Episode 55: EYF Chatter with La Bien Aimee

Yarn in the City

If you’ve been under a rock lately or haven’t listened to our latest episodes of the podcast, EYF of course is the Edinburgh Yarn Festival, the 2017 edition of which wrapped up this past Sunday. We were there and back in a whirlwind of 4 days and have so much to tell you about, including an interview that we were lucky to have with Aimée Gille, owner of L’Oisive The and La Bien Aimée in Paris.

We’ve also got the wrap up of the Blacker PodKAL, some upcoming events to keep an eye out for, and an update on what we’ve been working on and what’s making us happy.

Blacker PodKAL wrap up

It was amazing seeing so many gorgeous handknits in person in the Blacker Yarns Podcast Lounge at EYF. The Blacker stand was pretty spectacular too! We’ve come away with samples of Blacker’s latest yarn Samite that we talked about on the last episode and we’ll be working with that and reporting back on what it’s like to work with.

Huge thanks to Sue and Sonja from Blacker for supporting the Podcast Lounge, and for putting up a prize skein of Samite for our winner of Team YITC for the Blacker PodKAL! We’re delighted to announce that HDayananda – Helen – was our winner on Ravelry and that she picked a gorgeous colour of Samite (and an accompanying skein!) to work up into a shawl. We can’t wait to see what you make Helen – maybe at this year’s Yarn Crawl?

News and Events

Don’t despair if you missed EYF, there’s plenty of woolly things coming up to tempt you…

Week of 20 March: Countess Ablaze is re-opening her studio in central Manchester. We’re getting an advance sneak peek and will report back to you with all of the Countess’ colourful news.

8 April: the new Spring into Wool show is happening in Leeds

22 - 23 April: Wonderwool Wales on April 22 and 23. Come join the London Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers who have organised a coach again this year on Sunday, 23 April 2017. Tickets will be £39 for round-trip transport and entry to the show. Tickets can be booked via Paypal, and all are welcome!

9 September: the 5th anniversary of the Great London Yarn Crawl will happen on Saturday, 9th September. Tickets will go on sale on July 1st and as in previous years all monies raised after expenses will be donated to Refuge, a UK charity that supports women and children who are victims of domestic violence.

Make Happy - #yitcmakehappy

Allison's Sooper Secret Project is SO close to being done! Her alternate project is the Koolhaas Hat by Jared Flood.

Rachel started the Because Sock Yarn scarf for Dev’s birthday

We’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the Edinburgh Yarn Festival and the glowing yarn fumes and delirium that we seem to have come away from the weekend with. If social media is any indication, there are a lot of yarn lovers and vendors still on a high from the weekend and slowly coming down to reality this week.

Things we loved about EYF:

• Meeting folks and catching up with everyone (although there are still so many we missed!)
• The ceilidh
• YARN!
• The Blacker Yarns Podcast Lounge (and huge thanks to Louise Scollay for organising it so we could be there)
• The volunteers and their smiling faces

An interview with La Bien Aimée

EYF was also a great place to see yarns and chat with vendors that we don’t get to see very often, like Aimée Gille, an American transplant to Paris who has been running Paris’ most popular yarn shop, l’Oisive Thé for the last 9 years. Two years ago Aimée and her business partner Hiroko Payne started dyeing their own line of yarns, called La Bien Aimée, which have exploded in popularity thanks to social media. We had a chance to sit down with Aimée while we were at EYF. Here’s that interview.

You can find La Bien Aimée/L'Oisive Thé on their website, on Instagram, on Twitter and on Facebook.

Wrap up

Many thanks to Aimée for joining us on the podcast and congratulations once again to Jo and Mica on a successful show.

ou can find the podcast on iTunes and Stitcher Radio and us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, in our Yarn in the City group on Ravelry, or in person on Wednesday nights at our knit night at The Goat on the Rise between 7 and 10pm. Everyone’s really friendly and we hope to see you there!

Have a great couple of weeks and we’ll chat with you soon!

Music credits (available on NoiseTrade) Ridiculously Happy (feat. Twilight Meadow) - Owl City