Interview: Artesano

What exciting yarns and accessories do you have at Artesano at the moment?
We recently launched our first hand painted ranges. Hand Painted DK and Hand Painted 4ply Alpaca blend are both made with a combination of soft alpaca and Peruvian highland wool, which combines the loftiness of wool with the softness of alpaca. This creates a wonderful blend that we use in our Alpaca Heather DK and Aran yarns. The hand painted effect is very good as well as it does not pool as much as other methods of space dyeing. We also launched a Hand Painted Lace which is the same blend as our Alpaca Silk Lace (solid colours) and Alpaca silk 4ply. This is a really luxurious yarn blend that has been very popular this year.
Our Asymmetric Needles from Kinki Amibari have also been a real hit, they are really good for projects where knitters need to create a smaller circumference, such as socks, sleeves, toys and so on. KA needles are so lovely and we think they are the best bamboo needles out there.
We have also launched a knitting needle wax from Brittany Knitting Needles and Crochet hooks. This is a wonderful, vanilla scented cream that enhances any wooden or bamboo knitting needles.
Neko cable needles have also been a big hit this year, with their clever cable design that stops stitches falling off your needles. They are continuing to bring out more interesting needles this year.

You have a wonderful range of colour packs. Could you tell us why these are such good value for money?
We recently moved our whole operation over to retail only so we now only sell our products directly via our website www.artesanoyarns.co.uk. This means that our prices are up to 50% cheaper for the same products and they are available worldwide. It is very important to us not to compromise the quality of our products and we have not changed the fibre content of anything that we sell.
Colour packs are a great source of inspiration for knitters, crocheters, weavers or felters. We know our colours, and these packs offer some ideas. It is then up to the crafter to create something wonderful out of them.

Could you tell us a little more about the Artesano Academy?
Artesano Academy is the brain child of Jenny Coomber (we are a husband and wife team). As well as jointly running the business, she is a keen knitter and more recently a crocheter. At our premises in Swallowfield we have a large room, which is perfect for a classroom and we have converted it for this cause so that people can learn to knit or crochet in a peaceful environment. We are going to be running a number of courses every month from ‘Learn to do Amigurami’ to ‘Learn to Crochet’ to ‘Tunisian Crochet’ and our Knitting classes will be launched soon as well. We are making these really special so that anybody who visits has a great experience and leaves feeling happy and with a full goody bag too!

What inspires your amazing range of yarn shades?
We work through yarn shades together. We discovered early on that it is a bad idea for just one person to be involved in choosing colours. We sell to such a broad spectrum of people that we need to create a palette that will inspire as many people as possible. I have a tendency to choose bright colours and need to be toned down sometimes. We take each yarn and we already know which section of the market it is for and this leads our decision making on what kind of palette to go for. Our Sock Yarn (Definition) has quite a bright colour palette as sock knitters often go that way, but we have also included quite a few more muted colours. Aran Wool has many melange colours and a group of solids that are brighter, so that people can make garments and accessories out of the colours. Our Alpaca Heather was designed for people to make garments from, so it has a lot of darker colours and more muted tones.

Could you provide us with further details of your extensive pattern range?
All of our knitting patterns are completely free to download. People can source them on our website and download them in a format that is easy to print. They are also available on ravelry so that people can keep them in their folders on there as well if they like. We have a full range of free knitting patterns from cardigans to socks and in all weights. Of course all of our yarns can be knitted in any knitting patterns if you do a tension square and equally our patterns can be used with any yarn, but of course, they are best used with Artesano products as they were designed for that use.

Do you have any exciting discounts for our reader to take advantage of this month?
Our 20% sale ended last month, but we have decided to extend it for all readers of Lets Knit. If you use the code LETSKNIT20 at the checkout or if you phone us to order on 0118 9503350 then you can quote it over the phone. For all your overseas readers, don’t forget that we ship to every country in the world and we send out many parcels internationally every day. It costs just £4.50 per shipment for postage to Europe and £6 anywhere else in the world and they can usually pay in their own currency.

What’s on the horizon for Artesano?
Artesano has a new business model for selling wool and yarn that benefits the knitter or crocheter. We have based this on a combination of amazing pricing, good quality products and excellent customer service. They can now buy luxurious yarns and wools at affordable prices. As long as people still want to buy our yarns, we will continue to offer them. In the Spring we are launching our new ranges, so keep looking at our website for more details.

For more info, yarn, accessories and patterns, visit www.artesanoyarns.co.uk