Yak - A Yarn Store I Totally Love In Brighton

As the title of this post says, I totally love Yak! This yarn store is on Gloucester Road in Brighton England. I like it because it has lots of natural yarns as well as some locally-dyed yarns. I bought a couple of different shades of some locally-dyed yarn from there. Sadly I can't remember the name of the person or company that does the dying. I also enjoy the knitting social that happens every Thursday evening. There are a fair amount of people there normally and it's nice to meet new people and see what everyone is making. This is the only place I've been able to get hold of a ball-winder and swift. The ball-winder is for winding the skeins of yarn into balls of course. Actually this particular one winds it into more like cakes and I know some wind the yarn into a kind of doughnut shapes. The swift is a convenient way of holding the skein of yarn so it doesn't get tangled as you're winding it into a ball. The swift turns the skein around as you're winding it with the ball-winder, so I think it's pretty useful to have both going together. They don't weigh a lot at all, so it's pretty handy when travelling, especially since the swift comes apart. I really wish I could find a store that sold spinning-wheels etc or taught spinning classes. I really want to learn more about spinning yarn, but the classes are generally pretty expensive or else in out of the way places like on farms. I guess that makes logical sense sort of, as so much natural yarn is using animal fibres. I've noticed though that there seems to be a north-south relative divide in England (I'll write more about that in another post) in not only craft places, but things in general. As for craft shops and especially yarn stores and social things, I've noticed there are tonnes in the south of England and a fair mount in the likes of Yorkshire, buut so few in the northeast or even in the east of England in general. There are hardly any in Tyne And Wear. Come to think of it, the only yarn store I know that is still running is in Whitley Bay, but I don't know any knitting socials in the area. There were a couple of yarn stores in Newcastle, but I was told at least one of those closed down a couple of years ago. There was another yarn store of sorts in the next village from where my grandparents live in Lincolnshire (more in the direction of Norfolk), buut that was only open a pear to maybe a year and a half before closing down. A very short time really in terms of human history. To me it's like a blink of an eye - one minute it's there, then the next it's gne again.