London Craft Guide is a brand new guide to the knitting, sewing and haberdashery shops of London by the people who bring you the Great London Yarn Crawl every year. We are honoured to be included! To celebrate the launch of the book we will be hosting co-authors and organisers Allison Thistlewood and Rachel Brown for an afternoon talk on Saturday April 16th from 2-4pm. They will have all their samples from the new book and be on hand to chat about their events and the book. To top it all off, we will have 10% off all Knit With Attitude purchases for attendees on the day! Our shop isn’t very big, so if you are interested in attending, please RSVP with us to reserve a spot.

In advance of Allison and Rachel coming to the shop, we thought we would do a yarn pairing of the projects from the with yarns we have here at the shop.

First up we have Because Sock Yarn, by Kate Atherley. The name of the pattern really says it all, doesn’t it! What knitter hasn’t gone into a shop and seen a special skein of yarn and thought, it doesn’t really count, it’s only one skein of sock yarn! The flip side of course, is having a stash of single skeins that don’t all want to be turned into socks. Luckily Because Sock Yarn is here to fill that void! The pattern includes instructions for a small pair of fingerless mitts, and a co-ordinating shawlette. What better yarn for this than our brand new addition of Hedgehog Fibres Twist Sock?

The Candy Bag by Cecile Balladino is a project designed for being on the move. The bag is made of crocheted granny squares that are made individually (the perfect out and about project) which are then assembled into the bag shape before the handles are added. Then it makes a lovely bag that can be used to bring home the most recent stash purchases. A win-win! The squares could be done very easily in a rainbow of leftover scraps of 4ply, but would also be wonderful in a sock yarn like Manos Alegria.

Knightsbridge by Anniken Allis is a beautiful shawl that takes just one 100g skein of laceweight yarn. Perfect for throwing on over a sundress, or wrapping up against a blustery day. The pattern looks both simple and repetitive enough to not be stressful, but visually interesting to keep your focus. We would knit it in Scrumptious Lace from Fyberspates.

Hardly a collection is complete without a sock pattern, especially not a collection focusing on single skeins of yarn! The sock for this book is La Ville de l’Amour, by Fiona Hamilton-MacLaren. These feature a stitch pattern very similar to the Eiffel Tower (hence the name!) We would knit them up in one of the semi-solid colourways of Vivacious 4ply.

Next up there is South Bank, a beautiful shawl by K.M. Bedigan that comes in either a full circle or half circle option. The full circle version is inspired by the London Eye! We would love to knit it up in Sulka Legato, the silk and alpaca combo would have wonderful drape and sheen for the design.

A mandatory accessory for London is fingerless mitts. Perfect for changeable weather, and those not too cold temperatures in the winter. The colour combination for the Waterloo Mitts pictured was inspired by the Union Jack in red, white and blue, but there are endless palettes that you could use! We love pairing up colours from our stock of Blacker Swan for colourwork projects like this one.

Last but not least we have the Zigging Hat and Cowl, designed by Renée Callaghan. This chunky weight set are perfect for keeping warm in the winter and have great texture. We love the modern neutrals of Bio-Lana to show off all that stitch definition.