I am very aware that few of my lecturers (and therefore those assessing me) are not knitters or crocheters and are not immersed in our yarnie universe, so I thought I would take the opportunity to explain. The yarniverse is very similar to other crafty realms such as ceramics, woodworking, stone carving etc… there are global networks for socialising, knowledge sharing and selling. There are superstars of the knitting and crocheting communities, such as Attic 24 (crochet), Stephen West (knitting), Tin Can Knits, La Bien Aimee, Arne and Carlos, Brooklyn Tweed, Janie Crow…all with hundreds of thousands of followers on social media and whose patterns sell like hot cakes. They are based all over the world and have a global following.

There are yarn festivals in the UK most weekends throughout the year in many small towns with a big one like Wonderwool Wales, Yarndale, Edinburgh Wool Festival, Unravel, Yarningham, The Wool Monty etc… most months. the smaller ones are held in village halls, town markets or other buildings of that sort with maybe 5 – 20 stalls selling hand spun and/or dyed yarns, patterns and notions and the big ones are held in arena’s like the NEC and vast agricultural buildings like Builth Wells Royal Welsh Showground and Skipton Auction Mart. I have concentrated on the UK, but the same is happening all over Europe, America and the world!

Retreats, workshops and courses are incredibly popular with people teaching all aspects from spinning, dyeing, knitting, crochet, designing etc… Arne and Carlos (Norwegian knitting superstars) even run knitting cruises in collaboration with Hurtigruten!

Ravelry is at the core of the knitting, crocheting, weaving, spinning and dyeing community. They probably explain themselves better than I could:

About Ravelry

Ravelry is an inclusive, friendly website for knitters, crocheters, spinners, weavers, and dyers. We are made up of millions of yarn lovers from all over the world. Ravelry provides a personal notebook for fiber artists to keep track of their projects, yarns & fibers, tools, and pattern library, a rich database of patterns and yarns, and a community with thousands of forums and groups to connect with other Ravelers over any interest you could think of.

Everything on Ravelry is user-driven: we all help to make the site useful and fun. We are happy you are here! There are three main areas of Ravelry for you to explore:

They also provide a platform for any user to create a ‘designer’ profile and share their own designs either for free or for sale. They charge 3.5% commission for any sales, but provide incredibly helpful invoicing, data and automatic vat and tax calculations for selling globally so it’s well worth it!

Knit alongs or “KAL’s”, Crochet alongs “CAL’s” are hugely popular on social media. Groups of people decide to make the same pattern at the same time, supporting each other along the way if anyone struggles with any of the instructions and praising each others work along the way. These can be groups of a few friends who know each other in the real world, or for example the Stephen West Shawlography MKAL (Mystery Knit A Long) had over 11,000 joining in across the globe. In order to run an MKAL you need a lot of loyal followers and a clear design style as people are paying for a pattern they have not seen! They are generally released in 4 segments – one a week over 4 weeks so you don’t know what you are knitting until the 4th week. There are chat forums on Ravelry, Instagram and Facebook where the participants can share progress and speculate about what’s coming next – fun!

Knitting is no longer for little old ladies like Miss Marple – knitters are now all ages, genders, ethnicities, religions…yarn is for everyone! The opportunities are vast.

The Mintel Reports on Hobbies and Interests Report showed that my target audience is most likely to be women over 55, but this is not what I see at Yarn Festivals. I see mostly women between 30 and 50, but all ages, genders and ethnicities are present in large numbers.

My typical customer would be a knitter or crocheter full stop!

Although my research has shown my most likely audience to be women over 55, my yarns and patterns are designed with inclusivity in mind to appeal to all ages, genders, ethnicities and skill levels, however as I will be focusing on luxury yarns, they will be at the higher end of the price range for yarns. The cost of materials and time investment in hand dyeing the yarns will make them uncompetitive with cheaper, big brand yarns, so I will be marketing to wealthier customers with regards to the yarn.  My patterns, however will have no material costs and it will not be necessary to use my yarns to follow them – they will be compatible with cheaper, big brand yarns and so will be more affordable to all.

I have done a lot of academic research, time for some fun research! I have had a couple of informal chats with friends in the industry – mainly with Sarah Laible Hollandsworth as she is based in the US and has retired and therefore wouldn’t see me as competition! She gave me great advice and alleviated some of my concerns! I had been worried whether I only see the front line smiles and cheerfulness of vendors at yarn festivals and maybe behind the scenes it was actually very catty and competitive. She assured me most are friendly, collaborative and helpful. I checked with a couple of Brits I know too and they agreed!

Her advice was as follows:

make sure there is room for people to walk around – if one person is looking at your stall, everyone else will pile in as they want to know what caught the first persons eye & don’t want to miss out!

People don’t look at anything below knee level.

Fingering/4ply/sock weight yarn sells best, followed by dk, then lace, then worsted.

Always wear your yarn, always be working with your yarn, always have samples of your yarn worked up to show the drape, colour pooling and lack of colour pooling.

In the States people are veering away from speckled yarns and semi solid, tonal and solid colours are on trend.

Expect to sell between 60 – 100 skeins on the Saturday & 40 – 70 on the Sunday. Be prepared for shops wanting to stock your yarns and ask you to do workshops.

I then spoke to Michelle of Woolly Wumpkins – a local dyer and designer from Tonypandy. She confirmed something I had suspected – Wonderwool Wales is lovely behind the scenes, whereas Yarndale had a horrible atmosphere. She said she also had one of her worst takings at Yarndale – only £40 for the whole day. Considering the cost of a stand (£180 plus VAT), travelling and accommodation that’s quite a significant loss. She has always made a good profit at Wonderwool though, even though it’s a similar cost. She recommended smaller venues such as West Wales Wool Show as she has found she makes more sales in much smaller venue and you can chat to people more easily. I have therefore decided to apply to exhibit here as my first venture!

I visited Wonderwool Wales this year and chatted to a few vendors I follow on Instagram. I was nervous they would think I was stealing their idea’s or muscling in on their business, but they were actually very encouraging. Sealy Macwheely confirmed that Wonderwool is definitely worth it – she always makes a good profit and confirmed what I thought – most people take cards and buy from the website in the following week, so it’s as much about marketing as sales on the day.

I got lots of ideas of what works and what doesn’t with the stall set ups too. And I noticed that one stall was selling their sock yarn at £10 per skein (usual price £16 – £18) and people were avoiding it like the plague. It had no logo/information bands around it, the yarn was out in the middle of the stand rather than around the edges and it looked unprofessional, even though the yarn was probably just as good as anyone elses.

I also had a chat with a lady on the Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Guild but I’m not sure it’s for me.