Revisiting Loop London: an exciting yarny experience

At the end of last month I stopped off on the way to my daughter’s graduation in Kingston on Thames and took a little detour to visit Loop London, one of the most famous and longest established yarn shops in the British capital. I’m not sure where August has gone – that time warp thing is happening again but the photos are just so fantastic, I wanted to share them and relive my (as always) too short visit.

I have mentioned Loop and my latest visit in Podcast Episode 14 and showed some pics but its nice to have a more leisurely stroll through the shelves, which are all absolutely packed with gorgeous yarny goodies.

The shop is quite small and there is just yarn and loads of yarny related things to buy. No coffee shop, no cake, no need for it really as the little passageway in Islington where it lives is packed with nice little coffee places and eateries. I think the one right next door named itself specifically for knitters and crocheters wanting to get a caffeine hit after buying loads of yarn…

Anyway, lets get into that shop!

The doorway is very narrow and once you are in up the two steps, its like entering another universe. Shelves to the left are piled high with yarn and go nearly up to the ceiling. On the right are the French threads in the picture above. Different yarns are on every shelf and in baskets and boxes on the floor, but its not messy. Everything is arranged to please your eyes and attract you to look at the next thing and just drink it all in. Up a couple more steps is the section with the Socks that Rock yarn and then the two tills.

I didn’t take any pics of the till but I did drool over all the yarn shelves just before you get to it…

There is just so much to look at and Loop London specialises in yarn that is hard to find in other stores. You will only find natural fibres here – mostly wool with a little bit of cotton, some alpaca and some blends. All in a gorgeous array of bright, muted and variegated colourways. Far too much to take in and even though I had promised myself a treat from Loop, it was really hard to make up my mind!

With my recent experiments in dyeing yarn with natural plant products – ie plants from my garden, I was really interested to see that they had some yarn dyed with madder root…

This was upstairs, which is similarly filled with loads of gorgeous yarn and has a lovely squishy sofa to sit on and contemplate your final decisions.

In some of the pics you will have seen some finished items, which are on display with labels showing the pattern and the yarn used. Most of these are knitted but Loop London also has some beautiful Sophie Digard crochet scarves.

I loved these gradient dyed yarns – so many of them.

Finally, I did make some little purchases –  a skein of Socks that Rock in the Maia colourway – the name of one of my cats! All of the yarns were gorgeous and this was how I made the decision in the end. I also bought two smaller crochet hooks in my favourite brand, the Clover soft touch, in a 2.25mm and a 2.75mm, which I don’t think are that readily available online.

On the way over to Kingston I stopped off at one of my other favourite places to admire my haul… the Tea House Theatre at Vauxhall, which has to be one of the most unusual and best tea and cake places in the entire world.