Why don't you show recommended yarn tension on your yarn bands? How to measure yarn tension/gauge accurately.
We occasionally get asked “what tension does this yarn knit to?”, and this is information that we deliberately do not state on our yarn pages. There is a very good reason for that - the tension/gauge that you get is entirely down to you, the crafter. It’s no use me saying that such and such 4ply works to x number of stitches and x number of rows because any number of people might not be able to get that tension. Not only does it vary by needle size but it also varies by your own actual physical tension that you...
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- Tags: crochet, knitting, tips & advice, Tips and Advice
Did you know you can search by colour?
For some of you, browsing our website may usually be restricted to yarn released specifically as part of an update. With an increased frequency of updates and stock being available for longer afterwards, it would be understandable to become overwhelmed with choice. You probably already use the Shop Yarn menu with the options to select each yarn by name but what if you have a project in mind for which you have a rough idea of a colour you would like to use but are not that picky about which yarn to use? This is definitely something I struggle with...
Blocking your knitting/crochet: why and how?
If you've heard the term 'blocked' in relation to knitting and crochet and wondered what that's all about, this blog post is for you. I will pop links to all items mentioned in at the end then you can go and look at/buy what you need. What is blocking? "Once it's blocked it'll be beautiful" is something I often hear and say myself. Blocking is when you wet (or steam) your knitting to somehow shape it. It can be for the purpose of stretching the piece to the correct size, and also for the purpose of evening out and opening...
Why don't you have colour swatches?
One of the questions I sometimes get asked is - “why don’t you have swatches of all your colours together up on the website?” I thought I’d answer publicly. The very simple reason is because I have SO MANY regular shades and they sell out so quickly that most of the time *most of them are NOT in stock*. So you’d just be looking at colours you couldn’t get, and that’s not much use. I’d then just get dozens of emails asking for certain colours, and I don’t do custom dyeing, so that’s not a desirable situation. When we prepare...
How do hand dyed yarn updates work?
Today I thought I’d try and answer some questions about how our updates work. If you’re new to Eden Cottage Yarns you may well be wondering what it’s all about. Basically we produce hand dyed yarn as well as our mill-dyed yarn ranges, and the hand dyed yarn comes in limited quantities. I hand dye it in my kitchen sink, and usually do batches of 10x100g skeins per colour. I dye every day, but what I can produce is still obviously limited. On top of that it’s fairly time-consuming to photograph it all and then get the photos uploaded to...