Sunday so you can take the special ladies in your life on a special crafty outing.

HOW: Just say “Happy Mother’s Day” at the register and you’ll receive your 15% discount at check out!

WHEN: Friday May 11th & Sunday May 13th 11:30 – 5:00

Looking to make a day of it on Mother’s Day this year? Here’s a list of some of our favorite local brunch spots to really make the big day a special one for the women who teach us all so much.

Petite Abeille 44 W 17th St (between 5th Ave & Avenue Of The Americas)
“Belgian Waffle Perfection.” – Daily News

Spoon 17 W 20th St (between 5th Ave & Avenue Of The Americas)
Named one of the “Best of the Brunch Bunch” by amNewYork’s Lucy Blatter.

Jack Bistro 80 University Pl (between 12th St & 11th St)
Warm atmosphere & French-influenced American cuisine

Lillie’s 13 E 17th St (between 5th Ave & W Union Sq)
Gorgeous little victorian-themed brunch spot.

French Roast 78 W 11th St (between Avenue Of The Americas & 5th Ave)
Quaint and adorable brunch spot in the neighborhood.

Union Square Cafe 21 E 16th St (between W Union Sq & 5th Ave)
Chic cafe just off of Union Square with optional outdoor seating.

*Offer good 5/11/12 – 5/13/12. Good for in-store purchases only. Not valid on the web. Cannot be combined with any other sales or discounts. Cannot be applied to previous purchases. Not valid for Master Classes, Project Knitting & Crochet, Sweater School, or other discounted packages

We are hosting our first Twitter contest, and you’re invited to enter!

Twitter is a great way to share projects, ask questions and trade tips with Studio crafters across the web. We love seeing all your hard work and sharing new ideas! Following us is also the best way to get up-to-the-minute information and exclusive offers at the Studio.

To enter: All you have to do is tweet @LBYStudio an answer to the question: “What’s the best project to make in the spring?” and include the hashtag #LBYSMayContest. You must enter between 5/8 and 5/14, and we will announce the winner via Twitter on 5/15.

The prize: For the first time ever, we’re offering a class at the Studio as a prize! And since everyone loves different crafts, we’re going to let the winner choose their prize from the 3 classes below offered exclusively in-person at the Studio:

All classes/prizes are taught in-person at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio, 34 West 15th Street, New York NY 10011. All entries to the Lion Brand Yarn Studio Twitter Contest must be submitted as tweets with the hashtag #LBYSMayContest to qualify. The winner will be announced via tweet on 5/15, and the winner will receive a direct message informing them that they have won.