From the shop

Acrylic yarn is dismissed in some knitting circles as the inferior alternative to natural fibre. The reality is more useful than that — a good acrylic has specific strengths that wool cannot match, and for the right projects it is the sensible choice rather than the compromise. In this honest guide we cover what acrylic is genuinely best for (blankets, toys, children's garments, machine-washable gifts, colourwork, beginners), where natural fibre genuinely has the advantage, and why Stylecraft Special DK (43 colours, 100g/295m, £3.15) and Special Chunky (15 colours, £3.15) are the benchmark. Stocked at Craft and Canvas.

Sirdar Jewelspun Chunky With Wool makes self-striping simple — bold colour transitions develop automatically as you knit, with no joining or colour management required. An 80/20 acrylic-wool blend at chunky weight, 200g and 300m per ball at £11.99, machine washable. In this post we cover how the self-striping effect works, why the 200g ball format matters, what the wool content adds, and the nine dedicated Jewelspun patterns we stock at £3.50 each — from the one-ball Marbled Hat and Mittens to the raglan Metamorphic Cardigan. Stocked at Craft and Canvas.

Stylecraft Naturals Pure Wool DK answers the question many Special DK knitters have been asking — what if it were pure wool? The answer is 100% superwash wool in a 31-colour palette drawn from the beloved Special DK shade range, fully machine washable at 30°C, with outstanding stitch definition for cables, colourwork, and textured patterns. In this post we cover what superwash wool is and why it matters, how Naturals Pure Wool relates to Special DK, what it excels at, and the full colour palette. 50g and 110m per ball at £4.45 at Craft and Canvas.

Sirdar Embers is a new DK yarn that achieves its colour effect not through dyeing but through construction — coloured fibres spun into the solid main shade during manufacture, producing a subtle, rich tonal depth that is present in every stitch without being dramatic or busy. A lightly brushed 80/20 acrylic-wool blend in eight colourways named for light and fire, 100g and 335m per ball at £6.00. Nine dedicated Embers patterns from sweaters to a hat and scarf set are stocked at £3.50 each. This post covers how the colour effect works, the full colourway range, the pattern collection, and everything practical you need to know.

Torzal is Malabrigo's newest yarn, and it takes a different approach to colour from anything else in the range. Rather than dyeing the finished skein, multiple colour tones are blended into the fibre before the two-ply is spun — producing a marled, handspun-inspired effect where the colour is never flat, never static, and continuously shifting across the knitted fabric. 100% superwash merino, sport to light DK weight, 50g and 160 yards per skein, machine washable. Eight colourways at £11.50 per skein at Craft and Canvas, Hebden Bridge.

The finished pieces look like they take years of skill to produce — small sculptural animals with detailed surfaces, precise pictorial panels worked in wool. The technique behind them is straightforward: barbed needles mechanically tangle wool fibres into felt, and everything else is a variation on that action. In this complete beginner's guide we cover the equipment you need (needles from £1.99, foam pads, finger protectors, felting wool batt at £1.95), the full range of 12 needle felting kits we stock from £7.99, and how to progress from kits to working freely with loose wool. All stocked at Craft and Canvas.

Oil painting without solvents is not a compromise — it is a genuine development in artists' materials. Winsor & Newton Artisan Water Mixable Oils use the same quality pigments as traditional oils in a modified binder that thins, blends, and cleans up with water. The painting experience is substantially the same: slow drying, rich blendability, the fat over lean principle, the full range of oil techniques. In this complete guide we cover the full 40-colour Artisan range (37ml tubes at £7.35), the Artisan Linseed and Safflower Oil mediums, varnishes, the fat over lean principle, drying times, and the Water Mixable Oils book at £14.99. All stocked at Craft and Canvas.

Crochet is one of the most accessible craft skills you can learn — one hook, one ball of yarn, and a simple sequence of hand movements. In this complete beginner's guide we cover the KnitPro Zing hooks we stock from £2.95, which yarn suits beginners best (Stylecraft Special DK or Rico Organic Cotton), the four essential stitches from foundation chain through treble crochet, the UK/US terminology difference that confuses almost every beginner, how to read a crochet pattern, why the granny square is the best starting point, and the beginner crochet books we stock from £9.99 including You Will Be Able to Crochet by the End of This Book at £19.99.

Artgraf Graphite Putty is compressed water-soluble graphite you mould with your fingers — shape it broad for sweeping tonal areas, roll it fine for controlled marks, or dissolve it in water for fluid graphite washes with a characteristic silver shimmer when dry. Made by Viarco in Portugal since 1907, it is a genuinely unusual drawing material that suits tonal portraiture, expressive landscape work, mixed media, and any artist interested in what graphite can do beyond a pencil. £12.75 at Craft and Canvas, Hebden Bridge.

Inktense is not a watercolour pencil. It uses water-soluble ink pigments rather than watercolour — the colours intensify rather than lighten when water is added, and once fully activated and dried the marks are permanent and cannot be lifted. This makes layering with Inktense quite different from layering with watercolour, and opens up applications — including fabric painting — that watercolour pencils cannot achieve. In this complete guide we cover the Inktense Pencils (tin of 12, £23.99) and Blocks (tin of 12, £31.99), how to use both, the grating technique unique to the blocks, surfaces from watercolour paper to fabric, and how to combine Inktense with other media.

Posca pens contain water-based acrylic paint — opaque, vibrant, and permanent on porous surfaces — in a marker format that works across an extraordinary range of surfaces from paper and canvas to rock, wood, glass, ceramic, plastic, and fabric. In this complete guide we cover the full range we stock at Craft and Canvas: every nib size from the ultra-fine PC-1MR at £4.99 through the broad PC-17K chisel at £9.49, the standard, fluorescent, metallic, and glitter finishes, how to prime and use the markers correctly, how layering and blending work, what surfaces suit which size, and which pens to start with depending on what you want to make.

Gouache sits between watercolour and acrylic — water-based and brush-applied, opaque and layerable, with a distinctive matte finish that neither medium replicates. It can be painted light over dark, used on black paper, corrected by painting over mistakes, and reworked once dry. In this complete guide we cover what gouache actually is, how it differs from watercolour and acrylic, what it excels at, and the full range we stock — from the Seawhite Starter Set at £6.99 to professional Sennelier Artist Gouache at £24.95 for 100ml. All at Craft and Canvas, Hebden Bridge.