Yarn is expensive in the UK.

I had the opportunity to go into John Lewis in Sheffield on Monday, and I was glad I’d pre-decided yarn wasn’t going to be a souvenir of my England trip. The mean price of a 50gm skein seemed to be £4.00 more or less! That was more than what we’ve been spending on lunch these past few days. And you’d need at least 8-10 skeins for a decent-sized article.

John Lewis is a general department store which also has a craft section. Lots of wool and blends from Jaeger, Debbie Bliss, Rowan. All of them equally expensive. There were some bundles in clearance, but at £1.95 per skein, I’m afraid I wasn’t tempted much there either.
I’m not just multiplying by 84 and baulking. As I said, my lunch was cheaper than one skein. Maybe I’m not a die-hard yarnster? Or just a cheapskate.

The only needles on display were our very own Pony, in the same packaging as we get in India. They had large size Pony straights in plastic (the monster sizes). There were some bamboo straights of a different brand, but again, I’m only looking for circulars in small gauges and long lengths (I want to be able to do magic loop). Like in India, the gauge here seems to stop at 2 mm. I couldn’t find any smaller gauge needles. Perhaps a real yarn store would have some. The only thing I bought was a pack of split ring stitch markers and I’m resolutely refusing to multiply the price by 84. I doubt I’ll be going to a yarn store in the last days of my trip, so that perhaps will remain my only yarnly souvenir.

Is yarn expensive in the rest of Europe, too?

But I’m making lots of memories 🙂 More photos added to my Flickr account.