Kickstarter Campaign

Have Yarn, Will Travel!

A bit about Botanical Yarn…

Hi! Sophie here - founder of Botanical Yarn.

Let me tell you a bit about myself and the campaign:

Inspired by my Super Gran, I found solace in knitting after being made redundant a few years ago. Crafting is great for mental health and knitting really helped me through this tricky time.

In the beginning, I used big, chunky wool, but struggled to find the shades of yarn I wanted. This led me to start experimenting with growing my own plants to create natural dyes and hand dying the wool this way. I eventually turned to acid dyes to satisfy my love of colour and broaden the colour palette of my yarns.

Finally, I stumbled across the right shades and the magic amount of wool on the right bases to create the perfect yarn for my projects.

I began selling my hand-dyed yarn to friends in 2019.

Since then, Botanical Yarn has woven together a 14,000-strong Instagram following of like-minded knitters. It has grown to provide all the knitting and crochet accessories, tools and extras you could possibly need to go yarn and wool crazy.

Botanical Yarn provides the knitting community with something new.

The product range includes individual mini skein fades that allow customers to knit or crochet a range of unique woolly items, like cardigans, jumpers, shawls and socks. The kits provide the option for knitters to have everything they need to make the pattern - it takes out the hassle of trying to find the right amount of everything for the project.

There’s also a Monthly Sock Club subscription, in collaboration with designers, Twinset & Purl, where they design a sock pattern each month and Botanical Yarn provides a 100g skein of Merino sock, which customers then use to knit a pair of socks. There’s even a book club subscription where you receive hand-dyed mini skeins inspired by a different book cover each month, then enjoy a discussion about that book with other subscribers. It’s a great way to meet other crafty knitters!

What has Botanical Yarn achieved?

2020 saw Botanical Yarn go global, even with the limitations of Coronavirus!

My products have been stocked worldwide including, New York, Georgia and New Jersey.

I’ve also collaborated a range of designers from all over the world, with designers such as Rachel Fletcher, Joanna Herriott, Rachel Illsley, Jo Shaw and with international designers including Finnish designers, Veera Välimäki, Sara Reponnen, Scandinavian designer, Therese Hedlund, Dutch designer, Roosmarie Vlaskamp and American designer, Emma Janet. 

Having caught the attention of the media, Botanical Yarn is featured in publications such as Pom Pom Magazine and Grocery Girls Podcast. 

Impressively amidst a worldwide pandemic, I have attended 15 UK shows over the past three years! With nine shows already confirmed for 2022, it’s so important to continue collaborating and touring because, it makes such a huge difference to the business – I get to show more people what Botanical Yarn can do, meet new people who inspire me and collect more customers along the way.

What’s next?

To take Botanical Yarn to the next level, I need your help!

I have until 30th March 2022 to raise £27,000 so I can buy a new shop-come-home-on-wheels - a VW Transporter van.

The van is Botanical Yarn’s wheels to success.

With Botanical Yarn trading mainly online, I will use the van to continue networking and supporting my customers in their yarn-based endeavours and providing the best quality yarns and accessories in person. The increase of space will mean I can take a larger and wider product selection to the shows.

I need the van because I can’t fit any more in my car…

So far, I’ve been using my own car and hiring vans to travel to yarn festivals. Along with accommodation, this racks up to nearly £700 per festival!

The van will allow me to travel to more shows across the UK and worldwide, whilst providing my accommodation along the way. I don’t need fancy hotels, I love the #vanlife.

I’m currently scheduled to attend nine craft shows in Leeds, York, Bedford and Wales. With many more shows to come, a van would make these trips more frequent, accessible and worthwhile, giving me a vehicle (literally) to provide a wider selection of products to Botanical Yarn’s lovely customers.

This way, the money made at these festivals can go straight back into colour experimenting and saving up for a shop premises!

In order to squeeze in as much yarn as possible and provide space for a bed, I am planning to include a clever addition  at the bottom of the van, to create a bed frame.

https://www.ovano.co.uk/shop/conversions/switch-lwb/

The VW Transporter van is considered one of the best in the industry. Easy to drive, cheap to fuel and designed to cover long distances safely, this particular van is exactly what I need to travel into Botanical Yarn’s next phase of success.

What do you get in return?

I am so grateful for all the support and generosity that Botanical Yarn receives. To say thank you, I am offering these beautiful exclusive Kickstarter rewards.

1. Collaboration with Rachel from Unwind Knitwear – Colourwork Cowl Kit which includes a PDF pattern for the exclusive cowl design, 150g of 4ply Merino sock yarn in colourway, Cotelydon Undulata, and 10 x 20g mini skeins of merino sock 4ply in the fade exclusively for this cowl.  

1. Collaboration with Emma from Bloom & Create – Floral Hills Colourwork Sock Kit which includes a PDF pattern for the exclusive sock design, 100g of 4ply Merino sock yarn in colourway, Pampas Grass, and 3 x 20g mini skeins of merino sock 4ply in the colours exclusively for this sock kit. 

1. Collaboration with Sara from My Cup of Knitting – Lace Sock Kit which includes a PDF pattern for the exclusive sock design, 100g of 4ply Merino sock yarn in an exclusive colourway.

• Collaboration with Jo from Twinset & Purl – Colourwork Hat Kit which includes a PDF pattern for the exclusive hat design, 100g of 4ply Merino sock yarn in colourway, Cotelydon Undulata, and 5 x 20g mini skeins of merino sock 4ply in the colours exclusively for this hat kit. 

1. Exclusive Collection of Yarn inspired by the Yorkshire Scenery with yarn inspired by some of Sophie’s favourite spots in Yorkshire such as, Filey beach, Castle Howard and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
    

• Self Striping 100g skein colourway 01 and 20g complimentary mini skein 

1. Exclusive 10x20g mini skein fade set inspired by Filey Beach.

1. Exclusive project bag, sewn by Sally in our Yorkshire Studio made in collaboration with designer Camille Medina, who designed our wonderful Kickstarter logo.

• Exclusive enamel pin, sticker, enamel mug, zip project pouch, drawstring project bags made in collaboration with designer Camille Medina, who designed our wonderful Kickstarter logo.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you for taking the time to read about Botanical Yarn and my ideas for its future. I’m forever grateful for the continued support from my amazing and talented customers, as well as the Kickstarter community.

Get to know a little more about me and view Botanical Yarn’s current product range over on the website, Instagram and Youtube pages.

I’m always happy to answer any questions you may have about the campaign or Botanical Yarn in general, so feel free to get in touch!