Anna

The shop

Daydreaming a wool shop

“My favourite public-house, the Moon Under Water, is only two minutes from a bus stop, but it is on a side-street, and drunks and rowdies never seem to find their way there, even on Saturday nights.“ In an article in the London Evening Standard on 9 February 1946, George Orwellgoes into delightful detail about a pub …

Life in the day of a wool shop

This nicheness just got nichier

There’s a draftiness to the interior of the shop which has its perks when the weather gets warmer. In the winter we layer up against the cold air which has an almost permanent residence in the lofty high cielings, but that same chill offers a welcome escape from the intensity of the summer heat which …

Knitsplaining

The long and the short of it

“It’s a bit like when you’re reading one of those Russian dynastic epics. You mustn’t put it down for too long, or you’ll lose the plot.” I looked up from the knitting I was fixing, to the knitter who’d brought it in, to see an expression of total bafflement on her face. You mean like …

Product highlights

And then 6 come at once..

We all know how it is with knitting books – you don’t always love all of the patterns enough to make it worth getting the whole book. There’s no shortage of hype and expectation. It’s getting all that to collide with what we want to make that’s the challenge. Which is why the bumper crop …

Pattern round-ups

Time for Tee(s)

It’s uncomplicated and fits everyone – the summer’s blank canvas that everything else goes with, and yes I know you can get them for a song in the shops, but if it’s made from jersey cotton fabric, that means it’s knitted so wouldn’t it be nicer to knit it yourself and make it just the …

Knitting Stories

Not a sweater. Again.

I’ve plundered the archives this week for another look at an oldie 2023 post which I think could be handy for anyone out there who’s struggling with finding a knitterly pathway through the on-coming bank holiday weekend and what is forecast to be decidedly un-knitterly weather. When is a sweater not a sweater? Perhaps when …

Knitting Stories

Overheard in the wool shop

I’ve gone out sockless with sandals 4 of the last 7 days. Summer, this is not, but it’s definitely on the way. For the shop that means there’s a gear change of sorts. Our days are less frenetic and there’s more time for shooting the breeze with the knitters who swing by, all the better …

What I'm thinking about when I'm knitting

There’s something about Aase

In a change from our usual, this week’s post is being brought to you by my recently finished jumper – The Aase Sweater by Hanne Rimmen. Unaccustomed to writing newsletters or blog posts, Aase, the Sweater tells their story here in an interview with a Wild and Woolly Knitter which took place last week.. ——————— …

Meet the maker

Custodians of the land

“The thing about a croft is that it’s a life-long tenancy. You don’t own the land. You’re just custodians of it for your lifetime… There’s a mindset where you realise that you’re part of a long tradition that started in the mid to late 1800s and you’re just continuing that legacy“. Meg Rodger’s croft is …

Pattern round-ups

Partly Cloudy

Blue skies in the shop window are one thing. Making them happen outside and up above – in April – in Clapton – is quite another. It’s that time of year where the only thing you can be sure of weather-wise, is that.. well you can’t really be sure. So Brontë and I have been …