Nest - New London yarn shop!

Nest is a new London yarn shop.  They are open as of today, Sat 30 October 2010.

Being located in my neck of the woods (I walked there, woohoo!) made it easy for me to go along and check out today.  And I must say: I am impressed.

It is a lovely shop with really nice yarn and lots of other items.  The mother & daughter team running the shop are warm and welcoming, and the shop itself has a lovely atmosphere.

I understand that they will have Drop-in evenings/times designed for people to come in and do some knitting, but I also understand that if you just want to sit and knit, waiting for a friend or spend a bit of knitting time with friends, then you you could pop in and see if it's convenient.  There is a very inviting area with seats and sofas at the back of the shop.

Of course I had to buy some yarn (when could I ever resist!):

And also a shawl pin:

There were two yarns that I am very interested in (the kind of yarns that will make me go back!).  The first one: Drops Alpaca at £3 is very good value for money, I liked some of the colours a lot and can imagine making something Fair Isle in this. Lovely!



Not the actual colours, but similar

 The second one is two weights of JC Rennie that you can buy off the cone.  Just as little or as much as you'd like, this is being sold by weight! Love the idea!
There is a worsted weight and a thinner one too (not completely sure if this was worsted or more a DK. The thinner one could be a 4 ply, but don't take my word for it).

There were quite a few yarns that I liked a lot as well: Fyberspates Scrumptious (I bought one skein in the bright pink, love it!), Malabrigo Lace and Worsted too, Drops Kid Silk and the Shilasdair come to mind.  There is also a very gorgeous but quite pricey Buffalo Gold yarn (which includes some actual buffalo fibre, as well as cashmere) in very nice colours.

Check out their website for more yarns, I only quote the ones I remember in particular.

I really like the fact that there is a bit of a price range - some yarn shops (the yarn boutiques) are very good at selling those yarns at the top end of the range, and then you get the older-style craft shops that are very good at selling the more affordable yarns.  But to get a good range is rare.  I very much commend them for that.

They also do quite a few other bits and pieces.  Again the website lists all of those, just off the top of my head: buttons, ribbons, cards, books, felting tops, kits, and some utensils for knitting and crafting.  There are probably lots more products that I don't recall just now!

The location is at 102 Weston Park.  This particular bit of Weston Park (the name of the street) consists of a small parade of shops.  There is a cafe/sandwich bar called Bon Croissant directly opposite that has some chairs and tables outside, but there are more general shops as well.  Not very many but a good variety.

This may seem a little tricky to get to, but believe me: it's much, much easier than Stash Yarns was, if you've ever been before they closed in Dec 09.  The W5 bus (from Archway to the Sainsbury's behind the Arena shopping centre in Haringay, via the Overground station of Harringay as well as Harringay Green Lanes) goes directly past the shop - no need to look for a bus stop, it's 'hail and ride' round there: pick a sunny spot, crane your neck, wave enthusiastically when you see something big and red come up (let's hope it's not a Royal Mail van instead) and the W5 will stop and pick you up. Fantastic!
It helps if you wait at the corner just 'past' a street crossing and not before as I did today...

There is also the W3 bus that takes you into Finsbury Park or to the Overground station Crouch Hill.  It really isn't very far and the area is a lovely, leafy neighbourhood of nice houses and lots of trees. Very pleasant!

We do not have enough yarn shops in London so it is particularly nice to be able to go to this one.  I would urge you to check it out so that they'll be the success they deserve to be!

PS: They will have an online shop as well at some point, I'm sure their website will say so at the time.