Plenty of news coming from ECY Shedquarters this time! First up is news of a new yarn for our next update…
Actually, there are two yarns as it comes in both fingering weight and DK weight. I’ve named it Keswick Fingering and Keswick DK (the w is silent so it is pronounced Kez-ick!!), and it is an 85% Superwash Merino base with 15% Donegal neps mixed in. The neps are made of polyamide as it’s soft and doesn’t take dye, so that means the neps are always visible. Obviously when I’ve dyed lighter shades you can see the darker coloured neps more, and on darker dyed shades you can see the lighter coloured neps more. That’s added to my dyeing fun, I have to say!
I’ve been swatching these in both crochet and knitting, and I’ve absolutely loved working with both. The 4ply is a high twist and the DK is normal twist, and for both I’ve found that at a tighter tension you get a really nice firm fabric (although still soft enough for next-to-skin wear), and as the tension gets more loose the yarn starts to soften and drape more.
I’d recommend both for a wide variety of projects – I’ve had a nosey at other companies’ versions of the fingering weight just to check on whether people are making socks with it and they are, so although I haven’t tried it yet myself (I will do!) I feel confident in saying you could make socks with it. I can’t feel the neps against the texture of the yarn, so although you can see them they don’t really interfere with the knitting or crocheting process.
I will be releasing a Shedcast all about them shortly, so most importantly… the updates goes live on Saturday the 11th of July at 5pm UK time.
There’s still lots of beautiful yarn from our last update too, so that’s all ready and waiting! There’s Bowland DK, our classic BFL – this is a pretty woolly yarn, but it’s soft and hard wearing. I’ve got garments that I made in it in 2011-2012 which still look new (honestly)! There’s also the brand new sparkly Silverdale DK! The sparkle is fairly subtle which I think is nice – it just catches the light. The yarn is soft, smooth, and satisfyingly solid, somehow! It’s very easy to crochet or knit with. I’ll be doing a blog post about it as soon as I get chance so there’ll be more info coming soon.
I’ve been meaning to make up more yarn packs for ages but kept forgetting! Stephen West’s latest pattern releases reminded me, though! I’ve put together yarn packs in both 4ply/fingering weight, and DK weight, and with varying quantities. So some are just 3 x 100g skeins, and they go up to 6 x 100g skeins for the biggest one. I can always make more or bigger ones though. ????
They’re great for all sorts of projects – we first did them for things like Skimming Stones, and Starting Point. There’s often only one or two of each for the hand dyed ones so they are quite unique! To make things easier to find we have renamed packs we made for previous patterns, such as Fading Point and What the Fade?! These are all now five-colour or six-colour 4ply/fingering weight yarn packs.
Another option for multi-coloured projects where you only need a little bit of a handful of colours would be to get your hands on a lucky dip of five DK Yarnlings™. DK Yarnlings™ aren’t new to ECY but they haven’t been available on the website for a while. They now come in the same glassine bags that the 4ply Yarnling™ lucky dip comes in. They work perfectly in the original DK version of Quadratic by David O’Kelly.
We’ve put the aran and chunky for the Cat Knits projects on sale to clear at 20% off! So that’s Bowland Aran, Pendle Aran, and Pendle Chunky. The associated kits for these yarns from Cat Knits are discounted with 15% off, too. There’s no code needed and the discounted price shows on the website I’m keen to make room for a whole load of incoming new yarns so now feels like the right time to do this!
It has been a while since we shared a plan for future updates, partly because it has been impossible to plan that far ahead! But as we settle into the new normal we are able to look a bit further ahead so this is what is in progress:
Brimham High Twist and the return of Harewood Fingering (also a high twist yarn) – update penciled in for 19th July
Keld Fingering – This was so popular it nearly all sold out in the first day and so as soon as we could get our hands on it again (yarn supply has been impacted by COVID-19) we did. It is in the dyepots and we are hoping to have the update go live towards the end of the month!
Coniston Fingering and Hayton DK updates are in the planning stages so will likely be in August.
Our free shipping offer ended on 30th June 2020 to correspond with regrettable but necessary increases to costs associated with shipping to the US. There is a blog post with more information about this on our website. The offer has been replaced with a 10% discount to orders with a pre-tax value of over £100, excluding shipping costs which are calculated separately. The code 100THANKS is active now and can be used in place of the existing codes ahead of the changeover.
You can still only use one discount code/offer per order but the new code can be used on orders of ANY size!