I think it was the Opal brand the started the yarn advent calendar trend originally, and quite a few indie dyers have followed suit. We decided to do our first one for Christmas 2017 and we wanted to make it a little different, with not just a beautiful hand-dyed mini-skein for each day, but with a few extra handmade treats added, supporting other small businesses. We also wanted to find a sustainable way to package the goodies, so we made a jumbo project bag for each one, handmade from low impact materials (end-of roll British wool fabric, vintage cottons and remnants).
The calendar was a bit of an experiment for us, not knowing how popular they’d be. Being a considerable amount of work we decided to commit to making just a handful. To our surprise they sold out in just 24 hours. Thank you for your support! We were absolutely thrilled about this and we’ll definitely be doing more next year.
There was not particular dyeing theme, there are speckles, semi-solids, variegated and mottled shades. It was a brilliant opportunity to experiment and try out new ideas, many of which have since been developed further and joined our stock range!
It was wondering seeing your instagram posts as each new day was opened. While I was packing them I managed to take some rather hurried snaps of them as well…
Day 1
Turquoise, pink and red variegated yarn and a personalised name letter tree decoration. A very similar shade has now joined our Japan Collection as ‘‘.
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Acid-yellow yarn and a handmade lip balm from Naturally Raw and Pure.
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
A handmade ginger chocolate from Henley Chocolates and a dark, mottled shade of yarn, similar to our ‘Space Race‘ shade but will pinks, yellows and reds instead of purples, blues and greens.
Day 8
Many of you will recognise this beauty as our new shade ‘ZX‘, which has been an instant hit!
Day 9
Day 10
Rainbow yarn and an iron-on patch. This shade inspired our entire Rainbows Collection, and became the ‘Lollipop‘ shade.
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
A yarn bauble!
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Zingy tangerine yarn and triangular solid brass stitch markers from The Woolly Tangle.
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Homemade blackberry and pear jam, with matching yarn.
Day 21
Christmas green yarn and handmade beer or goat’s milk soap.
Day 22
A pretty pink that went on to become our ‘‘ (blossom) shade.
Day 23
Bright Christmas red and a homemade soya candle infused with natural tea or home grown lemongrass.
Day 24
A raspberry white chocolate from Henley Chocolates, and the yarn shade that inspired our popular ‘Shinjuku‘ colourway.
In my haste to pack the calendars I forgot to photograph the project bags, but luckily a the calendar recipients took pictures of theirs.
The most exciting part of all for me is seeing what becomes of all these marvellous mini-skeins, be they an ADVENTurous Wrap, a granny squares blanket or our Cerys Hexagon Blanket.
If you missed out on your calendar this time you can still get a mini-skeins fix. We regularly add mini-skins packs in our Special Edition Yarn section.
