Wool week

In celebration of wool week I made a little trip to my local yarn store

Baa Ram Ewe is a fantastic yarn shop, it recently won an award from Let's Knit magazine for Best Local Yarn Store and I'd say it's well deserved. They have a good stock of all sorts of yarn, they sell a lot of British brands and locally produced yarn (well we are in Yorkshire, it's not so difficult to sell yarn from local companies even if a lot of them don't actually spin the yarn here anymore!) They also sell Noro, Zauberball, Fyberspates and Natural Dye Studio yarn as well as many other things. They have a knit night every Thursday, (which I can't make it to because I do something else on a Thursday!) put on competitions, have designers visit (including Ysolda, Wooly Wormhead, Amy Butler and soon Susan Crawford), run workshops and are generally fabulous, friendly and super helpful. I love it there and feel so lucky that I've got such a great yarn shop local to me.

I made some lovely wooly purchases there today

First up some Natural Dye Studio Dazzle Sock in the colourway Sweetpea, this is gorgeously soft Blue Faced Leicester wool...yummy!

Also a more subtle but also soft and lovely ball of Wendsleydale Longwool DK weight in the colourway Fennel. This is destined to scratch the "gotta knit a hat" itch I've been feeling lately. This lovely stuff is bred, spun and dyed in Yorkshire just like me! It feels fantastic to support local companies and local crafts.

Finally not purchased at my LYS but direct from the seller on Folksy (though she does sometimes have yarn for sale at my LYS). It's 100% Merino laceweight and it might not be local yarn but it's locally dyed by Kirsty of Wharfdale Woolworks, her Folksy shop is here and is well worth checking out for the beautiful colours and gorgeously soft yarns handdyed in Yorkshire. The colourway is Aquatic and it's all shades of beautiful aqua blue, lovely.

So there you go, that's how I supported Wool Week! I hope you supported wool week in yarny ways too and hope that non-knitters may have celebrated by buying some woollen garments and keeping the British wool trade alive.