The Great British Yarn Crawl is back. This year it runs from Saturday 13 April to Sunday 30 June. For anyone who loves visiting a yarn shop, it couldn’t be easier to take part. A real treat and a great excuse for a yarnie road trip. You’ll be able to pick up a Yarn Crawl card from any of the participating UK Hand Knitting premium yarn shops and collect your first stamp. Then, when you visit other participating shops you’ll be able to pick up more stamps. When you have six stamps, hand in your card to the last shop to be entered in a prize draw for lots of yarnie goodies (you need to ha ..read more

Big knits are, well, big this winter. From influencers and celebrities appearing in Hope Macaulay’s giant jumpers – handmade by knitters in Northern Ireland – to the fab knitwear sported by Claudia Winkleman on The Traitors, the bigger is clearly the better. TV star Zara McDermott in a Hope Macaulay sweater and Claudia Winkleman shows her knitwear style. Luckily knitters can get ahead of the trend with their own creations and in double quick time thanks to a great range of super chunky yarns on the market right now. We’ve picked out some big knits from our members to inspire your look. Patchw ..read more

Have you been thinking “new year, new yarnie skills”? If you’ve decided that now is the time to take on a new knitting or crochet challenge, your local yarn shops might be a good place to start. Whether you are looking for a formal workshop or support as you take on the big project or the “challenging” pattern you’ve been eyeing for a while, a yarn shop might well have the answers. Plenty of yarn shops offer lessons to learn to knit or crochet, or to take your skills on through making socks, trying Fair Isle, tackling lace or cables, etc. Some classes are run by yarn shop owners or staff whil ..read more

The decorations are going up, there are Christmas songs wherever you go and we’re all writing lists. So it’s time to take a last look at your gift knitting or crochet plans and checking you are still on track. How many gifts do you still have on your list to make? How big is each gift – a sweater or a hat? If you answered 5 to question one and now note that they are all jumpers or blankets for double beds, it is possible that you have a time problem. So… How much time per week do you have to knit? How long does it take you to make (including weaving in ends, sewing up, adding buttons, e ..read more

I want to organise the odd yarn balls in my stash but not all have labels, how can I check what yarn weight they are? There are a couple of ways you can narrow down the yarn weight of a mystery ball or skein. If you have a needle guage with holes for the different needle sizes, take a small length of your yarn and fold it in half. Then see which is the smallest hole you can slide your doubled yarn through – this is the needle size for your yarn. So if it goes through 3.5mm it is probably 4-ply, 4mm DK and 4.5mm or 5mm aran. Another method is “wraps per inch” (wpi). Wrap your yarn round a need ..read more

I don’t understand charts. Where do I start? Charts are simply another way of providing knitting instructions and if they are well drawn they should to some extent be a diagram of how your knitting should look. The most straightforward charts to understand are those for colourwork. Each square on the chart represents a stitch and is in the colour of the yarn you’d use. You could think of putting your knitting needle below the chart and matching the stitches on your needle to the stitches on the chart. Right side rows are worked from right to left, this is why the right hand column is labelled ..read more

I’ve only knitted on straight needs but I’m seeing more and more patterns for circular needles. Why? And have you any tips? Historically garments have been knitted in the round all over the world but especially in Scandinavia and the Scottish Islands. It was only with the advent of modern manufacturing techniques that they have started to be knitted in pieces to be sewn together at the end of your projects, which is what we have become used to in the UK. Knitting in the round means that you don’t have any sewing up to do at the end, a real plus for lots of us, and, in most cases, you will o ..read more

When you are deciding on which increases and decreases to use, it often depends where and on what sort of project you are using them. The simplest increase is to make a stitch by putting the yarn over your needle before working your next stitch – we’ve all done it by mistake when learning. The problem is that this leaves a hole in you work so it is really only suitable when you want to make a decorative set of holes, ie when working a lace pattern. A common increase is the kfb – knitting into the front and back of a stitch. This doesn’t leave any holes but it will leave a small horizontal bar ..read more

The Great British Yarn Crawl will run from mid-April to the end of June and, for anyone who loves visiting a yarn shop, it couldn’t be easier to take part. A real treat and a great excuse for a yarnie road trip. You’ll be able to pick up a Yarn Crawl card from any of the UK Hand Knitting premium yarn shops  and collect your first stamp. Then, when you visit other participating shops you’ll be able to pick up more stamps. When you have six stamps, hand in your card to the last shop to be entered in a prize draw for lots of yarnie goodies (you need to have visited at least two di ..read more

Our current appeal for socks and other warm items to go Ukraine mentions that the socks can be made in any yarn. This is because these are socks to sleep in rather than ones that will be worn all days inside boots If you are making socks for normal wear in boots or shoes you need to choose a yarn that has been specifically spun for socks. If you look at the lovely sock yarns supplied by our members, you will see that sock yarn is mainly in the 4-ply thickness but that doesn’t mean that all 4-ply yarns are suitable for socks. West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply; James C Brett Funny Feetz; S ..read more