Yarn shop owners must be some of the few people in the UK who prefer wet and miserable summers to amazing heatwaves!  Even the most committed yarntwisters get a bit overheated if the temperature goes over 25 so we much prefer the cool.  Having said that, even we have had enough rain for a while (and having lived in Wales for 22 years my tolerance of wet weather is very high!).

To cheer you up and help you to look forward to dryer weather, we have had some new deliveries from King Cole and Stylecraft.  We've got a few new colours and patterns in Batik Swirl form Stylecraft with their two new colours, Spring Garden and Winter Woodland taking pride of place.  King Cole has released Glitz ready for Christmas (!) and a new line called Subtle Drifter.  The latter is a lovely cotton/wool/acrylic mix which complements Drifter DK (which we also have a few colours in).  Pattern support is lovely and even includes that rarest of beasts, a man's jumper design!

So if you fancy braving the elements, why not drop in and take a look (it's all on the floor at the moment but should make it to the shelves later today!).

Have you got past the bouncy castle party stage and want something a bit more sophisticated for the next party with not quite so many kids?  We can help!

Ruth has spent the last year running fibre-crafts based after-school club at her daughter's school.  This has given us loads of ideas for fibre-based parties.  It sounds a bit dull calling it fibre-based so our Fibretastic Parties are now launched.  

Parties are split into three groups, 7+, Teen and parties for adults (because we don't think the kids should have all the fun!),  You can choose from tie-dying to braiding, felting to making a dreamcatcher -- all the parties will be tailored to the age-group and we can design bespoke parties too.

Nip over to our Fibretastic page on to take a look and then contact us to book a party that's just a little bit different.
Fibretastic Parties and Craft Club

Working in a yarn shop is a lovely job and we really enjoy helping our customers to choose yarn and inspiring them with new ideas.  We also love to see the finished projects.  Here are a few that you might like.  

Bev recreated the Honeycomb Blanket using Silver Lining instead of Toasted Almond and Gina used Bashful Blue instead of Mellow Yellow.   Considering each blanket only makes one change from the specified Stylecraft Bellissima colours, they look so different -- The original is shown as well which uses Single Cream, Toasted Almond and Mellow Yellow.

We'd love to see more of finished projects, so why not pop over to our Yarnmanglers facebook page and add some of  your own.
Honeycomb Blanket Pack with exclusive, hand finished bag and stitch marker  

On a hot, sticky day like today, when you don't feel like working on your projects, what else can you do.  Why not take the opportunity to find out about the online community that calls itself Ravelry.

We love Ravelry and use it constantly as a resource both for ourselves and for the shop but lots of our customers have never heard of it.  If you are one of the uninitiated, here is a beginner's guide.

• To use their own word, 'Ravelry is a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, weavers and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, project and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration.'
• So how do you access this feast of fibre-ey goodness?  Just join!  To do this you go onto the website and click on 'create an account' at the top right of the screen.  Choose a username and password and you are in! 
• That's all you have to do!

So now you are a member, what next?

• Don't worry about spam -- we've never received any on our personal accounts or the shop's and our details have been secure.
• Fill in your profile details and friend other Ravellers  (the shop's username is AmmoniteYarns, so send us a friend request first!)
• Use your notebook (accessed at top right of screen).  Here you can keep records of your projects, your stash and  your library of patterns.  You can create a queue of projects you would like to make and keep notes about yarns you would like to make them with.
• Trawl the pattern database.**  There are almost 400,000 patterns available as Ravelry downloads, many of them free, so you can find almost anything you would like to make.  When you find a pattern, you can check the projects already made for the design and see how it turns out on different shaped people and in different yarns to the specified ones.
• If you have a pattern but can't get the yarn, you can look it up in the yarn database and find all the details so that you can substitute.
• Go on to the Forums and find out what other Ravellers are interested in.
• Add your own designs to Ravelry so if you are a budding (or experienced) designer, you have a platform for your sales.
• There's loads more you can do but you'll need to join to find out!

We always have Ravelry up on the shop computer and on the tablets so you can browse patterns here and as many of them are available to buy in-store so you can you pay us for the pattern, give us your Rav details, and let us do the rest.


** warning --  you can get 'lost' on Ravelry for hours and may spend more time online than crafting!

I'm sure you all remember our Honeycomb blanket pack which we launched at Wonderwool this year.  We've crocheted up some sample honeycombs in different colours and sewn them together in sets of nine to show different colourways.  At the moment they sitting in our window making a lovely summer display together with some crocheted bees just for fun.  Later we will make seat pads for the chairs in the shop from the samples but in the meantime why not come over and take a look.  The pattern and yarn packs are always available but we have a limited number of bags and stitch markers so pop over to our store page and grab a pack before we run out! 
Honeycomb Blanket Pack with exclusive, hand finished bag and stitch marker

One of our friends and customers, Giselle has just come back from running a crochet retreat at Number 63 by London's Kensington Gardens.  The weekend was a real  success for her and enjoyable for all involved and makes us all the more excited about our forthcoming knitting retreat at the same location in January.
Knitting With Confidence -- register interest  

Giselle designed a crochet throw especially for the weekend and it is now available to buy in the shop or from our online store. Called 'From Sea to Land', the blanket incorporates some really interesting techniques and uses one each of seven different colours of Stylecraft Special DK.  We have packs available from Saturday 29 June and will be adding the pattern to Ravelry next week.

We have a sample of the blanket in the shop, so why not drop in for a sneaky squish and pick up a pack and pattern to make one for yourself.

Before I start (and I'm sure most of you understand) this blog is about dyeing not dying.  It's only one letter but that 'e' makes all the difference!

Last Wednesday Michelle from Woolly Wumpkins spent the day at the show helping me to dye some yarn I had bought in April.  While at the Wonderwool, Michelle showed me a variety of different dyes and I chose the colour I wanted.  It took us a while to recuperate from the show but last week we were finally ready to dye!

We didn't use quite the same process as Michelle would normally use as there isn't a hob in the shop but by dint of lots of kettles of boiling water and a microwave we got there.  It is absolutely fascinating to watch the alchemy of dyeing.  Well technically it's chemistry, not alchemy, but it appears almost magical so I think alchemy fits better.

The yarn I had to dye was shetland aran weight which I had bought ready spun and hanked but still with a little oil.  If I'd just knitted it, it would have needed the oil removed but it was fine for dyeing.  I began by soaking half in warm water with a little fairy liquid to get it ready for the dye bath and then we were off.   The yarn was transferred one hank at a time into a dye bath containing citric acid and the woad coloured dye.  It was soaked until I liked the colour and then transferred to a second dye bath to give it a little bit a difference in tone from one end of the hank to the other.  As I want to make the yarn into a cable patterned garment, Michelle and I decided not to go for an obvious tonal effect, opting instead for more subtlety.  After dyeing, the yarn was rinsed in the sink with a little hair conditioner and then hung out to dry.

The process of dyeing yarn is quite simple but I couldn't have achieved such a lovely batch of yarn without Michelle's help.  Her eye for colour and experience at yarn dyeing means the colour take-up is pretty uniform across the hanks, something that a beginner wouldn't achieve any where near as easily.  

I now have to keep telling myself that I don't have time to take up dyeing yarn in earnest and instead cast and knit myself a rather lovely jumper.

Ruth blogged yesterday about how knitting and crochet tends to be put on to the back burner in Summer. Our Saturday specials will help you to keep your hobby going over the Summer and cheer you up during this unseasonable bad weather.

This Saturday we will be dropping the price of all of cake yarns.   Katia Silver Paint, Katia Spring Rainbow, Katia Azteca Degrade and Stylecraft Dreamcatcher will all be priced at £5.00* which is a saving of more than a third of the previous shop price and for some for some of them it is less than half of the recommended retail price.  Stock is limited so make sure you come in on Saturday and grab a bargain.

* No further discounts apply.

A huge thank you to our customers who have nominated us for Best Local Independent Yarn Store in the Wale region for the second year running.   We know that we have all had to go to the polling booths a bit too often in the past few  years but this one can be done from the comfort of your own computer and is much more uplifting than Brexit!   Voting is now open so if you would like to help make us Let's Knit's Best Local Independent Store in Wales, just follow this link.
www.letsknit.co.uk/awards

With the arrival of summer (hopefully imminent!), many crocheters and knitters find their crafting drops down the priorities list. The weather warms up, the garden, beach or children keep us busy and we don't seem to have time to sit quietly and work with yarn.

Many people tell us they miss the calming effect of crafts in the warmer months so to encourage you to keep it in mind, we are going to be putting selected yarns on sale in the shop on Saturdays. 

Each Thursday, we will announce on our website and Facebook page which yarns are involved. Then during normal shop hours on the following Saturday (9am to 1pm) those yarns will have at least 20% off. Sale prices are only available in the shop (not online) on that day so you'll have to call in and see us to take advantage of the offers.