Yarn | Zoë Halstead

Hello again lovely people, I told you I would be back soon!

Two posts on the same day, phew, this won’t happen very often (although I published the first post in the early hours before I went to bed so technically that was yesterday ☺).

Being an avid knitter from when I learnt at the age of 5, throughout my childhood, teens and into adulthood, I was reliant on local yarn shops for my yarn fix and pattern needs. The internet didn’t exist and what wasn’t available to buy on your local high street you either didn’t have or ever know about.

My hometown had four wool* shops all run by grumpy old ladies who did nothing to dispel the myth that knitting was a past time only for grannies and nanas. They were always reluctant to sell a single ball from a pack of yarn, kept in its bag, behind the counter and away from wandering hands. And heaven forbid if you wanted to buy a pattern but not the yarn to go with it!

I remember once enquiring about knitting display samples for one shop only to be treated with such a look of disdain that I never asked again!

It seems I am not alone in my experiences of yarn shops past as Sarah (the editor of Let’s Knit magazine) writes about similar in her blog here (she also writes about why she began the Love Your Yarn Shop campaign in the same post).

Nowadays you can buy your yarn in all sorts of places….

The supermarket…

The DIY store, Pound shops, bargain basement shops and of course the internet.

But none of them match the experience of visiting a proper bricks and mortar yarn shop.

The supermarkets, pound shops and bargain basements can’t offer you technical know how, advice on yarn quantities, substitutions and colours that suit, or even pattern support.

A printed shade card or computer screen just doesn’t cut it when you’re trying to put a colourway together or find out what the yarn feels like. Knitting is a tactile textile and your yarn choice is important!

I need to be able to squish the yarn, run it over my fingers and bundle it together with other colours and you can only do this in a yarn shop with the actual yarn.

Thankfully, yarn shops are now run by like minded individuals with a real passion for their products, their crafts and their customers.

As a designer for Let’s Knit magazine, I was asked by Sarah, the editor, if I would be an ambassador for Yarn Shop Day which is being held tomorrow Saturday 3rd May 2014. All across the country yarn shops are holding special events, competitions and parties all to celebrate yarn shops and their valuable place on our high streets. You can find a brilliant interactive map of all the shops taking part here.

I shall be visiting Crafty Sister Crafts in East Leake in the morning and then Knit Nottingham in, you guessed it, Nottingham in the afternoon as both are King Cole stockists who, as you probably already know, I also do a lot of design work for.

The other week I went along to meet both shop owners, introduce myself and talk about plans for the big day.

Crafty Sister Crafts

Tucked away behind a cafe, up a flight of stairs and along a corridor is the lovely light filled shop that is Crafty Sister Crafts where I met Rose one of the crafty pair. (I look forward to meeting her sister Jan tomorrow). We talked yarn and knitting and my boys got really bored waiting in the car outside!

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It’ll be great to meet the local knitters and try out the different yarns ☺

Knit Nottingham

I’ve been a fan of Eleanor’ blog and Facebook page for a while now and having read all about her fabulous little yarn shop, I was very keen to finally visit. Eleanor is about as far away from those grumpy old lady shopowners as you can get. Young, funny and passionate about knitting, crochet and yarn!

There has been much excitement about tomorrow, plans were hatched, the event created and posts written here and here with some very nice things about me that have had me blushing ♥

It’s going to be a great day and, of course, I’ll share pics and everything that goes on.

Happy Yarn Shop Day peeps ♥

Zoë xx

* All wool is yarn, but not all yarn is wool, in case you were wondering!

Back in February I attended the Craft Hobby & Stitch International trade show at the NEC in Birmingham. And as promised in my previous post I wanted to share some more details with you.

Stitches (as it is most commonly known) is a trade show for the art, craft, fabric, needlecraft and hobby industries. Now in it’s 39th year I have attended the show for the past 16, mainly as an exhibitor during the 10 years I worked at DMC Creative World. As well as being a demonstrator (the showcasing new products and techniques kind, not the placard waving kind!) I would look around the show to check out new trends, products and what our competitors were up to.

The DMC stand back in the day.

The giant photo of a sampler you can see here is one I designed!

Since being freelance I have continued to visit, where possible, as an opportunity to catch up with past colleagues, fellow designers, and meet the magazine editors and companies I do work for.

Over the years it has been interesting to see which particular craft, hobby or product was the most popular at the show – there was the scrapbooking/papercraft/cardmaking phase, the cross-stitch and needlework phase and the fabric phase – but I am always hopeful that it will be a knitting, crochet and yarn filled show! So when I saw this display just outside the exhibition hall, my hopes were raised even further.

Luckily I was not disappointed. There were over 20 yarn companies exhibiting, the most I’ve seen in a long while. Most of the main players from the UK were there including; James C Brett, Designer Yarns, King Cole, Rooster Yarns, Sirdar, Stylecraft, UK Alpaca, Wendy and Twilleys of Stamford. Alongside international brands including; Adriafil, Artesano, Artyarn, Bergere de France, Lion Brand and MillaMia.

Unfortunately I was unable to take photos of all the wonderful knitted garments and gorgeous yarns on these stands (exhibitors don’t take too kindly to it!). Suffice to say it was all very inspiring.

One stand where I could take photos though was DMC’s. Having long produced cotton threads for crochet they have now added a collection of knitting yarns with contemporary and stylish pattern support.

Late last year I was commissioned to design and knit the following pattern leaflets for DMC and I was interested to see how they had been received.

And to have a squish of the yarns!

(Apologies for the quality of some of these photos!)

It struck me whilst gazing at these wonderful colour palettes of yarny goodness how important it is for me to touch and stroke the yarn. It’s all about the texture, colour and smell (!) all of which are very hard to glean from a printed shade card or website. For all these reasons, and more, the Love Your Yarn Shop campaign, culminating in Yarn Shop Day on 3rd May 2014, is bang on! I’ll write more about this and my involvement in a future post.

Very positive meetings were had at Stitches, ensuring plenty of work for the next few months, and I left feeling happy and bouyant with renewed excitement for my craft. ♥

Thanks for stopping by, I really do appreciate it and I’ll see you again soon.

Zoë x

P.S. I realise that since starting this blog I haven’t exactly been prolific and those I have posted recently have all been about February! I have a couple more things to catch up on and then I promise I’ll be back in the here and now!