We have booked a lot of shows for this year and are really looking forward to them!

Here is a list of what we are doing:

Jun 1st 2018  - Leeds Wool Festival at  the Grade 11 listed Armley Mills, once the world's biggest woollen mill.

June 28th and 29th 2019 - Woolfest, Cockermouth.

August 3rd and 4th 2019 - WoolNess, Newcatle upon Tyne

August 9th and 10th 2019- British Wool Show, Murton, York

August 31st and September 1st - Southern Wool Show, Newbury Racecourse

September 7th and 8th - Perth Festival of Yarn, Perth

September 28th and 29th - Yarndale, Skipton

This year was the first year we attended Wonderwool Wales. We had heard so many good things about it but always seemed to be still lambing at the time it was on. This year we chaged the dates the rams went in and kept our fingers crossed. We got in! We were so excited.

Packing for the show was very fraught as we didn't know what to take, how much to take and eventually took lots of everything. I remembered to book a B& B, which was so beautiful ,  set in 6000 acres. Stunning describes it best.

The drive down took us 6 hours as the weather was really bad. Rain, wind, storms, you name it, we got it! The organisation at the show was really good with lots of helpers to point out directions for us. The stall was brilliant and it only took half the time to set up the stand that it normally takes.

The next morning we arrived bright and early to finish putting out the yarn, patterns, pattern book and all other yarnie trhings.

Then came the crowds. There seemed to be thousands of visitors streaming in, all complaining about the weather and how cold it was. it certainly was. We had all the spare jumpers, hast, mitts and scarvers piled on. Business was brisk and we didnt really have time to have a look around at the other stands. At the end of the day we drove back to the B & B and slept so well.

Sunday was a lovely day. The sun was out and the visitors came. Maybe not quite as many as on Saturday, but still a lot. We worked really hard both days to get our message about our slaughter free  Border Leicester yarn and our products out and I think we managed it. Finally at the end of the day we packed up and drove home. This time we managed it in 5 hours thankfully.

We really enjoyed rhe show and hope we will be lucky enough to get it again next year!

The shows are getting underway now, and we started off the year with Spring into Wool which was held  at Leeds at the Grammar School. The venue is wonderful and the event was extremely well organised , as always,by Nick Milton and his wife Natasha.

Lots of good vendors there in various rooms and the customers came in by the busload. Saturday was a Ticket only day with Sunday being an "anyone can come" day.

We launched our brand new  Limited Edition accessories pattern book there, The First Yorkshire Moors Collection. All the patterns were designed especially for our yarn and are beautiful. Hats, Mittens, Scarves, Shawlettes, Cowls. Yummy! It was very well received by the Public and sold very well. We also launched a range of 25g 4 ply mini skeins for colour work.

It was a good show and we look forward to returning next year!

I am so pleased to be able to let you all know trhat we are launching our first new Accessory Pattern book on the 1st April 2019.

All the patterns in it have been designed to be knit with our fabulous yarn, and the designers have produced some wonderful patterns for us. Most of the patterns are brand new with a few stalwarts included. 

Our existing patterns sell so well at shows, as either stand alone patterns or as part of our knitting kits and we have been frequently asked about extending the range, which is what we have decided to do by producing the book.

There will be 12 patterns in the book, none of which will be available elsewhere.

I am so pleased to be able to let you know that we are expecting three new spring colours at the beginning of April.

We are launching a wonderful Coral, which is so vibrant, with a very exciting Turquoise. These will be both available in DK and 4 ply.

We are also launching Mount Grace, a beautiful creamy oatmeal, which is currently only in Aran. This will also be available in DK and 4ply.

This will be our 3rd full year of producing our wonderful unique,single farm, slaughter free, rare breed, British Border Leicester yarn.  All our yarn is from our flock and has Full Provenence.

We have learned a lot as we have gone on our journey. We have done some things right and we have made a few mistakes along the way, which we quickly rectified. I think that our yarn is absolutely wonderful and our customers also appear to think that too. We don't have a bricks and mortar shop but sell on line and things are going pretty well for us at the moment due to all the work we do in the background.

We have expanded our range of colours from the original four to our present range of 20 in DK and 4ply. Our Aran range now has 8 stunning colours in it.

We have expanded our product range to now include knitting kits, patterns, tops, mini skeins and are constantly looking to what else can bring value to our brand.

On 1st April we will be launching something special which I hope everyone of you will love. A lot of our customers have mentioned this over the last year and who are we not to give them what they want?

Watch this space.

I am pleased to be able to let you know that we will be launching 3 brand new Spring  colours on the 1st April, Coral, Turquoise and our existing Mount Grace , which is currently only available in Aran, will be available in DK and 4ply.

Here's a list of  the shows  we have been accepted into, starting in April.

We start the year at Spring into Wool, at Leeds Grammar School on the 13th and 14th April 2019.

Always a particularly well organised show,  run by Nick and Natasha, we are really looking forward to this one.

Wonderwool, Builth Wells, Saturday and Sunday the 27th and 28th April.

We have never been here before but have heard lots of great things about it! we are really looking forward to it!

Leeds Wool Festival at Armley Mills in the Industrial Museum on the 1 st June. Again we have never been here before but have heard very good things about it!

Back to one of our very favourite shows, Woolfest, which is held in Cockermouth in Cumbria on Frtiday the 28th June and Saturday the 29th June. We love it!!!

WoolNess is a new show, and is being held in the Life Science Centre in Newcastle on the 2nd to 4th of August. Looking forward to it very much!

Good old British Wool Show at York Auction Mart on the 9th and 10th August.We always like to return there!

Obviously we are still waiting to hear back from  Yarndale and a couple of others. We will add new ones to our list!

We had a terrible winter in 2017, cold and wet ,which left us with no grass to winter the sheep on.It didn't improve much over the spring which was so late. The ground was like the grave, cold and damp and again, not good for grass growing. we couldn't turn the lambs out because of the weather and our fodder went so quickly. We were looking for hay in April and were paying a premium for it.

Suddenly we had a heatwave and the grass grew. Then we had no rain and what grass we had disappeared never to return properly, which caused major problems with the crops. We waited for the chance of a second crop but things were bad.

Sheep sales were terrible as people had no keep for either sheep or cattle and a lot went for slaughter. Prices for hard feed went up and have kept going up. Cost of feeding our flock was horrendous, but you cant just give up. Sheep have to be fed to produce good fleeces and we have kept them going well.

I really hope that this next year is not going to be as bad as last.