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Last year we offered a Yarn Advent calendar for the first time. Our calendar included 24 x 10g mini cakes with an optional 100g skein, choice of pattern and plenty of treats too! The photo above is of the Crochet Advent pattern for 2021 (the colours were the same for the crochet and knitting options)

This year we are adding the option of 20g mini cakes (the included pattern can be used for the 10g or 20g options – you will just make a wider wrap with 20g mini cakes). There is a choice of a knitting or crochet pattern (the colours will be the same for both options).

I haven’t decided on the exact colours yet but the dyeing style will be similar to last year’s calendar, with a mixture of variegated and semi-solid colours arranged in a fairly harmonious gradient-ish!

Here’s my finished Crochet Advent wrap from last year.

You will receive 24 individually wrapped packets. Here’s a few from last year’s calendar (wrapping may be slightly different this year)

Pre-order your 2022 Yarn Advent Calendar here!

Parcels will ship mid-November – shipping confirmation with tracking details will be sent to you so you can stalk your postie!
Please note, we are only able to ship within the U.K

Due to changes on July 1st 2021 which sees the end of the 22 euro VAT import exemption on goods sent from the U.K to the E.U, we have taken the decision to suspend shipping to all EU Countries. As there is currently no way for us to use the ‘One Stop Shop’ to collect VAT at the point of purchase (which would mean customers know up front how much they will pay in total for their parcel), this means that parcels sent using the existing method of attaching a CN22 customs declaration (which is still allowed) are very likely to result in extra handling charges.

We hope that there is a change in the near future which will enable us to collect the VAT at the point of purchase so that we can resume sending to EU Countries and we are looking at alternatives such as using Etsy for specials such as our Christmas self striping yarn.

Today we should have been packing up the van with lots of yarny goodies ready to drive up to Skipton tomorrow and set up our stand for Yarndale. Instead we have been dyeing yarn (which will hopefully be dry by Saturday so I can photograph it!) and later this evening we’ll be celebrating Andrew’s birthday with Whisky and cake 😉

Yarndale have put together a great programme of talks and other online events for this weekend so you can still take part from home.

Matt (from A Boy & Bunting) is hosting a series of interviews over the weekend – you do need to get tickets for these in advance so make sure you check them out and book up in time. You can find all the details here. All proceeds from ticket sales are going to Yarndale’s chosen charity.

There will also be demos and Instagram Live sessions with some exhibitors over the weekend.

And of course – lots of lovely exhibitors! You can find the exhibitors list here.

We will be updating our shop in time for Yarndale opening at 10am on Saturday and will be online over the weekend if you have any questions. You can find us on Instagram and Facebook, or you can contact us here.

I took this photograph last year on the Friday evening and I really wish we could all be there this weekend – we had a great time!

Our Christmas Special is in production! Much more ‘twinkly’ than it looks in the photograph, this is ‘Twinkling Lights’ 🙂 on Merino/nylon/gold sparkle and the dyeing is a joint effort too, with me in charge of the ‘twinkly lights’ stripe and Andrew taking care of the rest (he usually does alllll the dyeing!)

We will also have co-ordinating mini cakes available, in red or green (but no photos yet as Andrew has only started dyeing those today).

If you are in the U.K you can now pre-order 🙂 Sold out!

Pre-orders are now sold out! Sign up for our newsletter if you’d like to know when we have more stock available.

On Saturday 14th December we will be at Purlescence (Leckhampstead, near Newbury) for their Christmas Open Day 🙂 Come and see our self striping yarns (and a few other things!), bring your WIPs and relax for a while with a cuppa and some cake (Sarah makes AMAZING cakes!) and browse all the other lovely yarn, books and accessories in the showroom!

For more details, and how to find them, please visit their website here.

We had a great time at the Southern Wool Show last weekend. It’s a really nice venue – lots of free parking and plenty of space to move around the stands. It’s also our closest show which means we can stay at home (this also makes my dog very happy as he doesn’t have to go on holiday to the kennels!)

We launched our Christmas self-striping yarn, ‘Deck the Halls’ – which sold out very quickly (sorry! We dyed twice as much as last year’s Christmas special but it obviously wasn’t enough. It will be available in the shop soon).

I taught two Tunisian crochet beginner’s workshops which were both great fun – I really love Tunisian crochet (you can see my Amplitude shawl in the photo above)! I also launched my new ‘Do you TSS?’ pin badges.

Our ‘cake’ display – before Christmas sold out!

We are now busy dyeing up more yarn for our next show – which is Yarndale 🙂 It will be our first time there and we’re really looking forward to it. Hoping to have a special self-striping colourway for the show (more details when Andrew has decided what he’s doing), and more of our ‘Deck the Halls’! I’m also teaching at Yarndale but both my classes have been sold out for a while. If you want to know more about Tunisian crochet, pop by our stand and if we aren’t too busy, I’m happy to give a quick demo 🙂

The drive home from the show takes me over the Ridgeway – and I had to stop and admire this amazing view for a few minutes!

On Monday we had a table in the ‘Yarn Barn’ at Cogges (Witney) Craft Market & Country Fair. It was our first time taking our yarns and fibre out and about to try and sell so we didn’t really know how it would go. We arrived nice and early for setting up – the ‘Yarn Barn’ is a lovely venue and we had plenty of space. We borrowed some grid wall from a friend which was super useful and gave us somewhere to hang up our shiny new banner and our samples.

We saw some familiar faces and met lots of nice new yarn-lovers too. We were kept pretty busy until lunchtime – which was the first time I could actually see the other end of the barn since it opened!

My friend Gill brought along her stitch markers and had also made some lovely project bags.

We brought some calorie-free cakes with us 😉

Some people stayed a while with their knitting…

There were 2 other hand-dyers in the barn, Hannah (Hey Jay Yarns) – I’m a little bit in love with her amazing hair and her yarn is pretty awesome too…

and Emma (Oxonian Fibres) who was next to us and doing her first show too 🙂

Another fibre friend was also in the barn – Lyn (Wymers & Co) but I didn’t get a decent photo (sorry Lyn!) We had a great day – hope to do it again next year!

Our Etsy shop will be back online later this week, as soon as we’ve checked our stock back in.

We made a very last minute decision on Sunday (early evening!) to drive down and spend the night in the van and then spend Monday at the beach. The weather forecast looked good and we haven’t been away in the van for ages so we got our stuff together and made it to the coast by about 10pm. Monday was lovely – sunny but with a nice cooling breeze. There were a few people around but it was pretty quiet.

I love West Wittering beach – there is lots of space to park and the beach is massive and sandy. It does get extremely busy at weekends/holidays. We had a long walk down the beach and Pippin had a splash around in the sea! I couldn’t resist making up a couple more colour palettes using photos I took on the day 🙂