We've just had the first of our Summer cottons come in.  This one is from Katia and is a cotton/ltencel blend.  Called Cotton-Tencel,  it is 67% lyocel and 23% cotton.  It is very soft and has a slight sheen to it and makes up to most DK patterns.  Katia provides pattern support on their website or you can come into the shop and we'll show them to you.  The woman's jumper pictured takes nine balls for a medium size and the man's jumper pictured would take 12 for a medium.  The yarn retails at £3.95/50g.

Ammonite Yarns and Cows on Tour
 
We are really excited about a project we are helping with here in South Wales.
 
Cows on Tour is a group of farmers who are passionate about food and farming.  They are taking the farmyard to the schoolyard, talking to schoolchildren about where food comes from.

Abi Reader from Cows on Tour approached Ruth and Jenny at Ammonite Yarns before Christmas to see if they could help with providing knitted or crocheted cows for their campaign.  The cows will be given to the schools on the tour and used to promote the campaign. Abi’s initial request was for 50 stuffed toys which Ammonite Yarns just couldn’t provide but instead Jenny has designed a knitted cow (the prototype here is Prudence) which with a bit of tweaking will be the Cows on Tour cow.  Prudence started her tour in February at Stitches which is the annual yarn trade fair where she met lots of other stuffed toys!

We thought it really important that the cows should be made of British wool so that they promote sheep farmers as well as dairy.

The yarn is Jacobs Aran from West Yorkshire Spinners and if we can source a CE labelled fleece then the stuffing will be wool too. 

What we need now is willing knitters who would be prepared to make the rest of the cows for us.  We are being very cheeky and asking knitters to support this campaign by giving their time and knitting skills and we will provide the kits for the cows.
If you would like to help with this then contact jenny@ammoniteyarns.co.uk for more information. 

If you’d like to make a cow for yourself then keep an eye on the Ammonite website as we will be launching the kit at Wonderwool Wales at the end of April.
 
You can find more information about Cows on Tour on their website www.cowsontour.com

Ruth and I made our annual visit to Stitches, the annual UK trade fair for Crafting, Sewing, Haberdashery and Yarn shops.  We are generally chauffeured there by my husband, Greg (also known as our Logistics Manager for any yarn related outings) and this year we were also joined by Gaelle, our crochet specialist and Prudence the Prototype cow.  We were out of the house by 8.30 am (on a Sunday!) and headed off up to the NEC, Birmingham with notebooks in hand and budgets fixed firmly in our minds ready to meet our suppliers and replenish our shelves ahead of the new Season.

It is so hard to be restrained with so many new lines being shown.  The first to arrive (probably by the end of this week) will be Dream Catcher from Stylecraft.  This is a new cake yarn in with 10% wool content and will retail at £7.99 for 150g which is really very good value.  It is available in six shades and is a beautiful, DK weight mélange of colours in a roving style yarn. The colour change is phased so that the shades shift gradually.  The range includes relaxed shape garments and a range of stylish accessories. There is also a beautiful free shawl pattern on each ball band.  As well as the garments in the patterns, Stylecraft have also included accessories with exact yarn quantities given so that knitters can weigh their leftover yarn and choose to make the accessory too or download a different one.

West Yorkshire Spinners were launching their new Signature sock colours (designed by Winwick Mum herself, Christine Perry, some new colours and designs in Bo Peep and a new wool range, Colour Lab.  WYS haven't forgotten the crocheters in their pattern support and there are some lovely new designs being released to support the yarns.  Bo Peep has particularly strong pattern support for knitters and crocheters with super-cute toys to match the garments and mini-garments to fit the toys.

I've only skimmed the surface of the yarns we saw and yearned for -- there will be more information as the different yarns makes their way into the shop.  You can also expect a post shortly about the mysterious Prudence and her adventures at Stitches and the forthcoming Wonderwool.