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Hello from ECY Shedquarters! Monday is our last public holiday for a little while. As nice as it is to have long weekends it is quite disruptive. So as a thank you for your patience with us through May we are offering a sitewide 10% discount until the end of Monday. You don’t have to enter a code, just add the products to your cart and the discount will be applied automatically. We will be closed on Monday 29th May and so orders will be processed after we get back to work on Tuesday 30th May and shipped the day after.

We have added two new blog posts this week. First is an interview with Hanna Gough of Germander Cottage Crafts. Hanna is a wonderful knit and crochet designer and we wanted to find out a bit more about her. You can find the interview in the Interviews section of our blog. This is actually perfectly timed as Hanna has a new pattern being released today. Flock Socks are made using Oakworth 4ply and feature a dutch/square heel and memorable stitch repeats. The pattern is worked from the cuff down, with a grafted toe and is written in three sizes. You can find Oakworth 4ply on our website and the pattern on Hanna’s website. Hanna will also be hosting a CAL for her upcoming design, the Beyond cardigan. Beyond is a simple cardigan which is ideal for people wanting to start making crochet garments. The sample uses Keld Aran and it is stunning. You can find information about the CAL on Hanna’s website as well as on her Instagram.

The second new post on the blog is a Projects and Patterns post for Tempo 4ply, our original sock yarn. There are lots of fantastic ideas of how to use this great yarn and it has come at a great time as we have a big Tempo 4ply update in progress at the moment. So take a look and get planning your new projects ready for when the yarn goes live. You can find the post on our Yarn Specific Blog Posts Index along with all our other yarn specific blogs. These are a great resource if you would like to know more about a specific yarn or to find inspiration for how to use certain yarns.

There is also a new edition of The Wholly Irregular ECY Shedcast up on YouTube so please do go and check that out as well. I’ve tried to make sure this one is brief so it won’t take too long out of your day!

Following on from our Oakworth 4ply update we have restocked our Echoing Green shawl kits. Echoing Green is a two colour semicircular shawl, by Jaya of Apoorva Designs, knit using Oakworth 4ply in two shades of green. The design was part of the Four Seasons collection by Jaya which was inspired by classic poetry, with each poem and design embodying the spirit of a season. You can find all four patterns on our website, individually and as a bundle, alongside add-on kits and, when the yarns are available, we also have full kits.

We have lots of news for you today so I will get straight on with it. First up we have changed the free pattern for new subscribers to the ECY mailing list to Collingham Mitts. These elbow length fingerless mitts are the perfect antidote for cold arms. They’re great for wearing with short-sleeved tops when the weather turns, and work just as well under long-sleeved tops/jackets. Wear them fully stretched or cosily squooshed around the wrists; they work just as well either way. They can also easily be made in one colour — they require approximately 60g of yarn in total. The original sample was made using several colours of Milburn 4ply but they would also be great in mini skeins, Yarnlings or a single colour. Sign up to our newsletter HERE.

We have two exciting patterns to tell you about. First up is Kismet by Rachel Illsley of Unwind Knitwear. This stunning colourwork design is the fifth design of Rachel’s Ffrench Collection and was inspired by small repeating patterns of music interpreted through the use of both pattern and colour. The sweater uses four colours, three colours in a vague fade with the final colour as a contrasting pop. The original sample uses our Oakworth 4ply in Driftwood with three yarns from other dyers. We have Oakworth 4ply yarn packs in four seasonal colour options coming very soon but if you don’t want to wait we also have lots of Milburn 4ply yarn packs to choose from. The packs have size options that correspond with the sizing in the pattern from XS to 5XL to 83 to 157cm / 33.25 to 62.75 inches, with recommended positive ease of 7.5 to 25cm / 3 to 10 inches at the chest circumference.

Speaking of Oakworth 4ply, Kismet yarn packs are part of a larger update of this yarn which is in progress and will be ready by the end of the month!

The second new pattern release is Liath-Reòthadh from Liz Corke, a simple but fun cowlette. Liath-Reòthadh means Hoar Frost in Scottish Gaelic and the pattern is available on Liz’s website. It is knit from the top down like a triangular shawl and joined in the round before the lace pattern starts, featuring leaf patterns and little arrows. This design uses one skein of Titus Fingering in Steel which is not currently available but we do have lots of Titus 4ply available on the website and Milburn 4ply would also be a great substitution.

Following on from our recent mini skein update we now have a selection of mini skein bundles available on the website. These are ideal if you need a number of colours but don’t know where to start in selecting a combination. We also now have Mini Skein Lucky Dip Bundles in five, 10, 12 and 24 minis so you can choose the number needed for your project. If you have any specific requests in the lucky dip products add them to your order notes and we will do our best to honour them from the available stock.

Happy New Year! We are back to work and our January sale is in full effect. We had a few technical issues during the first week but items in the sale now have the “Reduced from” price visible in the product description which should make this less confusing. The sale continues on the website with all reduced items in the January Sale collection on the homepage but as all hand-dyed yarn is reduced you can also find them in the normal yarn category pages on the website. Our printed patterns are also all reduced. Don’t forget you can browse patterns by craft type, by item type (e.g. garment, shawl etc) and by yarn weight.

We increased the discount on more yarns to 40% — this means yarns at 40% off are Keswick yarns (Merino with Donegal neps), Askham yarns (baby alpaca with silk), Coniston Fingering (Merino and mohair), Silverdale DK (Merino, nylon and silver Stellina) and any hand-dyed yarn with a dyelot from 2021. Our most recent updates (Bowland Aran- 100% BFL and Titus 4ply- extrafine Merino and silk) are at 5% off and other yarns are at 15% off so there are lots of great bargains to be had. We have had lots of orders so far but there is plenty still to choose from.

We really hope this clears some space so that we can have lots more lovely fresh yarn for 2023! We have several updates already in progress including a bumper mini skein update and some gorgeous warm Pendle Chunky (100% Superwash extrafine Merino).

We use Royal Mail for the majority of our shipping and throughout December there were massive backlogs which resulted in some parcels being held for a long period of time. The parcels we know of that had been delayed are now moving through the system and we hope that shipping will be getting back to normal over the next month. Until then we have decided not to reinstate untracked services. Thank you for your patience through this period.

Oops, Socktober is nearly over but the best laid plans often go awry. We had hoped to have an update of sock yarn out at the beginning of the month but as many of you know Victoria had been ill on and off for the past couple of months, culminating in being off with COVID. After recovering Victoria was able to photograph the update of Brimham 4ply so that it could go live on the website. There are 100g skeins and 20g mini skeins with lots of options of yarn packs in lots of colour combinations. Some of these have been curated for use in MKALs too. Brimham 4ply is our extrafine Merino/nylon sock yarn, which is super-soft, squishy, and strong. It honestly does tick all the boxes.

We have also added Silverdale DK to the website to coincide with the latest issue of Moorit. In this issue there is a design from Sandra Guttierez aka Nomad Stitches which uses two colours of this yarn (Loganberry and Charcoal) in a striking colourblock sweater (shown in the images, photo copyright Moorit and Amelia Claudia Photography). Issues of Moorit are available from many stockists — including Indie Untangled — as well as directly through the Moorit website. Silverdale DK is a blend of Merino, nylon and silver Stellina and it is available on our website now.

We had a stock take of all our printed patterns recently and found that we have quite a lot of older stock. As we are moving more towards digital patterns we have decided to put these on sale. We have added a new heading to the Pattern menu for Reduced Printed Patterns so that they are nice and easy to find.

Finally, there are a LOT of postal strikes coming up between now and Christmas. It’s going to cause a lot of delays for small businesses like us who don’t have contracts with other couriers. What I would say is please consider choosing “courier” as your shipping option at checkout if you’re concerned about timing — that doesn’t speed us up (we already work as fast as we can!) but it should speed up the actual delivery. And… it’s not too early to be thinking about Christmas presents now — seriously! If that’s something that’s going to stress you out it is worth starting now — not just yarn, but anything that you’re ordering online, especially from small businesses.