48 Championing yarn shops! Jamie Brett from James C Brett, Chairman of UK Hand Knitting, talks us through the exciting plans for the organisation for the rest of 2024! Tell us a bit about UK Hand Knitting. UK Hand Knitting is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 1940, dedicated to supporting, developing and promoting independent bricks and mortar yarn shops in the UK and striving to create a broader awareness of yarn craft. We directly target consumer spending decisions with the support of our partners in the press, retailers and our own media platforms, encouraging consumers to visit their local yarn shop for their supplies. Each year we hold two nationwide campaigns to encourage crafters to visit their local yarn shop. The Great British Yarn Crawl takes place from mid-April to June and Yarnstravaganza™ at the end of September with lots of fun and prizes to be won. We champion the crafts of knitting and crochet across social media, celebrating creativity with lots of hints and tips for crafters. Our monthly newsletters help inform consumers about what’s new from our members as well as signposting events around the country. You can join our mailing list here. Who can get involved and how? All bricks and mortar yarn and craft shops in the UK that stock products from at least one of our members can take out a premium subscription with us. Retail shop subscribers are featured on our interactive map via our UK Hand Knitting website - the most prominently placed site on google for ‘finding a local yarn shop’. Is knitting currently popular or are you seeing other crafts taking its place? Knitting is still very popular, and we know from our website that the number of men taking up the craft has increased over the last three years. We’ve also seen a rise in the number of people taking up crochet, especially in the younger age groups. The Great British Yarn Crawl is currently in full swing, tell us a bit about that! The Great British Yarn Crawl takes place from 13th April till 30th June nationwide with nearly 300 shops taking part. We developed the campaign to encourage people to visit their local shops and rediscover all the benefits they have to offer – a warm welcome, friendly advice and being able to squidge balls of yarn. All consumers need to do is to visit one of UK Hand Knitting’s participating premium yarn shops listed on our website, pick up a Yarn Crawl Card and collect their first stamp. Once they have collected six stamps from at least two shops they can leave their card with the last shop they visit, and they’ll be entered Photo by Margarida Afonso on Unsplash Photo by JSB Co. Via Unsplash
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTA0NTE=