Pendle Aran will be back on the website today (Thursday 10th February)! It has been so long since our last update of this yarn as it’s been unavailable, and it is a long-term favourite. It has a bit of history: originally known as Langdale Superwash Aran (a long time ago now!), it was renamed to show that it was the same fibre as Pendle 4ply which has also been in our range for years. We decided to add Chunky and DK weights of this gorgeous yarn and so to show them as a family it made sense for them all to be known as Pendle. The colours included in the update can be seen in the update album over on flickr.
The update will be live on the website in an hour, at 5pm UK time. Pendle Aran is 100% Superwash Extrafine Merino which means it is super soft and snuggly. For project ideas check out our Pendle Aran Patterns and Projects blog post. Three patterns for this yarn are available on our website: Snowy Evening by Jaya of Apoorva Designs, Cardamom Rose by Thea Colman AKA Baby Cocktails and Gatekeeper Cowl by Estelle Hughes.
Jennifer Shiels Toland’s beautiful brioche Winter Frosting hat is a great way to experiment with colour and gain confidence in brioche knitting. It was made using Titus DK in Steel and Rambling Rose and Pennine Mist with Steel but have you considered substituting the yarn for Milburn DK (BFL/silk)? We were thinking about it as this would reduce the overall price of the project. The pattern is available on Jen’s website. Titus DK has also been recently updated so check out the available stock on the website.
Milburn 4ply has been restocked! I wont bore you with the details but things haven’t exactly run smoothly with this batch and so the packaging isn’t what we would normally expect – I’m still trying to find out for sure but the plastic bags are not the recyclable ones I’ve always had before (I’m absolutely gutted about this if I’m honest). Also you might notice the balls of yarn are wound much more loosely and so the yarn bands don’t stay in place. This is an absolute pain for me but I am hoping it won’t make any difference to you because you always pull the labels off and cast on straight away, right?! 😉 Anyway, it’s not across the full range – it’s just eight of the colours and one batch per colour so they shouldn’t be like that for too long. We are working to make sure the next batch is back to normal and really hope it won’t be a problem for you.
It occurred to us (after we saw strong buying patterns in the January sale) that in general Aran yarns are purchased in larger quantities and this can make projects less accessible due to the price, especially with the rising cost of living in the UK being a major issue for most of us at the moment. This got us thinking and we have done some sums, so as a result we have adjusted the price of all Aran yarns and Pendle Chunky. You will find that these yarns are now quite a bit cheaper, hopefully making those larger projects more affordable for everyone. It’s a risky manoeuvre as our costs are also constantly going up, but we will hold out as long as we can. 🙂
Our sale in January cleared a bit of space for new yarn which will be starting to come through soon in the next few weeks. We have also assessed the older stock and added some of it to the Reduced to Clear section of the website. There is plenty to choose from and the discount code for orders over £100 (100THANKS) will apply to yarns in this category. You will notice that Whitfell Chunky has now been added to the reduced section. Some colours are very low in stock while others have quite a large quantity left. We will not be restocking this yarn as it runs out because quite honestly it just doesn’t sell well enough to justify producing more (sadly!). Whitfell Chunky in Natural will continue to be available and restocked (supply permitting) until the other colours have sold out.
There are several updates in progress and in the planning stage so do keep an eye on our socials and sign up to the newsletter so that you don’t miss out on them. Updates coming soon are Titus 4ply (Merino/silk), Keswick Fingering (tweedy Merino with Donegal neps), Bowland Aran (pure Bluefaced Leicester) and Nateby 4ply (Merino, nylon and silver Lurex).