Guides

Short, practical answers to the questions we get asked most often about yarn and knitting tools. Each guide sticks to what can actually be checked: needle sizes, metres per ball, fibre content, and what the terms on a yarn band are defined to mean.

Fibres

Alpaca Yarn. What makes alpaca yarn special: huacaya vs suri, micron grades, blends with silk and mohair, and three alpaca lines worth knitting.
Merino Yarn. What makes merino wool soft and itch-free: micron counts from ultrafine to extrafine, moisture absorption, superwash treatment, care rules, and the GOTS-certified Merry Merino line by Kremke.
Mohair and Mohair-Silk Yarn. What mohair is and why it is blended with silk: the halo, warmth, kid mohair, and five mohair-silk lines from lace to chunky.
Silk Yarn. What silk does in yarn: the four silk types, two pure-silk lines and the blends - plus care tips for knitting with silk.
Cotton Yarn. What pure cotton does best, how lyocell and polyester blends change the hand, and how weight, gauge and washing decide the project.
Which Wool To Choose. Microns, breeds and blends: what merino, mohair, alpaca and plain wool do best, how to read the yarn band, and which wool suits sensitive skin.
Yarn For Sensitive Skin. Sensitive skin? Fibres that stay comfortable: organic cotton, fine merino, alpaca, cashmere and mohair - with lines to start from.
Tweed Yarn. Where tweed comes from, what makes tweed yarn special and what to knit with it: Loch Lomond, Hamelton Tweed and a free beanie pattern.

Projects

How To Choose Yarn For Socks. A practical guide to sock yarn: why the 75/25 wool-polyamide blend wears best, when to pick 100% wool or cotton, and which meterage and gauge to look for.
Yarn For Beginners. Fibre, weight and ply without the panic: why first projects want a smooth DK merino, a light colour and an honest gauge swatch.
Baby Yarn: How To Choose. What makes a yarn baby-safe: soft fibres, merino and cotton for newborns, natural vs synthetic blends, easy care - plus GOTS-certified lines to start with.
How Much Yarn For A Sweater. Work out sweater yarn quantity from your own gauge swatch instead of guessing. A worked example in metres, plus how to read metres per ball and buy one dye lot.
Summer Yarn. How cotton, linen and silk blends behave differently from wool, what they suit, and what to change about gauge, needles and washing in warm-weather knitting.

Brands

BC Garn Yarn Guide. What Bio Balance, Bio Shetland, Alba and Hamelton Tweed are made of, meterage, needles, colours - and the projects each BC Garn line suits best.
Kremke Soul Wool Yarns. Merry Merino with GOTS in four weights, Silky Kid mohair-silk and 400 m baby alpaca lace: the Kremke Soul Wool families, with facts from the product cards.

Sustainability

Eco-Friendly Yarn. GOTS, OEKO-TEX, mulesing-free, undyed, recycled. What each yarn label is defined to cover, what it leaves out, and how to check a claim before you buy.
GOTS Certified Yarn. What the GOTS certificate guarantees for yarn: organic fibres, no toxic dyes, social standards - and the GOTS lines we stock, from Bio Shetland to The Merry Merino.

Tools

Knitting Needles For Beginners. Which knitting needles to start with: needle types explained, mm to US size conversion, how to pick the size your yarn asks for, and when a set is worth buying.
Interchangeable Needles. How interchangeable needle systems work: tips, cables and connectors, their pros and cons - plus five systems from addi, KnitPro, ChiaoGoo, LYKKE and Seeknit.

Substitutions

Yarn substitutes. Find close alternatives by fibre, length per 50 g, gauge and needle size; where nothing is close enough, the page says so.