Despite a very major setback on my part September ended up being another month packed with yarn news which is partly why this blog post is so overdue (it’s almost the end of October, oops).
The month started with me having a nasty fall involving some very jagged tarmac on the August bank holiday Monday and with injuries to both legs I wasn’t really able to work in the dye shed for about three weeks, and even then it was really hard to do. As I write this two months later (again, oops) my injuries are healing well and I’m starting to get back to a few dogwalks now. I’ve been going to the gym though to try and keep strong whilst I wait.
This meant that yarn updates that had been in progress got really delayed as I wasn’t able to do any photography, and updates that were still being dyed had to be paused. And that meant that once I was able to be on my feet again everything happened all at once!!
Yarndale was fortunately later in the month so I was starting to be more mobile by the time that came around and we got through the show but I found it really hard. We had a wonderfully placed stand up near the top entrance but were told we must unload from the car parked in the carpark at the opposite end which meant a huge amount of walking for both of us. I must admit that in hindsight it was too soon, as I became more injured from it but didn’t really realise until the couple of days after the show. Luckily we were able to move the car to the top carpark for packing up time which was a help. The show itself was good; it’s one that we used to do but after that epic EYF of 2019 I needed a break from shows so didn’t do any more that year, then of course Covid hit. And now here we are in 2023 finally getting back to them. So it seemed like people thought we had disappeared or something which of course we haven’t! We met lots of people who were new to ECY and we had a lovely time seeing people that we already knew but hadn’t seen for a while. That is the best thing about shows I think. I do also really love seeing what everyone’s wearing! It was notable that there were a lot of Lovenote sweaters this time which reminded me that I still haven’t made one - it’s been on my list literally since it came out - why haven’t I got the hell on with it?!
Moving on, Yarndale was a real highlight of the month. It would have been anyway but with the weeks before it being so horrible it was even more so. But after Yarndale came the grand yarn update which combined about six different updates into one! There was Brimham 4ply, Brimham DK, Brimham Bio Fingering, Bowland 4ply, Bowland DK, and Pendle Aran. These are all on the website now - well remaining stock is, there's plenty though as I did loads.
Brimham 4ply and DK are our superwash extrafine merino/nylon yarns and they are super-soft and squishy but nice and strong too. They’re very versatile. We’ve actually reduced the price of them too to make them more budget-friendly. It’s a risk for us but I’ll see how it goes! Brimham Bio Fingering is slightly finer than 4ply and it’s the same merino but with biodegradable nylon. It has a bit of a high twist appearance even though it’s not a high twist yarn. We had this yarn tested quite extensively and one of the things we discovered is that it works just fine alongside 4ply yarn - you can see a slight difference in the openness of the fabric but not much. Finally Bowland 4ply and DK are both superwash British Bluefaced Leicester wool, so they are our most woolly and sheepy bases. Again the yarn is soft and strong.
So with lots of new yarn on the website perhaps it’s time to talk about patterns… First of all I released a free crochet pattern - Cloud Cowl - which is made in fluffy Lowther Lace (baby alpaca/silk). There are multiple sizes available and there are also instructions for making one using Yarnlings.
Other patterns released using ECY yarn this month are listed below - these are all available online except the last one as that's in Inside Crochet magazine.
Autumn Colors Cowl by Michael Harrigan using four colours of Carlisle Fingering:
Colorwork and Stripes Shawl by Michael Harrigan using the leftover Carlisle Fingering from the cowl:
Lesa sweater by Carol Loshonkohl using Milburn DK in Fern:
Rinlet cowlette by Liz Corke in one skein of Hayton DK:
Hydrangea Doily by Sarah Jane Hicks aka Flo & Dot which was in Inside Crochet magazine and uses Brimham 4ply mini skeins. They are shown at the bottom of this image:
There’s even more September news so I’ll try and wrap it up by talking about the Yorkshire Yarn Trail which was a collaboration between 12 Yorkshire yarn shops. There was a lovely illustrated map and a ‘passport’ that you could pick up at any of the shops and get stamped at each one; and a number of Yorkshire yarnies including yours truly hand dyed some exclusive yarns for the shops to sell. The coolest thing about it from my perspective was that when I saw a picture of the yarns together they all went together really well even though none of us had spoken to each other about what colours we were going to do! Here's mine:
That's all for September! Well, it's most of it anyway. There was more but you've read far enough at this point. Look out for October's round up blog post coming very soon!