Tag Archives: British Wool

Yarndale 2016 and Yan Tan Tethera Yarn Club

Sylvan Tiger Yarn stall at Yarndale 2015

Sylvan Tiger Yarn stall at Yarndale 2015

Yarndale 2016

It must be nearly time for Yarndale 2016, I’m struggling to fit any more yarn in the boxes! All the yarn is dyed, there’s just a few skeins left to label, and new samples are drying as we speak.  I hope to see some of you next weekend (24-25 September), have a look at the Yarndale website for all the information you need to plan your visit.  We’re in our usual spot, number 56 on the plan.

I’ll have lots of lace and 4ply yarns in semi-solids and variegated colours.  There’ll be a big stock of the Shetland 4ply gradients, including pattern and yarn kits.  Gwen Wagner-Adair has designed a new pattern for the gradients, a hat and mitts set featuring squirrels, yes squirrels! Here’s a sneaky peek:

Hatt and Mitts 600

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gwen will be on the stall on Saturday afternoon 2-3pm for a ‘meet the designer’ session and will be happy to sign patterns and talk about her designs.

Yan Tan Tethera Yarn Club

Stained Glass

If you can’t make it to Yarndale, there’s another chance this month to get your hands on Sylvan Tiger Yarn. I’m dyeing for Baa Baa Brighouse’s Yan Tan Tethera yarn club.  Each month a different dyer creates an exclusive colourway based on an inspiration photo that Elaine chooses.  This month it’s me and I’m creating a colourway based on the photo above of stained glass.  Sign ups are open now and will close on Sunday 25 September. Be quick though, places are limited this month as it’s so close to Yarndale! You can read more about the club and sign up via the Baa Baa Brighouse website.

Hopefully see you at Yarndale next weekend, and if not the Etsy shop will be back open by the beginning of October.

Circus of Stripes!

 

Circus of Stripes are you ready to join

Preparations for Yarndale (24-25 September, Skipton) are well under way, but in the meantime, a little something new:

Rainbow star x600

The Circus of Stripes is a troupe of eight colours naturally dyed on High Twist 100% BFL sock/4ply yarn. Each skein is 50g (182m / 199yds), perfect to mix and match for striped (or colour block) projects. Stripy socks anyone?!

Each colour is named after a circus act (clockwise from orange in the photo above):

Orange – Fire Eater
Yellow – Trapeze Artist
Green – Juggler
Aqua – Tightrope Walker
Blue – Stilt Walker
Purple – Ring Master
Pinky Purple – Tumbler
Pink – Unicyclist

What combination will you choose? A Stilt Walking Ring Master, a Fire Eating Juggler, a Tumbling Stilt Walker? Have fun, play with colour, make stripes!

The Circus of Stripes will be at Yarndale in September, but if you can’t wait that long then roll up! roll up! the Circus is in town at my Etsy shop now!

I’m a big fan of stripy socks; my main aim in creating this troupe of colours was to provide a bold, bright palette from which to select exciting colour combinations for socks. For my first pair I choose Stilt Walker and Unicyclist to make a simple four-row striped stocking stitch sock.

Stripy sock in progress

I chose two colours, but you could choose three for a pattern such as Geek, a pattern originaly written for self striping yarn, but could be adapted for separate skeins.

4ply shawls are really popular at the moment, Veera Välimäki has some wonderful designs utilising stripes including the Color Affection shawl. Martina Behm, (Strickmich and designer of the Hitchhiker shawl), is another designer who makes great use of colour and stripes in her designs, mostly recently in the Shore Hap in Kate Davies’ Book of Haps.

For a rectangular scarf the recently published Paint the Town makes effective use of three different colours in stripes and blocks knitted on the bias.

Those are just a few suggestions of how to use the Circus of Stripes yarn, have a browse of the patterns on Ravelry. A pattern search of the tag ‘stripes‘ brings up 209 pages of patterns!