When I started knitting again, I had been on a knitting break of about 5 years. And I was in another country. What I knew in the past was now almost irrelevant. The easy part was to (re-)learn to read knitting patterns in English. There are so many great knitting websites around here that it didn’t take long to be able to understand what k, p, skp, k2tog, etc meant. Which made the whole process of coming back into knitting world quite painless. Until I had to get some yarn.
I grew up using Phildar yarns and patterns as we had a Phildar shop as our LYS. We spent many afternoons there with my mother. I loved it!
We also received the Bergere de France yarns catalog. I had so many pullovers made of Barisienne or Ciboulette (I think, might have been another low wool content blend)! I love the catalog with the little bits of sampler yarns on the side of the page. It was great to browse and dream about future garments!
Phildar and Bergere’s yarns are not readily available in the UK. You can find Bergere in a few LYS, but God! so expensive! For me, Bergere’s yarns were the cheap yarns that my not so rich parents could afford. So it does seem wrong to spend all those hard earned (by my husband) pounds on ‘em.
So what to buy and where?
What is still something I am working on. I haven’t tried all the native brands yet. Actually, the only one I’ve really tried is Sirdar, which I love. Their Snuggly yarns are perfect for baby knits: they are the softest acrylic I’ve ever touched! I am planning in trying Rowan and Debbie Bliss at some point in the near-ish future.
Now, where, is something I worked on quite religiously over the last year or so. Here’s the list of shops I check every so often:
- Get Knitted: they sell all the Knitpro needles range and a very good assortment of yarns brands. And they are very fast.
- Pure Purl: a one-woman shop, extremely fast and with cheap as chips Malabrigo lace. And other delicious yarns such as Dream in Color (my new favourite for socks).
- Kemps: the place to go for bargains! Not everything is my type of yarns, but when it is, the prices are just to die for! Regia sock yarn for £1.20, Sirdar Luxury soft cotton for the same price, Stylecraft carousel for £0.59. Worth checking often!
- Pavi Yarns: the first shop I tried. They carry the usual British brands, but also some international brands such as Louet, Cascade and Filatura di Crosa.
- New Lanark: Now, that is a Scottish (I think) mill. They sell their own 100% organic wool in 2 weights (DK and Aran) in a boatload of colours. Not the softest, it seems (just received some, not knitted/washed yet), but at those prices, it’s going to be perfect for outerwear.
- Loop: One of the rare UK shops who have blocking wires and T-pins. And also a nice selection of yarns, notions and accessories.
I have tested all those shops, sometimes more than once and I LOVE them and would reuse them without thinking twice. I’ve got some in my bookmarks that I haven’t tried yet, but plan on doing so soon. That will be for another shopping spree post!
No wonder why my stash is expending at such a rate!…
There isn’t any LYS in this list. I’ve only tried 2 and one of them is John Lewis Oxford Street, which got a surprisingly good selection of yarns and haberdashery. The other shop I tried didn’t convince me (too snobbish) so I won’t talk about it. They did have lots of stuff, but I didn’t like the attitude / spirit: they made me feel awkward and that’s a big no-no for me. But I know LOTS of people love this place, so that’s just probably me! Better to keep it shut, then…
I’ve got some haberdashery places written down, but let’s not mix tea-towels and napkins (bad translation of a French saying, like apples and oranges English one, right?)
