STYLECRAFT SPECIAL DK - MADE IN YORSKSHIRE

Here at Janie Crow we have been struggling to keep a BIG yarny secret! None of us have let the cat out of the bag, and we didn't squeal under pressure over the last few days, but it is still a huge relief to finally be able to tell you this exciting news:

STYLECRAFT SPECIAL DK IS COMING HOME!

Spa Mill, the home of Stylecraft Yarns in the heart of West Yorkshire, has been home to spinning for well over one hundred years and it is so incredibly exciting to see them bringing state of the art technology back home to Yorkshire to produce their yarns in the UK.

The investment at Spa Mill includes a new dye house for acrylic and wool and new drying machinery for both. There are other new machines that are used to 'stretch break' the acrylic and 're-break' it, as well as a standard drawing line, a new assembly line, new twisting machines and a completely new balling plant. A combined heat and power plant, which produces electricity more efficiently than a normal gas fired power station and reuses the heat from the exhaust gases in the dye house, has also been invested in. The plant is also already hydrogen ready so it can move away from the use of natural gas in time.

These major advances mean that Stylecraft can be more efficient with resources, using less water and energy and so reducing their carbon footprint. By manufacturing in Yorkshire, they are also reducing transport distances, cutting both fuel consumption and pollution. 

The new home-made Special DK yarn is exactly as it has always been (although I think it might be even softer and squishier), with the weight and meterage the same as in the past. The really exciting thing for me is that the new yarns come in 20 extra shades that will join the existing range of 100 colours. I am already totally in love with Mistletoe, Purple Smoke, Pink Rhubarb and North Sea - they are just sooo good!!

Spectrum Yarns, the parent company of Stylecraft, have been producing worsted yarns for sports apparel (think golf sweaters and tank tops) for many years, so Spa Mill is already producing tons of yarn every year - a great thing given that so much of the UK's textile industry has gone abroad over the last few decades. Bringing the production of Special DK to the UK means that Stylecraft are the only acrylic manufacturer in Western Europe and they have taken a really big step by investing in British Industry. 
 
Andy and I were lucky enough to visit the mill a few weeks ago to see the production of the new Special DK colours in full flow and you can find some of my pics of the production line below. Doesn't that pink yarn look like candy floss? Or maybe a pink Mr Whippy ice cream? Yummy either way!

The twenty shades in the new Special DK collection have been chosen by Creative Director Annabelle Hill and the Stylecraft design team, as well as Lucy at Attic 24 who has a great eye for colour. The team looked at emails from consumers who recommended the type of shades they would like to see and then a final set of twenty were cherry picked from a broad range of one hundred shades. I love the fact that lots of the colours have names that link to Yorkshire, such as Mushy Peas and Pink Rhubarb, a name especially affiliated with the county as Yorkshire is famous for the quality of its rhubarb and back in its heyday there were 200 producers in the area!

Seeing the yarns in production was really interesting and I LOVED watching the really cleaver splicing machines that fix broken threads and the machines that slide the ball bands onto the balls of yarn - it was pretty mesmerising and I adored being surrounded by all that yarn and colour! Above you can see Poppy and below is Aquamarine - aren't they lovely!

Stylecraft hope that this new line of home-made yarn will pave the way for them to produce more yarns here in the UK and I would love to see some of the yarns with wool content coming through, such as my favourite Life DK.

As a designer I find choosing the yarns for a project is a bit of a juggling act. I want to source lovely colours that work in my designs (something that a huge palette like that of Special DK lends itself to brilliantly), whilst also considering the cost to my customers and the impact of it from an environmental perspective.

I see my projects as heirloom pieces and hope that home-made items such as my blankets will passed down through the generations. I hope that my choices do not align with those of fast fashion brands or throw away society and I am relieved to see that there has been a shift in perspective amongst the yarn buying community over the last few years, with more knitters and crocheters considering the environmental impact of their choices. Yarns like the UK produced Special DK are a big step in the right direction towards a more environmentally conscious yarn industry with lower transport costs, less waste and cleaner production at the heart of its production.

I have already started to use some of the new shades in the projects I am currently working on and I am looking forward to showing you what I come up with soon. If you want to get in on the act and source yourself some of the new yarns you will find the new range of Special DK colours in stock at your favourite yarn store from Friday 18th October. You can find stockists worldwide by following this link to the Stylecraft website and clicking on the map. 

I hope you will love it as much as I do!