I am passionate about knitting – always have been; ever since my great-aunt taught me around the age of seven. All the women I knew knitted – so I guess I’m a product of my generation; just at the end of knitted balaclavas and just before shoulder pads were added to every garment! I knitted through my university years and bought my yarn at Borough Market (electric-blue raffia springs to mind); I knitted when I first worked in London and remember my first Rowan purchase from “Liberty” and I knitted on the commute up and down to Town when we moved to North Essex. So when I received a round–robin e-mail in 2008 to say that “yarnsmith.co.uk” was up for sale it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. Our children were quite small and living in a very rural hamlet, business ventures appeared few and far between so, within four weeks,  we found ourselves travelling to London, signing the paper work, packing the car with stock and heading back to set up the business from our spare bedroom.

How things have changed – we now have a purpose built studio in the garden; we have re-written and re-launched the website; every spare moment not running the shop is spent teaching, designing, demonstrating or talking yarn, every extra spare moment is spent knitting. What hasn’t changed is my passion for the craft – the indescribable joy and satisfaction I get from creating something totally unique out of scrumptious fibres and a series of knots! My passion to share this love and pass it on to seasoned and novice knitters alike is what drives me so I hope that our web-site inspires you to wield your needles afresh and continue the “knitting revolution!”

Becky Poynter