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 of 6 that have come… Read more →
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 way you’d like it to… Read more →
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 for story telling and overhearing.… Read more →
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.. ——————— Knitter: Hello Aase, Thank you… Read more →
“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 on the Hebridean island of… Read more →
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 out on the hunt for… Read more →
..on a similarly sunny April morning, I pushed the shutter up and unlocked the door of 116 Lower Clapton Road and wedged the door open with the fire extinguisher. The shop was open to the public for the first time. I placed 4 glass jars in the window, and set each one next to a wooden box of balls of… Read more →
It was clear as soon as we began unpacking the Harvest Hues skeins from the latest John Arbon delivery that we were in the company of a whole load more than the 400 meters on the 100g skein band. There’s a totally unexpected toothiness to the yarn which is concealed by its lustre – a characteristic more common in drapier… Read more →
“The only mistakes we make”, we’re told, “are the ones we fail to learn from”. So what was the lesson here? A mis-stranded skein of yarn was unknowingly loaded onto the swift for ball winding. In a matter of seconds, the whole thing was a snarled up spaghetti-like mess of tangles. The customer smiled nervously about an appointment she had… Read more →
