It’s official! After 43 years in yarn, we’re excited to announce that we’re retiring! We can’t thank you enough for all of your support over the years. From shopping and creating with us, to learning how to crochet and yarn-bombing our local area — the crafty community we have built both online and in our shop means so much to us, and we will miss you all as we move on to our next chapter.

Our last day will be this Saturday, February 14th 2026. If you have time to pop in and say goodbye, we’d love to see you before we go!

The best part? Our small business story doesn’t end here…

That’s right! As we head into retirement, we’re happy to let you know that this isn’t the end of Babes in the Wool. We have an exciting announcement coming later in 2026, so make sure you don’t miss our news by signing up below.

SIGN UP HERE

As a thank you to all of our local customers in Hull, and our In the Wool subscribers, exciting perks are on the way!

Thank you again for all of your support. Being your local yarn shop has been the most fulfilling experience for us, and we will really cherish the many memories we have made.

Sign up for our 2026 announcement HERE!

I wanted to let you know that the next edition of In the Wool is running a little late. The last couple of weeks have been insanely busy and I just haven’t had the time to get it finished. But, not to worry! The next edition should be with you towards the end of this week.

I hope you’re all having a great week and keeping yourselves busy with fun craft projects. I’ll see you soon!

Alex x

I hope you’ve all had a great start to the month, and that you’ve got exciting projects planned for the weeks ahead. As March is a busy time for celebrations, this edition was made with Mother’s Day in mind which, for those of you in the UK, is this coming Sunday. Instead of focusing on just Mother’s Day, I’ve put together some articles that…

Read more

Making gifts for the people you love can be a daunting task. In my experience, I always go for really personalised gifts that end up taking way too long to finish. Sometimes I don’t finish them until months after the celebration…

If you’re put off by the buy-in of a big project, but still want to give something han…

Read more

Even the most organised makers find that some celebrations will simply slip their minds. Whether it be Mother’s Day, a close friend’s birthday, or a housewarming gift, there’s always something that will pop up out of nowhere and make you panic.

Enter: this article!

Here is my list of quick and easy projects that make grea…

Read more

While most people usually feel a January slump, for me this happens in February. Lately it seems like everything is trying to get in the way of my crochet time and, I don’t know about you, but I could certainly use a bit of luck. Enter: St Patrick’s Day crafts!

In this edition, I’m going to share some creative ways to celebrate Paddy’s Day a…

Read more

As St Patrick’s Day is approaching, I thought I’d have a look and see if there are any craft techniques or stitches that you can add to your handmade projects. I immediately came across ‘lever knitting’ or ‘Irish Cottage Style knitting’, which I had never heard of before. This technique is similar to English knitting, but with a …

Read more

Of course, it wouldn’t be February without mentioning love… yarn love, that is. There’s no love stronger than that between a maker and their yarn stash. In this edition, we’re going to look at lovely yarns, lovelier projects, and knitting/crochet patterns that are so good they might just break your heart.

I apologise for the slight delay t…

Read more

What better way to celebrate love than with heartthrob crochet projects from recent years? I was originally going to share one of my favourite free crochet patterns for Valentine’s Day, but then I went down the rabbit hole that is my phone’s camera roll and found several handmade projects. So, I thought I’d give my forgotten makes a little bit of love t…

Read more

Thank you for bearing with me over my winter break. My dog is recovering really well after his surgery, and he’s back to stealing my yarn once again. I hope you all had a great holiday and that you’ve got lots of exciting craft projects planned for the year ahead. This year, I’m going to aim to send our newsletter out 2 Wednesdays a month s…

Read more

Now that Christmas is officially done and dusted, I can finally share some of the secret craft projects I’ve been working on. I had quite a few crochet gifts on my list this year. Some of these inevitably got pushed into 2024 as, like always, I ran out of time. It worked out for the best though, as I ended up making a smaller selection of really personalised gifts that were worth the extra time it took to make them.

I know what you’re going to say about this first gift: that it belongs with Halloween, not Christmas. But this project has a bit of a story behind it. A couple of months ago, my mother-in-law gave me the great gift of a bag filled with glow in the dark yarn. Her only request was that I made her a creepy crawly with it, and I decided to get this ready in time for Christmas. I opted for a spider, a simple design that I could add my own details to. For the main body, I used the chunky chenille yarn in a glowing green shade. I used this pattern for inspiration for the body: I didn’t end up following the whole pattern as the project was quite big early on, and the yarn wasn’t the best to work with for amigurumi. I did try to do amigurumi legs but it took me forever to do one; it would’ve taken me another week to do 8 of them!

Click here to see the free crochet pattern I used.

Once I realised I wouldn’t be able to crochet the legs, I went back to the drawing board. I wanted to incorporate the glowing yarn somehow and jazz the design up a bit. In the end, I decided to use green pipe cleaners in 3 different shades and wrap a strand of yarn around each one. It was quite a fiddly process as I had to glue each end, make sure the yarn was secure, and then stuff them into the body of the spider. The legs ended up looking a bit like candy canes, which helped make this gift a tad more christmassy. For the eyes, I used a combination of glow in the dark double knit and crochet cotton. I wanted to give the eyes a bit of extra detail to make them stand out more in the dark, so I did a white crochet cotton border around the white circle to emphasise the outline.

The next handmade gift is one that I’m really happy with. My brother-in-law drives a Jeep and I found a crochet pattern for a Jeep motif that I thought I could turn into a keyring. Even though it’s a fairly small project, it did take me quite a while to do all the colour changes, get the ends sewn in, and stitch the different pieces together. It was also one of those projects that didn’t come together until the very last second, so the whole time I was worried he wouldn't know what it was meant to be. But, after it was all stitched up, I sprayed it with water and flattened it between a stack of heavy books; after this, it magically turned into a Jeep!

I did add a couple of extra details to this pattern. The original made the body of the car in a bright colour, but I wanted to use black to make it the same colour as his own car. This meant that the tires didn’t stand out much from the body, and it made the overall shape a bit harder to recognise. To remedy this, I added half a border in grey to the tires to look like mudguards. This broke up the black pieces and added extra detail.

Check out the original free crochet pattern by clicking here!

The final project on this list is one that I’ve mentioned before. A few months ago, while writing our Cottagecore edition, I had the idea to make a farmer’s market jam jar. I finally got around to finishing this just before Christmas, and was able to turn it into a scented decoration like I originally planned. As well as using toy stuffing, I found some mini scented pine cones that smelled just like Christmas, and added a couple of cinnamon sticks.

That’s it for Christmas presents, but I also wanted to show you the wreath I put together using some of the handmade decorations from our Christmas Craft Along series!

Leave a comment

Color will be more personal than ever in the coming years.

- Sarah Dimarco, Veranda.com

I remember 2023 as a very colourful year. It was all about neons, striking shades, and using colour to be bold with your creative choices. Click here to read my previous article about neon.

This year, industry experts are predicting …

Read more

I hope you’re all enjoying the run up to Christmas. As I mentioned earlier this month, I’m going to be taking a break over the holidays to catch up after a very hectic December. I will be pausing billing so you will not be charged during this period. In lieu of our next edition, I thought I’d give you a round up of some of my favourite festi…

Read more

I’d like to start by thanking you all for your patience this week, and for your kind messages. Winston is recovering well- albeit very annoyed about the cone of shame and living in a crate- and should hopefully be feeling better by Christmas. In the meantime, we’re staying with family until he’s allowed to go upstairs again, so making my Ch…

Read more

For the bobble tree, I used oddments of Ricorumi DK from my stash. Luck…

Read more

I hope your December is going well and that you’ve been finding lots of time for festive crafts. I just wanted to send a little note to let you know our next edition is going to be delayed. My dog had to have an unexpected surgery this week so things are a bit chaotic at the moment. I will hopefully have the next edition with you by the end of the week.

After that, if I don’t have time for another December edition, I am going to pause subscriptions for a couple of weeks to get my bearings for 2024. If you have a premium subscription, this means you will not be charged for the weeks we are on pause.

Thank you for your patience, and I’ll see you soon!

Alex x

We’re just over a month out from Christmas and I have to say, the dread is kicking in. I realised it’s going to be very unlikely that I get all of my handmade gifts finished in time. There’s always so much that I want to make at this time of year: gifts, tree decorations, ornaments, stocking fillers, a Christmas collar for my dog… How am I …

Read more

At Christmas, even small handmade gifts can have a huge impact; stocking stuffers are a great way to spread the love. They also come in handy when you’re making gifts for a lot of people as they’re much faster to finish. This collection of free crochet patterns features a mixture of designs for all of your loved ones, …

Read more

At Christmas, even small handmade gifts can have a huge impact; stocking stuffers are a great way to spread the love. They also come in handy when you’re making gifts for a lot of people as they’re much faster to finish. This collection of free knitting patterns features a mixture of designs for all of your loved ones, with …

Read more

In Weeks 1 & 2, we made a start on our Christmas tree decorations with baubles and stars. I chose the crochet snowman bauble and, while it’s not my finest work, he still turned out pretty cute. When it comes to handmade projects like this, I think the imperfec…

Read more