yarn info
I take ages to search out the best yarns I can find on your behalf, and only the very best make it onto The Yarn Yard menu.
These are the yarns in the current range.
bonny - This is the workhorse of the yarn-stash.
It knits into great hardwearing socks, and does double duty for scarves and shawls.
There are three types of dyeing used, each producing a different result.
Variegated yarns will pattern on a stocking stitch sock.
Almost-solid yarns have some "movement" which can only be produced by hand dyeing.
Adventure yarns are unique, an unpredictable and interesting knit. The photo on the front page of the shop shows an Adventure yarn.
Each 100g skein gives 420m of yarn.
beautiful - 100% Bluefaced Leicester sock weight yarn.
This is a Superwash yarn.
400m/100g.
hug - fabulous 100% Organinc merino yarn.
It's wonderfully soft, and falls somewhere between sock-yarn weight and DK.
This is the yarn which is used for the famous Cranford Mitts, designed by Jane Lithgow, the pattern for which is available as a download from the patterns section.
The skeins are approximately 100g and 330m, one skein would be enough for two pairs of mitts with leftovers for the edges, or for a warm scarf or a hat.
It's a handwash only yarn, not "superwash".
lochan - beautifully silky and soft, perfect for scarves and shawls.
50% merino 50% tencel
330m/100g
caber - described by customers as a "cool" knit.
Despite being 75% wool, it doesn't seem to get hot in your hands while you knit - perhaps due to the 25% bamboo component.
Each 100g skein contains at least 450m of yarn.
It has an unusual, more "heathery" appearance bringing a subtlety to the colourways offered.
It's not as bouncy as a regular sock yarn, but has lovely drapey qualities and is perfect for scarves.
mist - where do lace-weight and cobweb-weight start and finish? Tricky question isn't it?
This yarn is firmly in the cobweb-weight category.
2 ply, 100% Organic merino, with 1000m to 65g per skein.
It blocks perfectly, and has a great twist, enough to stop it separating as you knit, but not so much that you are knitting with sewing thread.
toddy - the perfect pick-me-up!
Toddy is 75% merino for softness and cossetting and a cuddle when you need it, and 25% nylon for strength.
420m/100g.
machair - comes from a Gaelic word that describes an extensive low-lying fertile plain. Almost half of all Scottish machair occurs in the Outer Hebrides and it is one of the rarest habitat types in Europe.
"Machair" is so important in ecological and conservational terms, that it has now become a recognised scientific term. Different authorities give the term different definitions: a type of sand dune pasture that is subject to local cultivation and has developed in wet and windy conditions; or the whole system, from the beach to where the sand encroaches onto peat further inland.
The machair land is home to rare carpet flowers, such as Irish Lady's Tresses, Orchids, and Yellow Rattle. The Hebridean machair is also the last stronghold of the Corncrake. Twite, Dunlin, Redshank and Ringed Plover also thrive on the machair lands: there are over 17,000 pairs of waders breeding on the Uist and Barra machair alone - the most numerous being the Pewit or Lapwing.
The machair is precious and unique, and this yarn and its carefully selected colourways has those qualities too.
aurora - the aurora borealis are the Northern Lights, seen in the night sky in the north of Scotland in Autumn and Spring.
The Cree call them "The Dance of the Spirits".
Aurora yarn is 80% merino and 20% silk which gives it an ethereal gleam as it catches the light and the twist provides a wonderful stitch definition.
Each skein has a generous 1200m per 100g.
