Fibre Focus Friday: It's new!

Fibre Focus Fridays are here; they're like Fibre Friday but with a bit of a twist.  Each week we'll be looking at one of our products in slightly more depth so you can get an insight into how it is made, the fibres involved and of course, we'll have the featured with our FFF discount.

To kick things off this month we're looking at our Yarn Advent Calendar - which is brand new for 2024.  When we first started our fibre advent calendars we were asked for a yarn version, so once we got into our festive stride we decided that it was time to bring on the yarns.

The Yarn Advent shares the same theme as the Fibre Advent which is Christmas Characters Old & New.  Coming up with the theme was easy, but creating the yarns and getting the calendars packed up is a huge job which uses the skills of all of the WoW Team.

How to make a WoW Yarn Advent Calendar in 10 easy steps!

Step 1: Research all of the different characters and come up with a colour scheme to represent each of them.  
Step 2: Get a cup of tea and spend hours (preferably days) wandering around the warehouse selecting fibre samples based on their colour and handle.
Step 3: Speak to the Big Boss to make sure he is happy, then work out yarn specification and finish.
Step 4: Present list of required yarns to the mill.  Make mill team a cup of tea and have a sit down when you all realise how much yarn needs to be to be spun and finished.
Step 5: Design the pretty bits!  Our in-house designer designs all of the packaging and promotional material.  
Step 6: Check on the mill to make sure everyone is okay and that the yarns are behaving themselves.  Re-design any misbehaving yarns.  Let the designer know about changes - bring apology biscuits.  Send everything to print.
Step 7: Have a small panic while we wait for the yarns to be finished and the print materials to arrive.
Step 8: Celebrate yarn arrival with tea and fancy biscuits.  Start packing the orders - make sure the Christmas music is turned up.
Step 9: Create chaos in the packing warehouse by trying to ship as many advent calendars as possible in a single day.
Step 10:  Have a cup of tea, grab our own advent calendars and get ready to film the open-along videos.

Everything is easy when you break it down into steps but in reality, this process has taken nearly a whole year!  But why does it take so long?

Getting the yarn right was really important for us, so steps 3 and 4 were actually repeated a few times as we worked out the best specification and ran yarn trials.  We finally settled on a DK yarn, as it is a good workhorse and can be used in a huge variety of patterns for garments, toys and accessories.  We also made sure that the yarn was spun to match our existing DK ranges; this means that you can pair advent yarns with main-range yarns to create even more colour and texture options.  The finishing of each yarn is important too, as this changes depending on the use.  The majority of our yarns are in 50g balls and ready to work with, but our natural cream/white shades are in 50g hanks.  This is because we know how much some of you love dyeing and these yarns have been created with our dyers in mind.  They can easily be wound into a ball if you're not a dyer, though!

When we say that the calendar is made by all of the WoW Team, we're not kidding!  Each one of our staff members is involved in the creation of this first edition.  All of our yarns are made right here in Yorkshire, so the team will select fibres, weigh, blend, spin, finish, pack and dispatch them from our mill and warehouse.

We could go into the fibres and the colours of this year's yarns, but we don't want to spoil the surprise you'll get on 1st December...

The 1st Edition Yarn Advent and 4th Edition Fibre Advent are available for pre-order now, with all orders being dispatched in November ready for Christmas.  Both of these advents are limited editions with only 500 Fibre and 100 Yarn being made of each, so don't um and ah too long!  For the first time (due to many requests!) both calendars are available in bulk to our trade customers, too.