2024 Mill Open Weekend Specials
As part of our annual Mill Open Weekend shenanigans, we always create a limited-edition mini collection of yarn and tops to help celebrate in style. All these beauties (and a few other goodies) will be available on our website (as part of our Virtual MOW celebrations) from the 6th July!
This year we’ve been even more excited than usual, as we’ve been collaborating with some rather fabulous designers! Emily Wessel (Tin Can Knits), Aleks Byrd, and Ysolda Teague-Long have each created custom shades of our beloved Yarnadelic. We’ve gotta hand it to them, they certainly have an eye for colour, so we’re just smitten with the shades they’ve blended up for us! Yarnadelic is made with Falklands Corriedale so it’s wonderfully soft and bouncy with a glorious range of heathered, music-inspired shades, perfect for everything from garments to accessories.
And for all you tops lovers out there, we’ve joined forces with two of our favourite spinning experts Becks (Tiny Fibre Studio) and Amanda Hannaford this year.
Meet The Specials…
Emily’s Yarn Special – ‘Moonage Daydream’
Emily is one half of the brilliant Tin Can Knits who create wonderfully playful, inclusive and creative knitwear patterns for all ages and sizes. We’re huge fans of their designs and absolutely love some of the patterns they’ve designed in our Yarnadelic range (like the Starflower Blanket and Tarn Shawl) so we were completely thrilled when Emily said she’d like to create a limited edition shade for us – and cor blimey what a delight it is too!
Emily’s punchy and playful shade perfectly blends brighter greens and blues with darker tones, creating a delicious, heathered teal. All our Yarnadelic shades are named after songs and this heathered teal was just crying out for a space-age party anthem, so Emily selected ‘Moonage Daydream’ by David Bowie. We can just imagine that vibrant teal complimenting his auburn quiff perfectly.
Available in: Sport – 333m per 100g (3/10nm) / Worsted – 214m per 100g (3/6.4nm) / fibre tops
Composition: 100% Falklands Corriedale
Click here to pick up a shadecard
Aleks’ Yarn Special – ‘Dark Star’
Aleks Byrd is an illustrator and designer with an impeccable eye for colour. Her knitwear patterns combine modern design with hints of her Estonian heritage, and we love her unique perspective. Aleks is becoming a bit of a regular at our Mill Open Weekend and we’re chuffed that she’s also created this year’s MOW graphic – a dancing, dungaree-wearing, music-loving crafter – more on her coming very soon!
Aleks’ sophisticated shade is a subtle blend of deep chocolate, with joyous flecks of red, blue and orange exploding like fibre fireworks! This colour is a great moody but warm neutral that goes perfectly with the rest of the Yarnadelic palette. She has named her colourway ‘Dark Star’ after the Crosby, Stills and Nash song, which is a fitting 70s vibe for this fabulous shade – a little bit funky, a little bit soulful, perfect for any occasion.
Available in: Sport – 333m per 100g (3/10nm) / Worsted – 214m per 100g (3/6.4nm) / fibre tops
Composition: 100% Falklands Corriedale
Click here to pick up a shadecard
Ysolda’s Yarn Special – ‘Space Talk’
We have long been admirers of Ysolda’s work as a designer and are constantly inspired by her ingenious techniques and colour play. We were thrilled she decided to blend a shade for us and we love the playful pastel shade she’s created. It perfectly encapsulates the magic of a heathered shade, at first glance its a pale teal, but then the closer one looks the more nuances one sees!
Ysolda’s delicate pastel is a mix of bright blues, yellows and pale naturals, with a pop of orange here and there. It feels fresh, zingy and a little ethereal just like the shades inspiration ‘Space Talk’ by Asha Puthli a delicate synthed up spacey disco track.
Available in: Sport – 333m per 100g (3/10nm) / Worsted – 214m per 100g (3/6.4nm) / fibre tops
Composition: 100% Falklands Corriedale
Click here to pick up a shadecard
Becks’ Tops Special – ‘Halftone’
An educator by trade with a background in film and television, Becks combined her professional experience and love of fibre arts in 2017 with the launch of her YouTube channel, Tiny Fibre Studio. There she shares the projects she’s working on and provides instructional content for other spinners. We’re also chuffed to bits to say she’s joined our team here at the Mill – we’re very lucky to have her! In addition to her duties as a Mill Folk, she is also teaching at our MOW this year – so we asked her to create a limited edition top.
And cor blimey, Halftone is just the most fun! Inspired by CMYK printing, she’s created a striped sensation of cyan, magenta and yellow which can be spun in a multitude of different ways – either separated out to create three shades in one, or all spun together to create a dark, heathered colour.
Composition: 89% Falklands Corriedale / 5.5% Falklands Merino / 5.5% Bluefaced Leicester
Amanda’s Tops Special – ‘Whipsiderry’
Spinning teacher extraordinaire, Amanda is a good friend of ours here at the Mill. Amanda has been spinning for about forty years, and dyeing for nearly as long and for the last few years she’s been sharing her knowledge with us at our Mill Open Weekends.
With her seasoned eye for colour, we knew Amanda would produce a truly sensational top and she did not disappoint! She’s created a stunning mix of Alpaca, Silk, Corriedale and Merino with a super-soft handle and subtle sheen – a seriously luxurious blend of blues, purples and greens. Amanda was inspired by the rockpools in the stunning Cornish seascape of Whipsiderry beach – known to locals as Mermaid’s Pool. We reckon she’s nailed the inspiration perfectly with those bands of purples, blues and just a touch of white, evoking these stunning rockpools.
Composition: 38% Falklands Merino / 38% Corriedale / 14% Alpaca / 10% Silk
Limited Edition Tote & Enamel Badge – Yarnadelic Knitster Gal
So not only did our pal Aleks Byrd design a special colour for our MOW this year, she also created this glorious limited edition design for us. This fab knitster gal has popped on her favourite playlist and is having a proper disco party whilst she spends the day skeining yarn. Aleks has perfectly captured the playful spirit of our Yarnadelic, with its musical inspiration.