Knitting Yarns and specialist Wool Products from Blacker Designs

Special offers in March include all patterns at £1.00 off and 50p off all our alpaca/shetland and Light Aran yarns as well as some others.

See also FOUR new knitting patterns and you can now select patterns by type - we get better at this IT stuff all the time!

Our knitting yarns are all from natural wool, mohair and alpaca, and all from British sources. Please note that natural fibre varies for each animal, so our balls of yarn will also vary slightly in both length and weight, within the legal tolerances.

As there are over 100 different yarns, we have listed them according to weight: 4-ply and finer, Double Knitting, Light Aran and thicker, as this seems most relevant if you are looking to knit up a particular pattern.

In each group you can then search for by colour (dark, mid and pale), for a pure or blended yarn, for worsted or woollen yarns, a particular breed of sheep (or just alpaca or mohair) and for soft, medium or firm handle.

The firmer handle yarns are more suitable for outer garments, the medium will depend on your tastes and the fine handle should go next to the skin for everyone.

If you would like a few samples, please contact us to request these. As we have so many yarns now, we have to charge £25 for swatch cards (they take ages to make!), but we are happy to send up to five half-metre sample lengths for free.

To find out more about how fleece varies from one breed of sheep to another, go to the section called meet the animals. Look at the specialist knitting patterns we have on sale, available by post or to download, and check out the free knitting patterns - we've just added a new one for a shoulder bag.

Books are new to the site and have been added in response to customers' queries. You cannot yet buy them direct from us, but this will change if there is sufficient demand. We have highlighted some that have proved useful to our customers and will add your recommnendations if you let us know.