Shop review- Tangent Treasures

When I stop being on a yarn diet I do so in style, this is the tale of my second yarn purchase this month, with another yesterday and possibly more at the weekend. More on yesterday's purchase when the postie brings my purchases.

We took a trip to get some pizza, it is special pizza from a wonderful pub with an Italian wood fired pizza oven. The first time we went a few months ago I spotted  a yarn shop on the way and insisted we stop, but because I am disorganised I never got as far as doing a review, I did take a photo, here it is:

They have a website too with location and opening times, that can be seen here. Opening times are very useful as it meant I could plan a trip for Sunday and time it for when the shop would be open. More shops should give out useful info like that. 

The shop is in Willington, Derbyshire (the pizza is in Repton at the Bull's Head if anyone wants to know)

The shop itself is tiny, but there is a lot in there yarns as well as a wide range of other gifts (not necessarily knitting related). I made a beeline for the sock yarn which has its own shelf but there are lots of other weights and types. Lots of very nice Collinette but also a range from basic acrylics to fancy yarns (I can't remember brands but lots of heavenly squishiness). They also stock knitpicks needles.

The owner is lovely, we chatted about yarns and magazines. There is even a man chair to sit your other half in while you browse.

Prices seem pretty standard, the Jitterbug I bought the first time was a little more expensive than online, but cheaper once you consider postage. The yarn I bought this time was the same as its online prices. And as always you get the advantage of being in an actual shop talking to people and squishing the yarns, which I always think is worth a little extra cost.

On to my purchase, a ball of Katia ole in blues and purples.

I need to make at least one more trip as they have one more sock yarn I have not tried but quite fancy, and then I can just go and browse the lovely yarns.

Oh and the pizza was delicious!

Shop review- Great British Yarns

Since I have done a little yarn shopping I have a shop to review- hurrah!

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This one is an online shop, Great British Yarns is currently online only and describes itself as a shop selling lots of British knitting and crochet goodies. This is ironic really, as I went there because they are the only UK shop I have found that stocks Knitpicks (which is very much not British), and I really wanted to see what it was like.

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So, the good- A nice range of yarns, including some indie dyers and interesting yarns like the water wheel spun organic British merino. Obviously the Knitpicks is a huge attraction.

The website is fairly good, the side menu makes it easy to navigate.

The prices seem normal, no real surprises either way there. There is a good clearance section with a lot of Rowan and some other yarns.

I didn't really delve as I was just looking for yarns but they sell some accessories, books, magazines, fabric and kids stuff too.

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The not so good (because bad seems like a strong word and maybe I am demanding)- Some items needed a lot of clicking to get to the actual buy this bit.

The indie dyer range was somewhat limited in terms of colours available, although this might just have been current stock levels.

For me the thing I liked least was the postage- there is a flat rate of £3.50 for UK shipping, I looked this up and even allowing for a postage bag it is enough to ship over a kilo of yarn. If you are buying a single skein it is rather steep as you are considerably over paying, of course the flip side is that if you are buying A LOT of yarn you may get a bargain, but I can't afford that much yarn in one go. They do suggest splitting the cost by combining your order with others but this seems a bit like pushy selling.

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The summary- I would shop there again, especially if I was after Knitpicks or something interesting, but only if I could afford a decent amount in one go, or convince someone else to split the shipping with me (without bullying them).

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And since it is an online shop I don't have a picture of the shop, so here is another photo of the lovelies I bought.

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I am having a dilemma about what to make with the undyed one, I might do a post looking for opinions soon. The red is already wound into a ball for socks.

Shop review- Along came Polly

I have been buying yarn again, but this is absolutely the last until after Christmas!

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I do have a reasonable excuse- I was visiting my sister and family on Saturday for my niece's birthday party, I needed to go into town anyway and of course since we were practically next door to the yarn shop I had to pop it in a check it out.

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I don't have a photo of the shop because a- I am rubbish and forgot my camera, and b- it was dark anyway. They do have a website at www.alongcamepolly.co.uk (although I am told it is not really up and running) and a facebook page. The shop is in Stroud, Gloucestershire and I have to say I am so glad I went in.

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The shop is lovely, lots of choice, and a wall of sock yarn (can anyone say yarny heaven?). They have a huge selection of knitpro goodies too and a wide range of yarns and books in all sorts of weights and colours. I am also told they are getting a range of hand dyed sock yarn in a week or so, so I missed out on seeing that, but have already dropped some not very subtle hints to my sister that it would be a good place to find a Christmas present.

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The owner was also fantastic, we had a super chat about Ravelry and many things yarny (my poor OH just had to stand there listening to us rabbit on in what must seem like a different language)

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I picked up a ball of Trekking in gorgeous purples. I have not used this before so thought I should give it a try, aparently it is even more hard wearing than Regia and Opal. Some merino sock (can't remember the brand, but it was a new one on me) was trying to seduce me, but I preferred this colourway.

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The only downside might be that I am not sure where you park when you go. We left the car at another shop, but that seems a bit cheeky if you are just there for the yarn. However, I suspect there must be car parks in the area.
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Don't let that put you off, it may not even be a valid point as it is based on the fact I don't know the town at all. Go visit, be seduced yarn style.

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.

Yarn shop review- Addicted 2 knitting

This week I finally have another shop review as I have been breaking my self imposed yarn purchase ban. This was a little treat for me as I had a fail on a rainbow themed swap- my parcel never turned up. To be honest I was looking for an excuse to try some mini mochi so it all worked out quite well really.

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I will get to the yarn in a minute, the shop first:

I found the appropriately named Addicted 2 knitting via a Google search. I was looking for the specific yarn and they had it at a good price.

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It is perhaps not the most beautiful website, but well worth a look as the prices seems good and the yarns are well illustrated with photos of each colourway. They also carry a good range of tasty yarn, including Zauberballs, Fyberspates, Artesano and Manos del Uruguay. There are also some cheaper options such as Opal. I had to resist the temptation to fill my virtual basket!

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Delivery was great, a reasonably priced £1.60 or free with a spend of over £30. My parcel came first class, so I had it less than 48 hours after ordering. The packaging was good, well wrapped up in a plastic delivery bag so no chance of damage (although I do prefer packaging I can recycle or reuse).

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I would say they are definitely worth a look, good prices and service and tasty yarn, what more could you want?!

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And of course, I couldn't post this without a picture of the yarn. It is delicious, the colours are fantastic and it is soft and even machine washable. I will do a proper yarn review once I have used it to make something (socks of course, in January most likely), but for now here it is in its balled state:

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Shop review- Uppingham yarns

I had to rectify my lack of yarn shopping, so jumped on the chance to go on a yarn shop road trip with a couple of the knit group ladies.

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We went over to Uppingham yarns, as the name suggests it is in Uppingham, just South of Rutland Water.

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This shop is really one for the machine knitters, there is one smallish room of hand knitting yarn, quite a bit of acrylic. Some nice alpaca and a few other bits to choose from though. Definite shortage of delicious sock yarns when we visited.

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For the machine knitters there's three (yes THREE) rooms jammed with cones, everything you can think of- all sorts of fibres and colours. Even novelty sparkly ones and stretchy ones.

The was also a bit of spinning fibre, silk mostly in various forms including bricks (I think someone on Ravelry was looking for those).

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I don't know the going rate for machine cones, although it seemed fairly bargainous in terms of "ohhh, that's a lot of yarn for a smallish amount of money". The hand knitting stuff seemed fairly standard price wise, obviously it depends on the fibre, but in the region of £4 for 50g. Prices and range are on the website if you want to see before you visit to squish. I would probably recommend that for hand knitters, especially if it is going to be a long drive, just so you know what you are going to find.

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This made us laugh, knitted bullet proof vests anyone?

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And because I can't go in a yarn shop without buying anything, I got two balls of "super alpaca" in a purply brown type colour. It is a nice yarn, but I chose it mostly because I thought the name was awesome, it gives me the urge to draw an alpaca in a cape!

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Because I am a little dopey (and was distracted by heading to the pub for some chips) I forgot to take a photo of the shop itself, there is a picture on their website though.

Uppingham also has an excellent sweet shop, one with big jars of sweeties, definitely worth a visit.

Shop review- McA Direct

Last week I had run out of things to review, so obviously the answer was to do some yarn shopping! Actually that was not the only reason, I have been charged with the task of making some boot socks that do not wear through in about 4 wears and I thought Regia 6 ply might be the answer.

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Since I do not have a huge amount of LYS access, and what I do have did not stock it I turned to the magical provider of yarn that is the internet (a dangerous place to venture with a credit card in hand).

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I opted for a shop I had used before, McA direct, mainly because they do free shipping if you spend over £10 (good point number 1- I love free shipping!). Also because they had what I wanted in the required sludgy green.

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Price wise is pretty standard, the Regia was £3.95 which I think is a reasonable price, maybe not the best, but pretty good.

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The range stocked is huge, lots of brands and colours, with decent photos and shade cards. There's lots of accessories and things to look at too. Obviously nothing can quite compare to being there in person and having a squish of the yarn, but that's buying online for you.

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The thing that has got me gushing about them the most is this- I (being a bit dopey) didn't order enough yarn to make the socks, I got 2 balls, need three. So yesterday I placed a second order for another ball of yarn (and some other goodies to get over the £10) and it arrived THIS MORNING! Seriously, less than 24 hours for yarn to go from the computer screen to my hot little hand.

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With service like that how could I not give them a big thumbs up?!

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And because I like pictures, here's what I bought- 6 ply Regia in green, a 2.5mm, 100cm circular and some purple beads.

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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- Bluefaced Yarn Shop

It is Tuesday, so time for another shop review (I will try to keep this up until I run out of shops to review).
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This time I thought I would do an online shop review as I figured it was getting dull if anyone was reading who is from a little further away. The website for the shop is:

http://www.bluefaced.net/
They sell directly to all countries except the US. In the US the sell through a company called wool to dye for.

It is where I bought the lace weight merino and silk that I have since dyed blue.
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They mostly sell undyed yarn and fibres, although there are a few dyed yarns ones on there in the special offers section so it is really a site for people who fancy having a go at home dyeing. There's a big range of weights and fibres to choose from.
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I know from experience that the yarns they sell are lovely as I know an indie dyer that uses them to supply her base yarns (she sent me to the website). In addition to the lace weight I have also used their merino and bluefaced Leicester superwash sock yarns, both of which are great.
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Price wise they are reasonably expensive but not unaffordable for small orders. The quality seems good so I would say they are good value if not cheap. I have also seen their wholesale prices which are quite a bit lower, but require buying 10kgs of yarn or fibre at a time (trying to work out how I can justify that).
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Delivery was really fast- I ordered very early on Thursday morning and was squooshing the yarn the next day when it arrived in the post.
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The only negative point I would put is that the parcel was wrapped in plastic that I couldn't recycle as I couldn't get the address label off. I guess that is a tough one for any yarn shop really- plastic wrapped is good as it protects the yarn and addresses need to be put on well, but I do like to be able to recycle packaging (personal whinge rather than specific bad point).
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Obviously no photo of the shop as it would be an picture of my computer, so to brighten up this post (hate to post without at least one picture) here is the lace weight again:
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It is knitting up beautifully on 5mm needles, hopefully a post about the project coming soon.

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.

Shop review- Knitty Gritty

I have been on something of a yarn diet lately, mostly due to being skint but also to feeling I should use up some of the stuff I have. In about five weeks I only bought one ball for the swap I took part in. The diet ended last weekend with a shopping trip to Nottingham.

More pictures of the full stash enhancement will follow, I thought I would do a shop review.

In the Victoria Centre Market there is a newish yarn stall called Knitty Gritty. I had been told about it before but had not managed to get there to check it out so this was finally my chance.

The stall looks like this:

They have a pretty good range of yarn for a little space. There's also a fair amount of interesting yarns, alpaca and the like (left wall and table in the picture). It is not yarn snobby either, as there are some acrylics and more affordable yarns there too (The rack on the right wall and the tubs at the front).

As well as yarn they have some needles, including second hand ones and some pre knitted items.

The lady working when I went in (she said she was not the owner) was lovely, she was knitting while she worked (I am soooo jealous, I need a job like that) and was quite happy to let me pet at all the yarns and even let me take the picture of the shop.

I was given a flyer for some classes when I made my purchase, so they run those too, must be a bit of a squeeze, but fun I imagine!

Having checked the price of what I bought online when I got home it was a little higher than web prices, but I didn't have to pay for delivery (or buy loads of stuff to qualify for free delivery). I am also happy to pay a little more to get to see the yarn and squish it before buying, and believe in supporting small businesses, so I am happy enough on the price front.

On to what they sold me. Some luscious Manos del Uruguay silk blend. I had a difficult time choosing the colour, but went for this one in the end.

Mmmmmm, so squishy and lovely and redddddddddddddddd!

All in all I would say a big thank you to the yarn enablers that are Knitty Gritty and definitely recommend them for a look if you are going that way.