So scrumptious, so delicious…if you could, you would eat Jilly Beans all the time.

This is their sock tweed in the Sunrise colourway, a glorious merino muddle of blues, pinks and a touch of orange. I reckon it might be destined for an Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Surprise Jacket.  The garter stitch will be perfect for all this barber pole colour but I am not quite sure if the colour repeats will be long enough.

Jilly Bean are big into producing regional yarn.  Not only is it absolutely British but the wool and alpacary bits are all from the South West – mostly Somerset where Jilly Bean is based.  This being so, it was a perfect match for my British Yarn Quest.

I saw their yarns first at Marmalade Yarns in Frome, Somerset and then a larger range at Get Knitted (an old supermarket now a yarn shop!!!) in Bristol where the Jill of Jilly Bean works of a Saturday.  They’ve got lace, sock, DK and Aran, all hand dyed in an amazingly extensive palette. They also do fibre for spinning.  Have a look at this Blue Faced Leicester roving.

Aren’t the colours lovely?  I am not a big fan of short colour repeats in hand dyed yarns so with some fibre I can do quite long ones and grade the colour changes.  I have already started spinning some and hope to share some pics soon. Perhaps this could be the Baby Surprise Jacket?

They also have an Etsy store.  The Esty store features yarns bought for a fair price from Rare Sheep and Alpaca farmers in the South West of England, included over-dyed coloured sheep.