In Which Not One But Two Wool Shops Get Bigger and Better!

 

Wool shops are like buses ... well, nearly! Anyone who thinks that huge resurgence of interest in crochet and knitting is a fad need look no further than sunny Suffolk, where our interest in things woolly goes from strength to strength! This week, Lyndsey Hurrell moved her shop, Wibbling Wools, from Eastgate Street to Churchgate Street. This has more than doubled the size of her shop, as the picture below of the front window shows - it stretches quite a long way...

 

 

This is fantastic news for Bury St Edmunds knitters - she can now stock more colours and brands, developing the slightly cheaper end of the market as well as keeping stocks of the more luxurious wools.

 

There's more room to sit and browse the patterns, and plenty more wool spun in Britain - and some 'grown' in Britain, too.

 

Once the cafe here gets up and running in July, this will be an even better venue for Bury St Edmunds' knitters! 

 

Now, not content with Wibbling Wools' expansion, this evening I popped to Ipswich for the Opening Evening of Jenny Wren's Yarns. I've blogged about this shop before, when I went to interview Lois about it. She runs the business with her mother, and has been able to expand into a luxurious two-roomed new building, just over the road from their old site:

 

 

 

She too has much more yarn, as well as lovely jars of buttons. She also has some lovely vintage pieces of furniture - including a desirable red vintage sewing box which I found it hard to leave behind - from Betty Blue Hat 's vintage store, over the road.

 

Like Wibbling Wools, Jenny Wren's Yarns is stocking what looks like a great British wool brand, Diggle DK from Woolyknit.com. I had a sneaky pinch and it has a lovely, proper 'wool' texture as well as a good range of tweedy and matt colours. Unbelievably, I'd gone to both shops without a project to buy for! How did that happen?!

 

It's fantastic that two local businesses, run by businesswomen with lots of knowledge and enthusiasm for their field, are doing so well. Long may it last!

 

 

Busy, Busy: A Trip to Norwich's Newest Place to Buy Wool, Crafty Ewe

 

A trip to Norwich began with a peppermint tea in Biddy's tearoom, in the Norwich Lanes: http://www.biddystearoom.com/

 

This tea room is vintage heaven: tea sets, tea pots and cosy old furniture. Even though this was a busy, busy shopping day, the tea room was warm and quiet, and I had a great catch-up with a lovely friend there. I noticed that, had I been there on a Tuesday, I could have knitted, too! Mind you, my Inner Pedant was really tempted to add the other 't' in 'Stitch' with my lippy...but I managed to restrain myself!

 

Then, an exploratory trip to Norwich's new, independent wool shop, Crafty Ewe, which opened this summer:

 

 

Norwich is quite well served for wool already, with selections in Jarrolds and John Lewis, but despite this, Crafty Ewe really does seem to offer something different. The sales assistant told me they'd decided not to stock Debbie Bliss or Rowan, because these are well stocked elsewhere. Instead, they wanted to offer something 'a bit different.' I wondered what else there could be - but then I started rootling around the shop. For a start, they had a range of wools I'd never seen before, by Australian designer Jo Sharp: http://www.josharp.com/ These wools were lovely and luxurious - a bit like Rowan, in fact - and in gorgeous, autumnal shades. Some good patterns, too. However, I am trying to buy British wool - and when I mentioned this, the assistant showed me some *lovely* yarns by John Arbon Textiles, based in Devon: http://www.jarbon.com/ Yippee: these were *gorgeous*. Beautiful colours and a rich, true-wool texture. The shop had a very good range of tempting colours (though my photo didn't do them justice at all - so haven't included it!) and they can order in more shades. If I needed more (more!?) wool, this is exactly what I'd buy. John Arbon are responsible for the Excelana range of yarns as well as Knit By Numbers. Crafty Ewe told me that the Knit By Numbers yarns come in a skein bcause it's cheaper for the customer this way - it's cheaper not to have the yarn balled. Brilliant: making a ball from a skein takes me back to sitting with my Grandma (a great knitter) with my arms out, holding a skein of wool she had steamed loose after unpicking it from something else ... A pleasure.

 

 

Looking at this picture, there is definitely a 2012 LYS look - the white shelves, the flat patties of expensive yarn ... but, hey, it works! I really need a new project so that I can go back here and buy some lovely British wool. Now, I'm sure I've got time for a quick Ravelry pattern-search before Skyfall....

 

More Vintage Pattern Goodness!

 

Another quick installment as I have another charity shop success story! Now, I'm probably *not* going to make the 'sweaters' on the cover - but some of the ones inside are good, and could be tweaked a little to resemble some in shops at the moment. I want to develop a crochet jumper pattern so I'm hoping this book will help me out. I should be delivering snowflakes... but am just too tired! Somehow this week has been exhausting. Still, am making a stiff cup of coffee and preparing to continue knitting my sister's birthday present!

WIP Wednesday: knitting a bootee - yet again

Just a very quick post today, as I have a Work-In-Progress! I'm trying to style my own bootee pattern, as the debbie Bliss ones, though lovely, weren't for a new baby. I would like to make some smaller ones for a new baby, so I've gone for DK - and so far, so good! More tomorrow: I've been photographing the vintage patterns in my knitting leaflet and must post some of them - they're a *dream*. Hope other people's WIPs are going well!

Vintage Knitting Books - Advice from Agnes M. Miall

This book was published in the 1940s and I saw it in a second hand bookshop. I just don't need it - but the opening page was so amusing about knitting that I had to buy it:

I love the idea of "the woman who sits long hours by herself" who whiles away the time knitting... and the girl who knits on the train "from the suburbs into town" - not so far removed from my life!  The last two paragraphs remind me of Stitch n Bitch: "Tongues may wag", even if we are all knitting and crocheting in a pub rather than around the fire in Mrs Brown's sitting room! How little times have changed - though I suppose there's not much need for a "square kettle holder" these days, even if it would double up as an iron holder.