The Bothered Owl Yarn Party 06-12-10

The lovely Aussie ladies who are The Bothered Owl put on a cracker of a Christmas Yarn Party in London Town this December 6th with independent purveyors of yarn and knitting accessories from across the South East of England.  Here is a round-up of my highlights from an evening of woolly heaven :-

In the tradition of a fine port wine I circulated clockwise, beginning at the Skein Queen stand, staffed by the Queen herself, Debie Orr (although she royally vanished just before I took this pic).  A self-described textile artisan, Debbie began dyeing at her Berkshire home in 2007 as a creative outlet from her mainstream job.  Her Etsy shop was so successful that she was able to take up the dye full-time and now has her own webshop: www.skeinqueenshop.co.uk specialising in luxurious cashmere blends from cobweb to aran-weight, with new hand-dyed yarns being added every fortnight.  100% Mongolian cashmere, as well as undyed silk yarn is imported from China as the base for her yarns but she also has a selection of British grown products and stocks accessories from British artisans.  An ingenious addition to her shop are ‘Squeens’, 10g sample skeins that are ideal for little areas of colour without yards of excess yarn.

Next on my tour was Luisa Petruccio who rates herself as a Drinker of Tea as much as a Dyer of Yarns.  She had a lovely selection of hand-dyed 4ply sock yarns with bumper skeins  (350m/ 100g) in bright greens/ blue semi-solids, striking red/ lilac  stripes or pale pastel shades retailing at a very reasonable £12-13.  Her yarn bases are 90% alpaca, 75% blue faced leicester or 75% superwash merino with nylon and use an acid dye.  Although she dyes in small batches to sell on Artfire, Etsy and her own blog, she is also available for custom batches on request: lotusblossomknits@googlemail.com

My first purchase was from Martina, who was celebrating the 1st birthday of her online store www.yarntoknit.co.uk.  She stocks Artesano, Lang yarns, Manos del Uruguay, Modi, Robin and Twilley’s of Stamford but what interested me more was her range of 2ply, 4ply and DK hand-dyed yarns in semi-solid, 50:50 and variegated shades.  For £9 I bought the delightfully titled Pumpkin Pie, 100g of DK Blueface Leicester in glorious autumnal shades of ochre, mustard, cinnamon, scarlet, pinks, lilac, beige, greys and browns.  It has immediately been swatched for a pair of gauntlets that I plan to knit myself (for once) as an early Christmas present.

A novel use for yarn

More sock-tastic yarn was found on the next stall, courtesy of Easy Knits and this time it sparkled!  Twinkle is a new fingering-weight yarn that blends superwash merino, nylon for strength and 5% Stellina for added ‘pop’. I ummed and aahed over Crystal Berry, Witches Brew, Spellbound Pumpkin (are we spotting a theme), and Coral Sands but eventually plumped on ordering two skeins of Arabian Dreams.  At 400m/100g it would easily make a scarf or shawl as well as socks and I’m tempted by Dutch Knitting Design’s shawl pattern Alathea.  I can’t wait for my email telling me it’s ready to pick up!

Was also tickled by the ladybird tape measure, organic merino DK yarn (at just £9/ 100g) and a super-soft alpaca/ silk blend in gun-metal which will definitely be on my list to Santa.

Half-way round and I caught up with the hostess’ with mostest on The Bothered Owl stall.  When it comes to knitting accessories and kitsch legotasticary (it’s a real word) these ladies are the business.  Clever pouches sewn by Sarah in a variety of sizes can carry sock, DK and chunky yarns, even cones, to solve all your tangle worries and a matching DPN envelope and knitting needle roll will keep all your accessories in order.  I chose Japanese style fabric No. 5 from their online stash in advance and Sarah even custom sewed the pouch for me to include pockets for both 13 and 20cm DPNs.  Once home I scoured knicker drawer, bags, envelopes and balls of yarn for all my crochet hooks and knitting needles.  For the first time in 20 years I  have ready access to  my knitting necessities finally solving the excessive purchasing of 4mm circulars as has been my want in the past.  That is until I’m tempted to buy another knitting roll (well their fabric selection is Enormous) and then it would just be scandalous to leave it empty….oh dear!

Demonstrating that moth control can also be stylish - The Bothered Owl Lavender Bag

Bringing childhood memories to a wrist near you – what inventive uses for Lego can’t Alex think of?  And as for stitch markers…….

For more fantastic goodies from The Bothered Owl team check their Folksy or Etsy shops.

I'm Smitten with my Smitten

If vibrant semi-solids are your cup of tea then the fabulous bright hand dyed yarns of Sweet Clement are a must have.  I was immediately mesmerised by the hanks of Tokyo Purple and Scarlet Smitten, a superwash merino sock yarn with 330m/ 100g and 30st/ 4 inch.  As I was unable to put either of them down (and I could see a certain devourer of red yarn approaching from the right) I had to buy both for the very reasonable sum of £24.

Pippa, the yarn-dyer extraordinaire behind Sweet Clement will be selling her yarns on Etsy, once she has settled herself and her stash in the same postcode.  In the meantime you can keep up with her adventures in dye on Twitter or Ravelry.  Helping her out on Monday night on the stall were two dynamic designers: Ruth Garcia-Alcantud, otherwise known as Rock & Purl and Anna Novitzky of Zombie Kitten Knits who had a range of patterns to purchase using Sweet Clement yarns.  A very game DH was shoeless and obediently swishing his feet on command to demonstrate a particularly interesting cabled sock pattern which had me very tempted (by the socks, ye impure of thought!).  I resisted then but am kicking myself now and have made it my early New Year’s resolution to track that pattern down and add it to my queue.

A pattern I did purchase for pennies and from which I envision hours of pleasure was p/hop’s Cranford Mitts (donated by Jane Lithgow). If you don’t know what p/hop is (then you won’t have understood my very witty segue way and will just be thinking I have a weird prose style), they are a charity knitting project that raises funds for the emergency medical aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders).  This independent humanitarian organisation provides medical aid wherever it is needed, regardless of race, religion, politics or gender and in the face of wars, natural disasters and epidemics. P/hop provides knitting patterns to download from their website and asks for a return donation depending on the hours of enjoyment you get from knitting them – genius!

By the time I made it to my final purchase the room was crowded with a natter of knitters, whipping out their WIPs over platefuls of ANZAC biccies, cheese and veggie sausage rolls.  Fyberspates has one of the largest and most versatile ranges of hand-painted yarns from 1ply, thread and cobweb lace yarns in silk, camel, cashmere and alpaca through to chunky merino/ silk blends in strong solid, semi-solid and variegated colours.  The website is intelligently laid out and with the option to browse by weight or colour, every yarn beautifully photographed with all the details a knitter wants to make an informed purchase and a great range of patterns to complement each yarn.  The only difficulty comes in choosing which colour as every shade is delicious. If you are a spinner they also stock roving and tops of Falkland’s merino, pure Mongolian cashmere, superwash merino/ nylon, two sparkly fibres and undyed superfine alpaca or silk merino blend.

On this occasion I plumped for an aubergine-brown plied aran-weight yarn of 80% superwash merino, 10% nylon & 10% cashmere (£15 for 100g/ 165m)  called Cashmere Aran and for contrast a scrummy warm-copper toned 4ply of 67% silk, 23% mohair and 10% nylon (£16 for 100g/ 350m).

Jeni Brown, the talent behind Fyberspates, and her mum were on hand to reassure that despite their growing success (Fyberspates Scrumptious range is available from more than 50 stockists across the UK, Europe and the US!) this is still very much a hands-on, hand-dyed, made in Britain business.  She was proudly displaying a pattern, finished just that day, for an aran jumper tea-cosy until  my friend Emily snaffled the only printed copy.

So well stocked and wine-warmed we braced ourselves for the icy  walk back to Old Street tube.  All I’m longing to hear now is when will the next party be please ladies?