Blue Monday

Yesterday was Blue Monday – said by some to be the most depressing day of the year.

Blue Monday was originally dreamt up by psychologist Dr Cliff Arnall in 2004 as a way to help a travel company sell holidays.  He even devised this formula for it:  

 

 

As a nod to this epic piece of marketing genius we have decided to use today’s post to highlight some blue items that have caught our attention and share them with you.

 

 

 

for more about all the featured products

 

Flora Fibres Yarn can be found here:  florafibresyarn

Iolair Yarn can be found here:  iolairyarn

Moorit is stocked in a number of local yarn stores across Scotland and Worldwide.  You can also buy either a physical or digital directly from them here:  moorit

Popcorn + Crocodiles are here on the internet:  popcornandcrocodiles

Mothy and the Squid need no introduction, but you will find Jillian’s current collection here:  mothyandthesquid

Sunshine on Leith is the current instalment in our Collab Club.  Pre-orders will close on 21 February.  To secure yours please complete our order form here:  our-collab-club.  For everything else Bobble and Badger related visit here:  BobbleandBadger

 

What You Were Making In 2022

We’re a little late to all the reviews and wrap ups that traditionally happen at the end of the year or beginning of the new; but I’m sure we can be forgiven due to our tardiness being caused by our change over from Perth Festival of Yarn to The Scottish Yarn Festival!  Still, it’s better late than never and in this post we wanted to share some of your makes with what you’ve found at our events, or special collaborations, during 2022.

We decided to pick a random twelve in a nod to how many months we have in the year, and we’ve made our selection from those we’ve been tagged in on social media, as well as trying to represent both knitting and crochet.  So, without further ado, here are your wonderful creations from the past year which we hope will inspire you all as you plan your projects for 2023.

 

 

The wonderful @woolkinsonknits made a hat with a DK weight skein of ‘Hot Fuss’ by Edelweiss Fibres which was released as part of our 2022 Hit Parade Collab Club.

@unaroodesigns snapped up a cone of DK weight Castlemilk Moorit x Teeswater from Caithness Yarns at our inaugural Scottish Wool Producers Showcase in April and made herself this fab and functional Over It Slipover by Lily Kate Makes.

Our long time girl crush @needleandfred came up from Manchester to visit us at Perth Festival of Yarn this year as she was taking a year out from vending responsibilities, but she honoured us not only by creating our Official Commemorative Skein for the event but also by rocking up wearing a Love Note Sweater by Tin Can Knits in said colourway!

@laurenknitsx picked up the 2020 Advent Calendar Kit from Wee County Yarns in September and in no time at all had whizzed up this wonderful Christmas Socking for her little one.

 

 

@bobbleandbadger_yarns couldn’t resist a skein of fingering weight Bride of Frankenstein from BuzzinYarns to make these vibrant socks.

@h_crochetsthings hooked up this beanie from their own pattern back in February with a DK skein of Summer Nights by @kalokshekellen from Perth 2021.

@eliza_b_makes was another crocheter quick off the mark with her cosy wrist warmers.  She used a @zeensandroger pattern from Inside Crochet and yarn from @zakamiyarns

@hannahkross was specifically on the hunt for a skein of sock yarn she could knit with while taking part in the Kiltwalk this autumn.  She chose this skein of self-striping from @fibrepunk

 

 

@life_at_westering paired her beautiful Zakami Yarn with the Bridesmaid Shawl by Michelle DuNaier which looks perfect with their woollen coat.

@karolines.knits was looking to explore no-nylon sock yarns and after speaking with the inspirational @annfieldangoras crafted these Morrison Socks by Jenny Blumenstein in just over a week.

We were honoured to have esteemed designer and author, @purlemma, join us at Perth last year.  Emma created her Merrow Berries pattern especially to showcase the Haste Ye Back collection of mini skeins we put together as a collaboration with ten Scottish dyers in 2021.

@commuter_knitter snapped up a fingering weight skein of sock yarn from @atthisyarns to use as the main colour in her pair of ‘Perth Socks.’

 

We’d love to feature more of your makes on our Community page throughout the coming year, so please do continue to tag us in your social media posts with anything you have made with yarn or fibre from any of the events we have curated for you since 2016.  Where possible we’ve added the Instagram handles of all makers so that you can go and give them some love and see what other crafty endeavours they’ve been up to.

 

The Makes We Make Again And Again

Forming a carefully curated library of timeless patterns is as essential as building up your own yarn collection.   The patterns that make up my own tend to be those that first come to mind when I’m thinking about gift knitting, and more often than not, they are also the perfect solution to that age old question, “what can I make with this single hand dyed skein that I couldn’t do without?”

I went in search of a classic fingering weight ribbed hat to cast on ahead of my long journey on the Megabus to Yarningham last July and found ‘Ribbed Toque #120’ by Michelle Porter (Fondle Designs.)  Then I had a good rummage in my yarn collection before picking out a skein of ‘You Can’t Seee Meee’ by Lime & Violet.  Completed long after I made it home, and following my turn to catch The Virus, it’s snug and ready for the chilly Scottish winter ahead:

 

 

Since that time I’ve made one for My Favourite Person, who needs functional garments as he works in all weathers all year round.  His was made from a cone of JC Rennie Shetland Bluestone which I found in a local charity shop for the princely sum of 50p!

 

 

But I didn’t stop there.  My third – and maybe not – final version of the year is this one in ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ by BuzzinYarns, which will be given to a friend as a winter gift alongside a pre-loved book next month.

 

 

For more about the pattern

Ribbed Toque #120 by Michelle Porter is available free* from LoveCrafts here:  ribbed-toque

 

For more about buzzinyarns

BuzzinYarns is Karen, a Scottish yarn dyer, and recipient of the Spirit of the Festival Award at the 2022 Perth Festival of Yarn.  You can find her current collections here:  buzzinyarns

 

Our Collab Club

The Perth Collab Club – a monthly yarn club – was originally formed at the end of 2020 as a way of our festival working together and continuing to lift up indie dyers in our community when so much still remained uncertain with the pandemic and Brexit looming.  We settled on a ‘Brighter Days’ theme, reached out to 12 different dyers so we could feature 1 a month, and like most things Perth, it was planned to be a one-off project.

The response to our Collab Club was so enthusiastic that we decided to do it all again with 12 different dyers in 2022 – and a new theme – Hit Parade.  Why Hit Parade?  Music has always been an extremely important part of my life.  It’s what moved me at 17 from the West Coast of Scotland to Perth, where I, armed with my saxophone, came to get my degree in Popular Music Performance.

Music provides the soundtrack to our lives.  We all remember what was playing in the background at key moments.  We are sung lullabies to soothe us as babes; couples have “their song.”  Buying a record and taking it home for the first play was always an event in itself.  Having saved up pocket money and – latterly – wages from babysitting and a paper round – there was not much more exciting as a teenager than to greedily take in every little detail of the cover art – and if you were lucky the gatefold too – before pouring over the lyric sheets.

Today we share the details for our 2023 Collab Club, but before we do that Pop-Pickers, we thought we’d take a moment and run down all the skeins that made up our virtual jukebox this year:

 

 

FibrePunk kicked us off in January with ‘Post’ by Björk, followed in February by Quack Yarn with ‘Insomniac’ by Green Day, and Knit Me Sane’s ‘Oh, Billy Brown!” by Mika in March.

 

 

April featured Giddy Yarns with ‘The Chances of Anything Coming from Mars are a Million to One’ from The War of the Worlds by Jeff Wayne, followed in May with BuzzinYarns and ‘Kind’ by Stereophonics, and Curated Yarn Co’s ‘Purple Rain’ by Prince and the Revolution in June.

 

 

In July we had Bow Fiddle Yarns with ‘Hysteria’ by Def Leppard, Mad Madam Mel with ‘Hounds of Love’ by Kate Bush in August, and Edelweiss Fibres chose ‘Hot Fuss’ by The Killers for September.

 

 

Then to bring us up to date we’ve had AMOyarn’s ‘Like a Bat Out of Hell’ by Meat Loaf in October, ‘NOW! That’s What I Call…’ from the compilation series by Weku Yarn for November, and to close out the year Atthis Yarns and ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham!  (pre-orders are still open for this one here:  perth-collab-club

If you came to Perth Festival of Yarn in September then you may have seen the display jukebox that My Favourite Person built as a surprise, and because he too loved seeing how all the dyers translated their inspiration over the year.

 

 

When thinking about what we should do for 2023 there was no doubt in my mind that we should keep this theme for a while longer; so I present to all of you – Hit Parade Vol.2 featuring the following artists:

 

 

Sealy MacWheely, Bobble & Badger Yarns, James Makes Yarn, Dystopic Fibre, WooSheeps, YarnTings, Hey Mama Yarns, Blue Fern Yarns, Big Tree Yarns, Nervus Fibre, Flyy Dyed, and Nightingale Knits.