“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 →
There’s something pleasingly tidy about a kit. It’s the yarn, the pattern and a secret magic ingredient which comes by virtue of it being all boxed up, that makes the whole thing unpackable, make-able and realisable. There’s nothing vague or gently nudging about where to go with it. Neither is it in danger of being too open ended to find… Read more →
And just like that, the year picked up speed and we’ve hurtled through to the last lap. With the marvellous help of The Sunny Sign Co’s window painter, and a troupe of very well dressed knitted bunnies, our end of year window has been transformed into an underground rabbit’s burrow that is twinkling beautifully in the Lower Clapton winter gloom.… Read more →
Haven’t we been here before? You made a tin last year, I got one and I love it. In fact I think it might just be my favourite tin ever. So you don’t want to know about the new one with the new things in it? You didn’t say it was a NEW tin! Well to be fair, you didn’t… Read more →
With November’s mid-point behind us and knitters (aswell as their non-knitting friends and relations) stepping things up on the present hunting front, we’re starting the gift round-up season with our pick-of-the-best books. Original, knittable, niche, quirky and above all, readable: these are the ones that have held their own and stood apart during a particularly strong year for the knitty… Read more →
“So are we second cousins or first cousins twice removed? Or is that the same thing?” “Actually I think you might be 3rd cousins once removed.” Aunt Odile has the bunnies’ favourite family album on the kitchen table spread open on the family tree page. She painted it herself as an intricate fir tree complete with multiple branches and roots,… Read more →
Yeah right – What tin?? If I had a tin for everyone who says that it does what it says on it, I’d be a tinillionaire. There’s never a tin, and I bloomin love tins. So show me the tin! Well you did ask.. Oh my goodness me! You meant it – You’ve made a tin and it says what… Read more →
The limited shelf space that we have in the shop means that Brontë and I spend a lot of time thinking really hard about which books we’d like to keep on them. Luckily the indie knitting publishing scene, has become an ever richer seam to draw from. Meanwhile it’s no secret that with so many new titles appearing with ever… Read more →
Cost of living, cozzie-livs, feeling the pinch, straightened times.. Whatever you want to call it, there’s a lot of us feeling it right now. It can be stressful, sometimes awkward, and all the things which we know knitting should be able to relieve – but if you’re priced out of the knitting, that doesn’t work so well. There are no… Read more →
In the early days of opening the shop, when asked where exactly it was, I would commonly answer, “just the other side of Paradise”. Paradise for those who do not know, is the Halal butchers just down the road. I could equally well have said, just down from the Ethiopian church, or around the corner from the mosque at the… Read more →
