Yarn friendly knitting totes, bags, and needle cases.
Etsy Store
Work, Work, Work…
Jun 21st
It’s crunch time people.
We are in the studio fighting unbearable heat and making KNITPacks like crazy people.
My Aunt Jan has a friend who saw my mom’s KNITPACK Ultimate and she immediately wanted one. (All of Aunt Jan’s friends have great taste, what can I say?!) She also works in a yarn store in Michigan and wants the owner to see one.
Ummm, let me think, YES!
So off to JoAnn’s and then to the studio to cut and plan and sew.
I know most of you out there love a handmake product, but many time, and I am guilty of this, I forget how much effort goes into each piece.
The Ultimate reminds me of that EVERY TIME I MAKE ONE!
I love the Ultimate, but sometimes it seems never ending.
Here is the first stage, after of course cutting. This is where we decide which fabrics lay where and how to best match the canvas for the Interchangeable pocket.
Stage two is sewing all the Interchangeable pockets. I will spare you the tedium…
Here is stage three: We lay out the ribbons and decide which ones look the best.
Stage four is where we cut each ribbon for all the different pockets and fold lines.
Stage 5 is where we START sewing.
I think you are probably getting my point, but I have to say, when we are done, it is totally worth it in every way.
Check this out.
Oh, Canada…
Jun 19th
Today marks a momenteous event. Erin.Lane has had it’s first international client. A lovely lady on Etsy convo-ed me to see if we could ship internationally. I then easily found out that it was totally possible. I was thrilled I messaged her back and then promptly found out I had sold the item she wanted.
After several messages sent and received, while cleaning up the studio, I found the exact fabric already cut into the product she wanted, the KNITPack Crossover.
I informed her, mad the KNITPack, and rushed to the post office!
In no time, there it was going over land, not sea, to get to our northern neighbors in Canada.
I couldn’t think of a better way to start the summer, than shipping a KNITPack to another country.
HOORAY!
The End of Spring Break
Mar 26th
So the end of Spring Break is here, and it has been a total whirlwind.
After we finished mom’s bag, mine proved to be a little bit of a problem, to say the least. The ever-apparent problem of making the inside of the bag fit finally got the best of us and we went to work on fixing the problem. At first it did not go well.
My first bag was a disaster, and that is putting it nicely.
After that fiasco, we decided to scrap the batting idea, it is SOOO Vera Bradley anyway, and try using some stiffener we had purchased YEARS ago for our first bag which was from a pattern.
After about 20 minutes we discovered that the stiffener in the bag meant we didn’t need the canvas interior. That is easier on the sewing machine and all so that is happiness incarnate. The stiffener makes the bag fit perfectly on the inside and it is truly lovely to not have to fight with the interiors anymore.
My bag # 2 is a masterpiece.
We made bag after bag after bag and all of them turned out beautifully. We finally don’t dread a Carry All request. woejf’a;eknf’[peoiangbv;enba’;eihgba[pikebn’;ija[pienb’;knba[peinb’;eknb’[apowbhjn’piksndb.,nmb’pi
“Just Knit” Stamped on Michel Miller’s new summer fabric. I love a dot…d ;lfja;ldfkja;dlfkjsd;lakfjal;sdkfjsdlkfjdlskfjds;lkfjladskfjaldskfj;lasdkjflakdsjflaksdjfl;akdjf;lakdsjf;lakdsjf;ladskn
Let’s face it, we are all yarn snobs. I mean stashes don’t lie. You can tell what my favorite fiber is pretty quickly, and I am guessing I am not alone in that one. dfks;dkf’;lkf’;sdlkf’;dkf’a;sdlkf;aldksf’;aldkf’;aldksf’;asdlkf’;asldkf’;alsdkf’;lsdfk’;sdlkf’;sdlf’sd;l
This has to be my mom’s favorite. Everyone should love this bag, I mean hello, its red and black and white! At least that is what my mom tells me. ifd;lfj;dslfkj;asldkfja;ldksjf;ladskjf;ladskjf;lsadkjf;lsdkjf;alsdkjf;laskdjfpwoeij;lkanvb;oeilh;alkbn;leriahgrljdnba;lieha;pljbkne;poilagh
With this triumph under our belts, we were sure we could land at least one more retailer.
We sewed NON-STOP all Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Then we went to knitting. Our friends atBliss Yarns were thrilled to see us, and we had brought our ever popular drawstrings. To our delight and total astonishment, the owner bought all 22 of them we had brought.
Since we were planning on handing these to shop owners as examples of our “best selling” product, we knitted for a few minutes, and headed home to sew some more drawstrings for the next day’s adventure to Chattanooga and northern Georgia.
Friday morning we got up and hit the road. We met my friend from Chattanooga and headed to our first destination, Sew-bee-it. My friend already had an appointment with the owner about her hand dyed sock yarn, so we decided to tag along. We walked in and were SURROUNDED by the most gorgeous fabrics we had probably ever seen–3 ROOMS of FABRIC! (It was originally a quilt shop that expanded into knitting.) We had died and gone to fabric heaven. Obvioulsy the owner loved purple. We finally had found out purple hideaway, not to mention that the fabric was all organized and neatly put on shelves–this is a welcome change from the local fabric store we generally have to get our designer fabrics from. (ICK.) We started wandering around and picking fabric. Choosing was hard, and when we turned around, my friend, Dana was missing. Realizing she was with the owner, we wandered through the other 2 rooms and found her in the back room, the new Knitting section where she polietly introduced us and then showed the owner all the Erin. Lane products she had on her, which was several. Well played.
The owner, was immediately impressed and took us on a tour of the store, and asked if she gave us fabric if we could use that and then she could put it in her shop. Ummmm, YES!
She gave us yards and yards of beautiful fabrics, and placed an impromptu order. When we got in the car, we all just screamed with glee. Though we totally played it cool in the store and on the way out.
We decided to hit Dalton for lunch and had a great lunch.
Then on with the road trip.
We stopped by the Whole Nine Yarns, and unfortunately the owner was out, but her manager, was thrilled to see our bags. She told us to stop by thier booth at Stitches South in about a month and talk to the owner then.
So, all in all another win. Even if it is only a maybe.
We drove home totally stoked to have landed one retailer with the possiblity of another within a month.
Overall this was an awesome Spring Break, but I am so ready for bed, and maybe 2 days where I don’t work, since the children are waiting on the other side of the weekend. And in 10 school days, there is TCAP, our state test and all the chaos that goes with that. Ugh.
Oh, and I splurged and bought the Superhero colorway by Dream in Color for my hubby. He is my superhero, so I figure a hat would be lovely to keep his little ears warm in the winter…
The Beginning of Spring Break
Mar 21st
This weekend has been a good weekend. We have been getting tons done, and best of all, I am not exhausted. Next best of all, I am not NOT NOT going to work TOMORROW!! I am going to stay up late, watch TV with my husband, and sleep in tomorrow morning. That is what will happen, but this is what is what HAS happened.
Saturday I slept in, that was truly special, for the first time in months. I called mom, and we went shopping. I know, you are surprised that we went shopping on a Saturday. We had gotten so many special orders that we had to go buy the fabric to fill them. While we were there, we got fabric to match mom’s favorite fabric, so she could make her bag. Also, we got me a fun fabric for a bag and an Ultimate. After shopping, I came home and was able to catch up with a friend I had not been able to see or chat with in almost a month. She was able to hang out instead of work for the first time in what seems like FOREVER. Not to mention she hasn’t been able to go to knit night because she is the only one who will close with this one person. So she was able to come over and hang. We had great time.
This morning when I got up I watched TV. That was fun since I didn’t have to worry about what I had to get done, because let’s remember, I am on Spring Break. (One of the only perks of teaching public school.) I called my mom, and we started working on the bags for her and me, so we can be “up to date” with the latest design. We had to run a few errands to find the correct color ribbon, then our sewing machine decided it wanted to have issues. We got that fixed and started sewing along.
We finished mom’s bag and it is BEAUTIFUL! It screams LISA all over and back again. Then, we decided that we should start on my bag. We cut everything cut out and then had the task of figuring out what to stamp on my bag. About this time, my husband came up to find out what we were doing for dinner. We posed the question to him about what to stamp on my bag. It is a tricky thing. It needs to encapsulate everything that I am, so we had to think because it also needs to be quippy and funny, not to mention knitty. I mentioned that I thought it would be cute if we turned KNIT into an acrostic. After about 5 minutes of all three of us staring at a blank piece of canvas, my husband says, “KNIT, Knitting Needles In Transit.” We all thought that was genius.
The best part is the fact that we already have KNITPacks which are designed to transport knitting needles. We were elated. We couldn’t believe that we had not thought of it before, but to celebrate we had burgers and continued to celebrate my husband’s genius.
On another exciting note, we are working on trying to get more retailers. Since I am on Spring Break, we have decided to try to get a few retailers that are within a day’s drive and going and talking to the owners. My friend in Chattanooga knows everyone there is to know in the knitting industry, and she has given us the names of several knitting stores that she thinks would like to carry our stuff. So we are going to start calling shops on Tuesday morning.
Big things happening for Erin.Lane. Keeping checking back for pictures of us in the studio and updates on if we are heading out to spread the Erin.Lane organizational goodness to all.
Drawstring Madness
Mar 18th
Today was another big day for our little Erin.Lane. We went to our local yarn store, since it is, in fact, knit night.
However, I am getting ahead of myself.
Today is Thursday. That means for me, the school teacher, I have to get at all the assignments I have gotten graded and recorded, so I can give the students a progress report. This is not required by my principal but, it allows me to tell parents, “You should not be surprised about your student’s grade, I have sent home a progress report every week all six weeks.” Also, it shows the students what they are missing in my class. They have NO excuse to say they didn’t know they were missing something that was a grade.
Now, I had to teach all day and students graded a HUGE assignment in class so they could get their grades right away. That made me have one less thing to grade. I was thrilled. Except, (you knew that was coming didn’t you?) we had an assembly and my 3rd period class got cut 23 minutes short. That is HALF my class. Therefore, 3rd period’s assignments weren’t graded in class. UGH.
So they day ends, and I know I have my work cut out for me in order to make it to knit night to get more of our little KnitSacks to our favorite knitting friends. I have to grade a test, and the one class of that huge assignment. Then, I have to enter all 5 of those grades from the week into the computer. That doesn’t take too much, but I still have to take the time to do it.
I grade like a crazy person and the clock just keeps running away. Before I know it, I am leaving SCHOOL at 6:30. It takes 15 minutes to get home to meet mom and then another 30-45 to get to our Brentwood shop.
We get on the way finally at 6:45 and we get to the shop at 7:30. The shop closes at 8, but we promised more drawstring bags, so we had to deliver.
We did, but little did we know that we were going to be the targets.
These bags literally were in my hand when the entire knitting table of women started swarming the bags. I thought they were cute, but some of these women were actually FIGHTING over the bags. They were thrilled that the bags won’t come open, and people were making SPECIAL ORDERS! It was thrilling. The bags are a huge hit. One of the friends at the store not has three of them! She actually said, “I am so glad that these bags don’t come open. I threw the other bag away!”
Needless to say, this made our day. When the owner was able to get our of her office for a few seconds and asked me how many we had. I had no idea how many bags we had. My fabulous husband gathered them from the studio, and I didn’t count them. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. I had so many out on the table and in people’s hands I was totally lost. Luckily, my friend there had counted them and we were able to get a check.
Needless to say, we had another big night. Second week in a row the bags were a total success. The knitters love them and they are dieing to get more of them. If you knit and need a bag, let me tell you, these are HIGHLY recommended by all of the knitters at our local yarn shop.
Plus, they are on sale in our Etsy store. Swing by and find out how fabulous they are for yourself. Join the Erin.Lane fab train!
Spring into Savings…
Mar 17th
In the spirit of the budding of new green things in the world, we have been busy in the studio and working hard to make sure that the world of fiber enthusiasts is organized and happily knitting along. Also, in the spirit of spring cleaning, we have decided to have a MAJOR sale. Everything in the store is 20% off. All items have the regular price listed so you can see all that you are saving.
In order to get ready for this sale frenzy, mom and I worked tirelessly to get lots of our new KnitSacks up 
and ready for the feeding frenzy. When we went to our local yarn shop last Thursday, they were a huge hit. The major selling point, that these bags don’t come open. And trust me we have tested it. I put 5 sock needles and a ball of yarn in one, handed it to my husband and told him to make it come open without pulling the drawstring.
30 minutes later he handed me the bag, panting, and gave up! That is total success. At the yarn store the owner brought all 9 bags and sold 6 in about 2 and a half hours. That made us feel like we had definitely hit a home run.
All the while with the sale and all the mayhem at school, there is Stitches South 2010. Since I am just a lowly English teacher, I didn’t think that I would have the means to get to the fiber festival. However, due to two of the best friends a girl could have, and the world’s best husband, I have a “Stitches Stash.” My husband has committed to working hard to make sure that I can have some money to spend at the event. Isn’t he great? In order to help, my husband went around the house and collected all the change we had be hording for 5 years and decided that the thing we had been saving for is Stitches. Not only that, but he has also decided that my “stash” gets 10 dollars from every sale we make on the Etsy store.
So friends, help me make it to stitches, and enjoy the savings at the same time. Think of it this way, we can “save” together!
A Challenged Proposed and Defeated
Mar 8th
We have finished the Ulitmate. The only KnitPack you will ever need. Having done a little market research, thanks to the friends at Bliss Yarns who are always willing to give a helpful opinion, and my dear friend in Chattanooga who was willing to see what others (her knitting groups, yes plural) had to say, we have learned a lot about the Ultimate and fret not we are listening. That being said you would probably be pleased to know that since March is National Craft Month, we are going to be having a sale in the Etsy store. However, that is another blogpost for another time….check back soon.
While at the fabulous Bliss Yarns, we were asked, nay, challenged to compete with a big wig in the knitting organization industry. I won’t mention any names, but this company, in my opinion is our only competion, and we have her beat HANDS DOWN! We have listened to what others have to say about the problems in those products and have fixed them. But I digress,
The challenge, create a bag that is ideal for small project storage and organization, say for a pair of socks. The catch was that, get this it wasn’t lined. There were raw edges everywhere. For those of you out there who don’t sew, you need to know that that is not ideal by any stretch of the imagination. I start thinking and talking to mom and low and behold we decide that raw edges are just so NOT erin.lane.
After a Sunday, by the way, coupon commotion is going on pretty much all month at JoAnn’s, spent shopping at our favorite craft store, see previous, we have to track down an essential to our sewing party. For this item, we have to drive into Franklin from Murfreesboro which takes at least 30 minutes. We start talking about the possibilities about how to make said Challenge Bag. We are sure we have it down, we know the dimensions, and we are thrilled to get home and get started.
When we arrive home, we make dinner, and get started. It was a little slow going, but we did come up with something totally and completely GENIUS! Our new little drawstring project bag solves all the problems generally “dealt with” from other project bags. Not to mention it is totally and completely ADORABLE!
This is the answer to the challenge. It is a roomy 12 inches X 12 inches. It is perfect for shawls or socks, or hats. Things you wouldn’t want to get picked or tossed about. However, the best part is that this bag is completely lined in 100% unbleached cotton fabric. It is neat and tidy inside to make sure that your yarn or project doesn’t pick up any extra threads from fraying raw edges. It also means that you can wash this bag if need be, other bags, where you see the raw edges, I would be careful as the agitation of your washing machine could make it fray. Icky.
Also, as with all erin.lane products, because we are knitters we think like knitters. I can say with a good deal of certitude that I would not want my sock needle to poke through a drawstring bag possibly pushing my patterned sock off the needles and throwing off my row count and making my life a living nightmare. Because of this, we actually tested to see if you can push a sock needle though out bag as apposed to the people we were challenged to “give a run for her money.” It is extremely hard to poke a sock needle though our bag, not so much with the unlined bag that we are challenged to create.
Also, because we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE grosgrain ribbon, we looked at the problem with the drawstring coming open.
Solution: grosgrain ribbon. We couldn’t just let the grosgrain be all black with nothing else to jazz up the fabric, so we also added the colored grosgrain ribbon on exterior. With that epiphany we wanted to sew one up immediately. I have to say, I think it was a total success. I have to say I am happy with the way it has worked out.
I think the part I like best is the fact that it is completely lined. It really helps you see your project no matter what color it is. I have to say it was definitely a success. Not to mention I think it is a way better designed bag than the competition. Also, I have to say that I would be lieing if I said I would be happy carrying the other bag as apposed to this one. It really comes down to the fact that I don’t want to make a bag or needle case that I wouldn’t carry or buy myself. 
Get a Free StashSack through March 5th
Feb 23rd
In an effort to bring you better deals, we’re giving you a free Medium StashSack when you purchase a Carry All knitting tote or any KnitPack (Original, Interchangeable, or the new Knitting Needle Organization System!) needle case from now through March 5th!
Visit the Etsy store today to take advantage of this great offer. Organize, protect, store, and carry in any combination through this limited time sale. And yes, if you purchase both a Carry All and a KnitPack you get two Medium StashSacks!