Hi, yarny friend! Today I’m going to share photos from a trip that I took last week, which ended up being one of the most fun things I did in 2022.
I went and visited the Jimmy Beans Wool HQ in conjunction with the announcement of the Scheepjes Colour Lab CAL, and I had a wonderful time! Let me tell you all about it from start to finish. We have a lot to cover, so grab a cuppa and settle in.
Art Featured in LAX Airport
Before I jump into telling you all about the JBW HQ, there are a few amazing things that I want to share. Just like I did when I went to Yarndale with the Scheepjes Blogger Group in 2018, I just have to show you some gorgeous airport art.
I had a four-hour layover in the Los Angeles Airport, and here is some of the beautiful art you can find on display. The colors of Astronomy Lesson caught my eye completely – red, purple, orange??? IYKYK.
How neat is this piece of art by Kelly Berg? I love the zebra stripes juxtaposed with the split ground.
This mural is up on the wall and the soft tropical colors, including that bright blue on the wings, are beautiful.
If you can believe it, this next installation is made of steel ball chains painted with acrylic. All of those chains hanging together makes for a breathtaking installation!
Between walking around the airport to peep artworks, I also had a WIP that I was working on! Let me show you…
My Airport Layover WIP
I may have brought a Seaglass Blanket WIP with me to work on during down time – which I had plenty during this layover! – and I actually ended up finishing this project before I even got to Reno.
Find the Seaglass Blanket Free Crochet Pattern here! My favorite thing about this project is the sea glass coloring of the granny squares, and how it plays with the nautical ripple.
At the LAX airport, I weaved all of these ends, and I added the classic, nautical, navy and white rope-style border. For this blanket, I used Scheepjes Colour Crafter (affiliate).
Side note: I use affiliate links in this post. If you purchase through these links, I gain a small commission, which is a great way to support my work at no additional cost to you!
Working on this project made the time pass so quickly! Before I knew it, I was on the plane to Reno, Nevada.
Reno, Nevada
Reno is so much more scenic than my hometown! The views were absolutely stunning, and I didn’t get any incredible photos during my stay, but look at this view that I swiped from the Southwest travel site. While I was there, it snowed a bit, and the mountains were just barely striped with snow. It was stunning!
This is the view from a window in the little conference room in the Jimmy Beans Wool building. As you can see it was snowing, and quite picturesque with the green and red foliage.
Before the work day, we stopped at an adorable bakery, and I had a danish! The shopping center is just too pretty not to share.
Perenn Bakery: World’s Coziest Breakfast Spot
Rancharra is the absolute coziest little shopping village! It seems like a quiet escape from the bigger city, with plenty of shops and even some gorgeous apartment living.
From the Perenn website:
The Perenn Bakery was gloriously quaint, and the bakers are very talented. Just take a look at these flaky pastries. I highly recommend stopping in if you’re ever in the area!
And now for the part you’ve been waiting for: the JBW Headquarters!
Jimmy Beans Wool Headquarters
When you walk into Jimmy Beans Wool, you’ll see a greeting of “hello” made of, if I remember correctly, 14,000 buttons. Just look at those crisp lines! It’s a work of art in itself.
And behind that counter was a gentleman named Gus, and I wish I had gotten a selfie with him. He told me all about his stunning quilts, and to my delight, showed me some photos of them.
Just look at this stunner! You know I love a good color-fade.
I get the quilt bug about every three years, and have amassed a small collection of quilt supplies and fabrics over the years, but never do get the ball rolling with it.
Quite a few of Gus’s quilts have a nature theme, which I just adore. He was also quite the sweetheart, encouraged me to pick up quilting, and gave me some valuable life advice, which I will carry with me forever!
Everyone at Jimmy Beans was so kind and welcoming, and I enjoyed meeting the team!
The Scheepjes Wall
Look at this precious display of ladders and tin buckets with lovely Scheepjes yarns, and bonus, a bunting with my Colour Lab CAL advertised!
The yarns in buckets are amazing, and I love how bright these colors are that they picked to display together. If you need color inspiration, you can just walk over and get inspired!
At the moment, Jimmy Beans stocks some Scheepjes yarn lines: Whirl and Whirlette, Stone Washed and Stone Washed XL, Colour Crafter, Chunky Monkey, and Catona. I’m hoping this CAL can generate enough buzz around the Metropolis and Scrumptious yarns that they can begin to stock those lines as well!
More beautiful yarny goodness on this wall. And PS, I can’t get over the fact that my name is on the bunting!
While we had some downtime, I took a few quick picks of the JBW space. Look at this special minimalist wall; I just love it.
And you can’t miss the wee little alpaca, which are actually a measuring tape. You pull the tail and the measuring tape comes out! Then give it a squeeze, and the tape retracts, I mean how amazing is that? Apparently they sell out every run – I can see why – and you can get on the waitlist for a January drop.
Besides the Scheepjes Colour Lab CAL launch, and meeting everyone at JBW, something I was very excited about was seeing the Della Q bags and accessories. Check these babies out!
Della Q
I am obsessed with my Della Q bag – this is just a snapshot I took at my dining room table just now to show you. I love the shade of red, and you can’t beat the fact that this bag looks better and better the more you wear it in.
The one I have is the Maker’s Roll Top, but man, I had to restrain myself with the selection in this Della Q display. Aren’t the colors dreamy?
You can find the bags and totes here. The next one I have my eye on is the collection hanging on the second row. I love it in the charcoal grey!
These backpacks are stunning too though…
But let’s get to the reason I made the trip to Jimmy Beans Wool in the first place: the announcement of the Colour Lab CAL!
Scheepjes Colour Lab CAL
You have probably heard that I am the designer behind the upcoming Scheepjes CAL, either from my blog post announcement or the Scheepjes socials – and the Jimmy Beans Wool socials!
We filmed a ton of awesome content, so keep an eye on our socials for sneak peeks and reveals of the CAL. If you missed the IG Live that Laura (AKA Jimmy) and I filmed, you can catch it here! It was a blast!
If you want to check out the fabulous newsletter that Jimmy Beans publishes twice a week, you can take a look at that here. They have some incredible stories including one about attending a red carpet event and having famous TV celebs each knit a row for charity!
Here is the newsletter that they published for my CAL announcement. They do such a great job!
Buy a Colour Lab CAL Kit from Jimmy Beans Wool!
Metropolis Kit – Example blanket shown in the top square below
Details from the JBW site: “Creates a blanket approximately 63 x 56″ with 17 x 50g balls of Metropolis in 3 base colors and 1 Metropolis color pack. This yarn is made from a blend of 75% Extra Fine Merino wool and 25% Nylon. 2mm, 2.5mm and 3mm crochet hooks are required, but not included with this kit.”
Scrumptious Kit – Example blanket shown in the bottom square below
Details from the JBW site: “Creates a blanket approximately 69 x 78″ with 13 x 100g balls of Scrumptious in 3 base colors and 1 Scrumptious Colour Pack. This yarn is made from a blend of 50% Recycled Polyester (plastic bottles) and 50% Acrylic. 3mm, 3.5mm, and 4mm crochet hooks are required, but not included with this kit.”
Both kits include extra goodies that you can see in my announcement post.
A couple of stunning hanks of yarn were gifted to me by the incredible folks at Jimmy Beans. Just look at them!
Some Yarns Came Home with Me
These yarns are part of a limited release of Zodiac Sign inspired colorways, and they have a semi-solid hank and a speckled hank. I expressed how obsessed I was with the idea of zodiac sign themed yarns and how I just had to see the Capricorn colorway. Well look at this: it’s olive green!! You couldn’t imagine my reaction… And they let me go home with one of each of the two yarn types!
This is the blanket in progress that I will be folding these lovely yarns into. If you can’t tell by my work, I am constantly using the combination of olive green and spring green in my works. Just look at how much of a spark is created when warm olive meets the cool spring green.
This project uses my Geometric Lace Blanket pattern, and it’s just my ongoing piece that I fade beautiful hanks of yarn into so that I can think of the memories of when and where I got them. So lucky to be able to add these yarns to my WIP and remember my lovely visit to Reno.
Anyway, that’s the end! I cannot express enough my gratitude to Jimmy Beans Wool and Scheepjes Yarns for the opportunity to visit Reno for the first time and meet the team. I hope you all enjoyed seeing the photos, and hearing about the little moments I got to experience. I still don’t know what my favorite moment was, but I’m pretty sure it may have been the entire thing, start to finish.
Side note: So much creativity was cultivated during this trip, and I can’t wait to share more about all of it!
Stay tuned – and of course, Happy Crafting to you!
Rachele C.