While I was away my brain was fizzing with ideas for the next few months and first up is my plans to devote the month of September to promoting the work of our fabulous indie dyers, yarnies and designers. Over on the Everyday Knitter Facebook group we have been watching with dismay as various local yarn shops have closed down and the big high street stores seem ever more visible with their huge advertising budgets and near domination of our Facebook feeds. Just one search for baby acrylic and it seems that adverts for the likes of Deramores will crop up on your feed from now to eternity.

With that in mind I'd like to do something within the group to promote the many and varied alternatives to the high street behemoths. I'll be running a weekly thread within the group and inviting you to post anything that you've done to help an independent business. Whether you have visited your LYS, bought from an online indie store, bought some hand-dyed yarn or knitted a pattern from an indie designer., even just recommended an indie person to a friend. It all counts.

The intention is to give us all a bit of inspiration and to perhaps find some wonderful new indie suppliers.

Word of mouth and personal support are so important to our indie suppliers and can make all the difference. It really is a case of "use them or lose them".