ECY monthly round up: August 2023
The past couple of months have been really busy here at ECY Shedquarters! There sort of wasn’t much to report on in July because although we did a lot of work it was mostly producing and setting up for things that ended up happening in August. Let’s start with pattern releases. Firstly there was our long-awaited Swainby Hat pattern release (which is HERE on our website plus is on Ravelry and Payhip). This pattern has been through test-knitting and we have a gallery of the test knit hats HERE if you want to see what it looks like in...
Getting started with knitting and crochet - tips and resources
Intro (feel free to scroll past if you want to go straight to the resources!) Yarn crafts are really good activities to help combat boredom, loneliness, restlessness, depression, and anxiety. I say that because they’ve helped me in all of those ways. Having a project on the go can give you an achievable thing to focus on (obsess over if you need to), which can make you feel settled, relaxed, calm, and accomplished. I know that some projects can make you feel quite stressed with their complexity but that’s totally not necessary so don’t let it put you...
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Reasons to love alpaca yarn and fibre: all your questions answered!
We love alpaca at ECY, but feel like it's perhaps underestimated, or a bit under-appreciated. We get asked lots of questions about it, so have put together what we hope is a helpful and insightful blog post answering as many questions as we can. The first section is quite long by the way, but does need to come first. If you're interested in things like the difference between baby alpaca and other alpaca types, please scroll on down! If you have any more questions that we've missed please do let us know. 🙂 Tell me about alpaca - where are...
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- Tags: alpaca, babyalpaca, eco, ECY, Eden Cottage Yarns, edencottageyarns, environment, fleece, naturalfibres, yarn
Why we love Polwarth sheep and wool!
We talk a lot about our love of merino and bluefaced Leicester yarn but we have been also using New Zealand Polwarth wool in our Oakworth yarns for years. To let you know why we love this fabulous breed we wanted to share some information about why they are so amazing. Breed Polwarth sheep originated in Australia in the 1800s (in fact it is their centenary year this year!) when Lincoln and Merino bloodlines were mixed. This combination was used to attempt to increase the hardiness of the Merino so that they could increase the areas that could be grazed. This...
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- Tags: DK, Eden Cottage Yarns, farming, fibre, fleece, naturalfibres, nature, Oakworth, Polwarth, sheep, wool, yarn
The story of colour development in a dye studio (shed)
I’ve spent quite a lot of time this week working on colour development and thought you might be interested to read about it - Claire and Debbie were, anyway, as they saw the work in progress and were wondering what on earth I was doing. They also had the unbridled joy of watching me flicking really slowly through my wildflower book to find the plants I was looking for and check their names. I do talk to myself whilst I'm doing this (yes, and I'm only 33) so I think they've learned to just ignore my ramblings. This week I was...
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