Working with The Fibre Co. stockists to celebrate our yarns and patterns is one of the things we love the most about our work. We love learning the character of each shop, the community they sit within and what makes them fans of our products. That’s why we are so pleased to support Yarn Shop Day and one of our UK based stockists, A Yarn Story.
Yarn Shop Day takes place every year and is a day to celebrate all the things we love most about bricks and mortar stores. Participating stores will be hosting pop up events, yarn tastings and more. You can find what is happening in your local yarn store by visiting the listings on Let’s Knit, the magazine behind this special day.
This year, the event takes place on the 30th April and we will be sending a special treat to those knitters and makers who are visiting A Yarn Story in Bath. In a few weeks, we will be revealing our latest yarn, Arranmore, to join The Fibre Co. line up and we’ve sent a special preview batch of the yarn down to the store. You will find a wall of colour, celebrating The Fibre Co.’s love for natural colour tones as well as enjoying the opportunity to take part in a little yarn tasting with this special sneak peek.
We asked Carmen, owner at A Yarn Story to tell us a little more about her shop, her life as a yarn store owner and all the things she loves about The Fibre Co.
“I’m Carmen, owner of A Yarn Story in Bath, England. I grew up in Eugene, OR and have come to the U.K. via California, Germany and Ireland. I live in Bath with my partner Ian and our lovely dog Peaches. I LOVE knitting not just because I like the act of making but also for the stories and sense of community it brings so many of us.
A Yarn Story is a wool boutique specializing in hand-dyed yarns and luxury fibres from around the world. The shop is located in the heart of Bath’s artisan quarter on Walcot Street which is full of other inspiring makers and small businesses. The shop is full of color as that is what really drives and inspires me and I try to keep a rather full events calendar for the shop.
We host everything from Beginner Knitting and Crochet Classes to more advanced techniques such as Brioche. I love bringing in talented designers to showcase some of their favorite techniques. We have Justyna Lorkowska here for a whole weekend in June which I’m really excited about. As I love color and hand dyed yarn so much, its been great to team up with Devon Sun Yarns to offer a Yarn Dyeing Workshop here in the shop too. I love seeing how everyone works with color differently and I always come away from this class inspired.
It’s also great to bring the community together for events such as Yarn Shop Day where we can highlight a yarn I love and share it in more depth. As a lot of what is in the shop is unusual and unfamiliar it’s great to have yarn tasting type events where you can get a feel for how the yarn works, not just how it looks in the skein. You can be in love with the color of a yarn or how it feels in the skein but end up not liking working with it, which is a shame. I’m so excited to share the gorgeous yarns from The Fibre Co. we already have as well as introduce Arranmore to the world.
In store, we already stock Meadow, Cumbria Fingering, Acadia, Knightsbridge, Terra and Tundra. It’s a great range of yarns, each with their own beautiful handle and colour palette. I have been knitting a lot with The Fibre Co. in recent months, I made two hats from the Nordlándda collection in Tundra right before Christmas and then I made myself the Stranded Cowl by Julie Weisenberg in Tundra and Knightsbridge and it’s so amazing, I just made another one for my sister a couple of weeks ago. On the needles at the moment is also the Ingwer shawl by Melanie Berg in Cumbria Fingering Cowberry which I am loving making.
I thought I’d take the opportunity of Yarn Shop Day to showcase all the beautiful yarns from The Fibre Co. that we carry. It also very happily coincides with the arrival of Arranmore from the mill – that was lucky! We’ll be hosting a Yarn Tasting Saturday afternoon from 1-3pm which will be run a bit like speed dating. The tables will be full of started swatches of each of The Fibre Co. yarns that you’ll be able to knit with. After a couple rows with one yarn we’ll move on to the next. During the yarn tasting event we’ll be offering 10% off all The Fibre Co. yarns as well.”
We’re so excited to see all the fun Carmen shares from the day. If you can’t make it to A Yarn Story, you can find Carmen’s instagram account as @ayarnstory where we’re sure that she will be sharing her day!