Yarn shop review- Yarn in Beston

It does occur to me that these reviews are not overly helpful if you don't live in the UK, but I promise there are some nice pictures in this one (prepare to drool).

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On Saturday I went to the Nottingham bead show with some of my knitting group friends. I was interesting to see all the shiny beads, but I think we came to the conclusion that beading was not really for us, better to stick with knitting. There were a couple of yarn stalls- one very high end (£12 for 50g balls), and one at the other end of the scale, with mostly acrylic. Sadly none of these grabbed me/were in my budget so I left yarn free.

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There were cupcakes though, so we each had one of those, lemon, earl grey and mint chocolate- delicious!

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On leaving the bead show we headed to Yarn in Beeston (part of Nottingham). This is a palace of squishy loveliness. This picture shows it quite well- see all those square boxes on the back wall? crammed with yarn!

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A lovely range of yarns in lots of colours and squishiness. Including quite a few of sock type yarns, I was a very happy bunny indeed! There are a few knitted samples, which helps to see what yarns will look like knitted up, but I think it was the range of yarns that impressed me most, I have only been in one other shop that offered such good choice (although that may just be that I need to go in more yarn shops!).
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Prices are about RRP, but there were a few baskets of reduced yarns at the front, so bargains can be had if there is something that grabs your fancy. They even sell a yarn that looks like fuzzy sausages- cue hysterical laughter from us and dirty looks from the other lady in the shop (a customer, not the owner).
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I would say it sits nicely in the mid range, between the two stalls that were at the bead show- nice yarns but reasonable prices. There are also some Unicorn fart (seriously fancy yarn, made from luxury fibres, very expensive, you know, as if it was spun from the fart of a unicorn) and acrylic to cover the higher and lower ends if that is your preference.
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And because I am weak and unable to stick to any form of yarn diet I bought some yarn. Two skeins of Mirasol Chirapa in purples for socks and a skein of Mirasol Miski. I blame Laura for the Miski, she went "ooooh" and put the skein in my hand. Ooooh indeed, it is 100% baby llama and so soft; and a gorgeous teal, it is destined to become a hat.
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The sock have already been cast on, which is bad as the Christmas knits are far from finished, but I couldn't resist the purpleness.

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And for added incentive to visit there is lovely deli next door (I bought some local mead) and a good fabric shop down the road.

Shop review- Hobbycraft, Nottingham

I am sure a lot of people are familiar with Hobbycraft, so this will be a short one.

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Focussing on the yarn side of things, there is a lot of yarn to choose from (One and a half aisles in fact), all the typical big brands in a wide range of colours. As you would expect there is nothing in the way of unique or special yarns (hand dyed eyc) but then that is not a suprise as it is a big chain store.

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If you are after a specific yarn to follow a pattern from one of the big brands they are quite likely to have what you are after. And it is nice to be able to squish the yarn which you can't do when you buy online.

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Prices seem to be about RRP, so they are fairly expensive. I think they sometimes do money off vouchers etc in the paper, so that would help with the price.

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On a general crafting note- wow do they have a lot of crafty stuff! It is one of those places that if you need it they most likely have it, but you will have to pay to get it (as in pay a bit extra, not that I expect to get free stuff).

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Again I was too much of a wuss to get the camera out in the shop, so here is a photo of the yarn I bought- Regia hand dye effect, I had not seen this anywhere else and had fancied trying it out so was pleased to find some

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Shop review- John Lewis, Nottingham

Obviously not the whole shop, just the knitting related section.

I enjoyed last weeks shop review so I thought I would do one for each of the places I bought yarn, and hopefully more in the future.

I have not been in many John Lewis yarn departments so I am basing this purely on the Nottingham shop, I am guessing they are fairly similar though.

They have a HUGE range of Rowan yarn, there is literally a wall of it so if you are looking for a specific Rowan yarn it is probably a good place to go. There are smaller ranges of Sirdar and Patons, maybe others but those were the ones I noticed.

Sock yarn wise its a teeny choice, a couple of colours of Regia and Wendy Happy and that's it. Also not a great choice on the super exciting yarn front (the sort that make you go squee), a small range of Mirasol is about it (that did make me go mmmm and reach for my wallet).

Lots of books and accessories (although not the 2.25mm dpns I was after) for both knitting and crochet as well as a lot of other crafty stuff like fabrics, jewellery making and some card making goodies.

Price wise I think they stick to the RRP so not really a bargain, although not a rip off either. There is also a small sale bin hiding over by the fabric cutting table, literally a couple of reduced balls of yarn in there, nothing I fancied but that is just luck of the draw. They also have bigger sales sometimes (January sales etc), I have seen much larger bins or reduced yarns, so there are bargains to be had if you catch them right.

I was not brave enough to get my camera out in the shop and take a picture of the wall of Rowan, so here is a close up of the lovely Mirasol Hancho I bought from there.