Baa Baa Brighouse's Yan Tan Tethera Monthly Yarn Club

Receiving a parcel in the post every month with mystery contents is an exciting prospect. I first tried the concept out with beauty boxes a few years back, signing up to receive one a month for three month.s After the novelty wore off I realised that although the contents were worth more than the box price there weren't enough items I'd actually use to justify the subscription cost.

Then I heard about monthly yarn subscriptions. West Yorkshire based website Baa Baa Brighouse runs its own, with the interesting name of Yan Tan Tethera. What intrigued me about this club as opposed to ones from other wool companies is that as well as the yarn subscribers receive a little gift too: past months have included edible treats and pampering products.  Rather than signing up for a set amount of time in advance customers buy each box monthly. The upside of this is that you don't have to pay out in the months you're not feeling flush, but the potential downside is that when you can afford it you might forget to place your order!

Baa Baa Brighouse kindly sent me September's box to review. My review is entirely my own.

I certainly felt like a child at Christmas when the box arrived in the post. Unwrapping it I found lots of goodies, with the skein of the month lovingly wrapped in tissue paper and ribbon. Baa Baa Brighouse explained to me the ethos behind each month's skein:

"Sign up each month and you will receive an exclusive skein of quality Yorkshire yarn that has been sourced, spun and dyed local by hand. Our dyers take their inspiration from photographs of the Yorkshire landscape and nature ... each dyer will use a different photograph guaranteeing that every monthly batch of yarn is beautiful and completely unique from the next."

Here's the photo, taken by Shutterspot Photography at Temple Newsam in Leeds, which inspired September's yarn:

Image courtesy of Baa Baa Brighouse

And here's the 100g skein itself:

It's a lovely blend of autumnal browns and oranges.

The yarn is 100% merino wool. The yarn fun didn't end there, however. September's special treat in the box was a small skein of hand-dyed Baa Baa Brew DK yarn folded to look like a flower:

I knitted a quick swatch test and thought the peach yarn would look good at the top of a pair of socks. Sadly I haven't had time yet to knit a pair but the swatch gives you the idea of how the colours look together:

I love how the 100g skein self-stripes!

Each monthly subscription costs £21 plus postage. The November box is now available to buy. This is the photo the hand-dyer is working from:

At the moment I have a lot of yarn to use up but I'll certainly think about subscribing to the Yan Tan Tethera Yarn Club in the future. It's particularly suitable to people who like knitting one skein projects such as socks and shawls.