Louisa Harding visits the Loops "digs."

Sixty customers and a bunch of the Loops Troops were treated to three hours of Louisa Harding's inspiring, charming, absolutely brilliant self this past Thursday. Louisa and the fabulous rep Cherry visited our "digs" (as Louisa would say) for an informal workshop. We learned so much about how she became a designer, where she finds her inspiration and other various and sundry interesting tidbits. Here are three things I bet you didn't know about this designer with her own fabulous line:

• Her great grandmother was a court dressmaker to Queen Victoria (no, not Victoria Beckham - the REAL Queen Victoria!)
• She had a design chosen for the Rowan magazine at age 21, before she had even completed college
• She is usually knitting on a deadline (for work), but does rarely knit for pleasure. She recently made an angora hat for herself, and when she goes to walk her dog, even if she had on her pj's and wellies with her hat, she still feels FABULOUS :)

Louisa talked for a full, fascinating hour during each of 2 workshops, keeping the crowd alternately intrigued and cracking up at her British-accented anecdotes.

Then we broke out into a crowd for book signings (here she is with Jennifer H.):

Great coat, Aloah!

Billie Anne learned that endowed gals should knit to their shoulder size, not their bra size:

A great shot with Karen:

And some good Karma:

Then we got to try on the fabulous garments, and found that yes, there is a Louisa design that looks great on everyone! One particular design looked great on two someones, and I think they had to duke it out for the yarn (guess who won?):


Only kidding. There was plenty to go around for Lee Ann, Ingrid and everyone else. Kim had a hard trouble deciding - all the Louisa colors are so gorgeous!

And Stacy, as usual, was "Tempted":

As were all of the Loops Troops in attendance:

And of course, Gina and I needed a pic with the hardest-working designer in yarn (did you know she designs 60 new pieces every year? And earlier in her career, she did 120 every year! Wow!!!):

And, as if this all weren't exciting enough, we had a little visit from our local CBS affiliate, KOTV Channel 6:

In fact, Rick Wells did a fantastic feature story that aired in Friday's 6pm nnewscast...all about Louisa and knitting and Loops. Click here to link to the TV story and then click on "Loops bringing back love of knitting."

We were so thrilled! Thanks Rick and the photographer (I think it was Mike?) for a wonderful piece. Already the store has been packed with people who are just now finding us after nearly 3 years in business! We are eternally, yarn-ally grateful. And thanks so much to Louisa and Cherry for an amazing visit. (Also thanks again to Cherry for the great - fast - dinner at Polo Grill. To our vegetarian guest, sorry for my gross story about chopping up spareribs in front of my daughter ;-) And sorry to the evening group that we ran late - hopefully the wine and food kept you busy, and Louisa made up for it by talking longer! We truly hope to have the pleasure of Louisa's company again soon!

- Shelley
NEW! shop Loops' huge selection of Louisa Harding yarn at loopsknitting.com