Old ShopBaa Baa Brighouse has teamed up with a number of Yorkshire based indie dyers to bring you the Yan Tan Tethera Yarn Club. They produce specialty yarns, that have been reared, sheared, spun or dyed in ‘God’s Own County’ (as easy as one two three). The big nits of Sirdar, Rowan and Wendy brands are still based in Yorkshire along with many other smaller yarn producers.
Knitting Pretty is a ‘purl one’ of Knaresborough’s independent businesses and it hasn’t dropped a stitch recently. Based in Castlegate it has won a Best Dressed Premises award for 2017. (I guess it is best dressed in woolies as it needs to be dressed or it wouldn’t have a stitch on)
George Walkers’s ‘Costumes of Yorkshire’,
- The Holmfirth based Knitting and Crochet Guild is a national educational charity dedicated to UK domestic knitting celebrating it’s 40th Anniversary in 2018. In 1996, the national Knitting and Crochet Guild formed a Dales branch called the Airedale and Wharfedale KCG.
- The knitting reference library based at Southampton University’s earliest published work is dated 1840. The journals include a run of Girls Own Annual dating from 1881 collected then donated by Montse Stanley.
- There are several Knitting and Crochet Communities Online including one for Men Who Knit
- Summer and winter Olympic knitting medals
- Terrible knitters of Dent
- Knit and Natter goups abound in Yorkshire. Age UK organise them in Scarborough and Malton to swap patterns and ideas, catch up on gossip and have a good laugh. Other groups include Dringhouses library York, Miss Butterfinger’s Tea Room on The Green in Idle village, from 2.00pm on the first Thursday each month, Montgom needlers Montgomery Hall, Wath upon Dearne, Rotherham every Thursday 10am-12pm and Commuknity Knit and Natter Yew Tree Inn Malin Bridge Sheffield.
- Airedale hospital staff are encouraging people and local ‘knit and natter’ groups to make ‘Twiddlemuffs’ as an eye-catching distraction for patients with dementia. These are bright coloured hand muffs with interesting bits and bobs attached inside and out. ‘They have been designed and developed to provide simple stimulation for active hands, while promoting increased flexibility and brain stimulation…….. a pattern can be found from this
Now I am off for a cup of tea from a pot covered in one of my cosies (both crocheted)