Earlier this year, Rowan Yarns launched a new online platform, ROWAN CONNECT. Education has always been at the heart of Rowan, and ROWAN CONNECT has been built on this legacy. It is a hub for creative interaction where knitters and crocheters can come together to meet, learn and be inspired. Rowan’s Creative Learning Manager, Kerry Kimber, tells us more.

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What was the inspiration behind ROWAN CONNECT?

For many years now, the Rowan team has run workshops in various capacities, most often in Rowan Flagship stores or at other in-person events. We’re all enthusiastic knitters and crocheters each with different areas of interest and expertise, and sharing our skills is something we all enjoy. It’s such a fantastic way to connect with people. It’s that desire to inspire creativity and foster community that lies at the heart of ROWAN CONNECT.

In recent years, when meeting in-person hasn’t been easy, the Rowan Team quickly discovered that we could meet with people online very successfully. After a few months of events with both store owners and customers, we became acclimatised to this new way of interacting and our schedule of events became busier and busier! A whole new world of opportunities opened up for us and we started to see how we could connect with people from around the world, bringing a unique Rowan experience directly into their homes.

Can you tell us a bit about ROWAN CONNECT?

ROWAN CONNECT is the new home for Rowan’s friendly learning community and includes live online events and recorded on-demand tutorials and courses. Our aim is to inspire creativity and connect with our Rowan knitters and crocheters! We host lots of fantastic live events online; evenings with designers like Kaffe Fassett and ARNE+CARLOS, seasonal launches to showcase new designs and yarns, events with our Rowan Flagships, and big two-day events jam-packed with interactive workshops and presentations with Rowan designers and tutors. We hope to add an in-person element to these kinds of events in time, but for now meeting virtually is working very well. We love getting to know people who attend our events time and again, as well as welcoming in new people from all over the world.

Our short courses, knit-alongs and video tutorials are also available on ROWAN CONNECT. These are great for people who want to build their skills and be inspired at their own pace and at a time that suits them. Some of our knit-alongs have friendly and supportiveFacebook Groups that enable a sense of community.

What sort of things can knitters learn from the site?

One of the most wonderful things about knitting is that there is always so much more to learn! Whether you’re a complete beginner or have been an expert for many years, there will be something to inspire you on ROWAN CONNECT. Our live online events include workshops with expert tutors and designers who share a variety of skills and techniques, like “How to knit your first sweater” or “Essential Finishing Skills”. We have short tutorials featuring techniques like how to cast on, how to increase and decrease, and so on – really useful quick reminders. And we have on-demand courses that take you step-by-step through an entire pattern so you can start and finish a project with total confidence.

It’s more than just teaching skills though – we bring people into the world of Rowan. We want people to feel welcome and included, almost like they are part of what’s going on in the design room. We show them what it’s like behind the scenes with designers, how we make decisions about yarns and shades, what we look for in good design, and so much more.

How do people sign up?

The best thing to do is sign up for our ROWAN CONNECT newsletter so that you’re the first to know when there is a new event or course available. That way you can be sure you won’t miss anything. We also post sign-up links for events and courses on our social media, and of course you can always get more information by looking at our dedicated ROWAN CONNECT pages on our website.

What does the future hold for ROWAN CONNECT?

We have so much planned – this is just the beginning! In the short term, our Autumn Event is just around the corner this month – on 16th and 17th September – two days of workshops lead by our incredible team of Rowan designers and tutors, along with special guest tutors including Kate Atherley and Florence Spurling, and also featuring Rowan Flagships in our Flagship Friday sessions and virtual exhibitor booths.

Registration for this event is open now.

Then in October we are releasing some digital courses to accompany a collection of stunning new patterns. And we are already filling up the schedule of workshops and interviews for our Winter Event on 4th and 5th November.

Our schedule of events and courses for 2023 is being finalised now and it’s going to be such a busy year! We’re optimistic that we can start to include in-person events, combining them with our virtual events so we continue to make them accessible and inclusive.

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