I Almost Forgot
I bought yarn! For all those Aran jumpers, Ireland really seems short on wool and yarn. I found some in two shops on Inis Mór, but that’s it. One shop was a big sweater market selling machine knit sweaters (the site says hand knit, but the locals we knew warned us away from there, saying they’re made by machine), Clan Aran patterns (20 Euro each!), and cream Tivoli wool. The other was a small shop called An Tuirne that sold mainly handknits. They had this one yarn in a few colors. It’s super sheepy and rustic and a little scratchy, just as it should be. I’m going to knit me an Aran jumper.
I got a 1 kilo (2.2 bag) for 30 Euro ($40!). I should have gotten a lot more.
From An Tuirne (sweater shop), Inis Mór, Aran Islands, Ireland.
Tel: ++353 (0) 99 61387/61375
Fax: ++353 (0) 99 61375
According to this, they provide worldwide shipping at cost. I might have to call. :)
I should note I’m not affiliated with An Tuirne in any way. I just know that lots of people ask where they can get good yarn in Ireland, so I’m passing on the info. I was supposed to meet one of the owners of the shop, a woman named Rose, who is a prolific knitter. We didn’t manage to get together, sadly. The other owner was in when I visited the shop, and I got to see was her personal stash of wool, strewn around the shop, hiding under tables and behind the counter. She has a lot of yarn!
11 Responses to “I Almost Forgot”
Thanks for sharing your beautiful Ireland pics! That yarn looks amazing, I love “rustic”, “sheepy” wool!
glad you got some local yarn!
looks wonderful. glad you enjoyed your trip. i love ireland though i have only been there once and all i saw in the yarn department was synthetic. the people on the contrar are very real.
I was looking through your pictures, love the icelandic jacket you made!!
“Handknit” in some contexts seems to mean “a person turned on the machine”. There are lots of shops in the tourist sections of Oslo that do this too. Boo!
My parents are still quite surprised at how little (nice) yarn is avaliable in Britain considering how many sheep and mills there are. It was explained to them by a cousin that there is still that war mentality of frugality and durability which is why synthetic is so prevalent, but it’s getting better.
Hope you had a great time. Living in Ireland and from the US, it is a bit of a famine when it comes to yarn. A good source is Kilcarra up in Donegall. It’s good to hook into the local Stitch N’ Bitch sites for locals to tell you were to get good Irish yarn. Not much, but there are a few gems hidden away.
I have to agree with you there. We travelled all over mainland Eire and didn’t find a single yarn shop, very strange indeed. Glad you got something!
It’s so sadly true about the lack of wool yarn! I went to Scotland a few years ago and didn’t have much luck. I found a nice selection of Rowan in a department store in Edinburgh, but in the smaller towns the few yarn stores only had acrylic yarns in pastel colors. One woman I met took pity on me and gave me a huge cone of fingering weight shetland wool in a georgeous heathered light blue that she got from her cousin who worked in a processing mill.
Ironically when I returned to Massachusetts I went to Webs for the first time and found in the warehouse a huge pile of mill end cones from JCrew. Beautiful aran weight heathered yarn. I’m still wishing I bought more, but it seemed so sad to get better yarn in western mass than in Scotland.
Thanks for the tip.
You’re so lucky–real Irish wool for a real Irish sweater! :-) And I love the color–I’m a sucker for the warm, earthy, natural sheep-colors. Can’t wait to see what you do with it. :-)