Step right in..

The new website is now open, so come on in. Let’s take a look around..

Oops! What have you done with the menu? It’s disappeared?

Don’t worry, it’s still there – it’s in the top left corner, where everyone else keeps their menus.

Ok. Phewee. I’ve found it. But it’s only got 5 things in it!

That’s right. We made it shorter and we think sweeter, so that it’s easier to get to the stuff. We’ve tidied things up with a new ‘Tools & Kit’ section. That’s the new home for needles, stitch markers, needle gauges, pompom makers and just about everything you may need tools-and-kit-wise (see what I did there?), to get you and your yarn through your project.

You know what? I think I get it. It’s kind of smart actually. But please tell me you didn’t mess around with the yarn. That was the good bit on the old site.

Yarns are mostly like before, except we’ve made it easier to filter the long list and there’s some nice new bits to read in the stories behind the yarns.

.. and a new look shade pallette I see. I think me and this new yarn section may be about to get along really well. D’you want to leave me here for a bit and come back in a while?

You can come back here whenever you like. But I haven’t got all day, so we need to keep moving.

Ok boss. Where next?

What’s On.

I don’t know, what is on?

No, silly. We’re going to ‘What’s On‘ next. This bit is about classes and other events. Just like before, but now you can see future dates when classes will be repeated, so you get the chance to book ahead more easily.

Bingo! So now I can finally book a place on the Sweater Club before it fills up?

Exactly! January 2026 is online and available to book. Get in there!

Oh, and I’ve just spotted the Gift shop. Does that mean this is the end of the tour. Can I go back to the yarn now?

Of course not! That was just the new menu sections. We haven’t got to the juicy bit yet.

I’m not being funny or anything but I really would like to have a better look at the new Morris yarn from West Yorkshire Spinners.

Hang on, I promise it will still be there in 10 minutes. First I want to show you the new areas we created to help you find the things you didn’t know how to look for.

The things I don’t how to look for? I may not be a computer programmer but I do know how to use a search!

I know you know how to search. But what if you’ve never even knitted before and don’t know what to look for? Where do you start? Going online isn’t the same as coming into the shop and getting us to show you around what you’ll need. So we’ve made some pocket-sized guides for different sorts of knitters: The Beginner’s one has our favourite wool, needles, classes and advice for newbies. The Sock one is just about yarns that are good for heels and toes and other stuff you need to think about for sock knitting. And there’s one for Colourwork and..

This is great! I’ve just seen there’s a Sweater-for-less one too. All the budget options in one place – right?

That’s it – exactly!

Hey! I just had a thought – you could do a special one for summer knitting or gift knitting. In fact…

Easy Tiger! We definitely want to hear which other areas you’re most interested in getting turned into guides like this, but maybe email your ideas so we can keep things tidy. Also there may be some bits which aren’t totally tip-top yet. We did our best to check that everything works properly but there are some little snags that we haven’t found and fixed yet. It would be a big help, if you could let us know (nicely) if you find anything like that. We need to work on tying those bits up first.

And when that’s all done, can we have a fireworks display on Hackney Marshes to say the website is live?

Hmm, I think Guy Fawkes has the monopoly on fireworks at this time of year but we may drink a glass or 3 of something fizzy to toast the super-heroes who helped to make the new website happen: our video star knitters: Lydia, Patricia, Judith, Maya and Nia, the techies at Greennet who’ve kept the server secure and running sustainably on renewable energy since the very beginning, the site designer-developer, Jono Lewarne whose coding, good humour, patience and skill, has left us with a bullet-proof, shrinkable, expandable, filterable, collapsible, findable, searchable and just marvellously usable website, and Gregor Timlin who never ever stops thinking about how to make things better, who designed a plan, planned a design, photographed every shade of every yarn and then some, and in spite of my chaos, digressions and interruptions, managed us and the process from the very beginning to make sure that we finally got there.

Wowee, it’s really been a piece of work, hasn’t it?

It really has, but I also think it’s really worth it. I hope you do too.