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It's almost October - have you thought about what you'll be wearing this year? This collection of the best free Halloween knitting and crochet patterns is sure to inspire you to pick up your needles and hook for some autumnal inspiration! 

Have you ever found a pattern featuring a discontinued yarn, or wanted to use a different yarn than recommended? Here's some helpful tips on how to substitute yarn. 

Have you ever looked at your stash and felt utterly uninspired? Losing your crafting mojo (or Crojo) can happen to anyone - but we're here to help you get back on track. 

In this month's One Ball Challenge, Angie from GamerCrafting takes on the amazingly scrumptious Rowan Cashmere yarn! The result is a one ball, free fingerless glove knitting pattern that's perfect for autumn or holiday gifting.

The kids are getting ready to head back to school - send them back in style with these free back to school knitting and crochet patterns from around the web!

David Barton talks about the curious creative relationship between bakers and knitters, baking and knitting, and how it all ties together with a pinch of patience and a dash of zesty creativity, just in time for the launch of the Great British Bake Off. 

Learn how to knit colourwork with these helpful tips! Colourwork patterns can be intimidating to a newbie knitter, but these colourwork tips and tricks will have you knitting complicated designs in no time. 

Have you seen these new tools and accessories from Addi? They are on the front lines of innovation in the yarn crafting world, and we can't wait to share them with you! 

We've recently started a new project which involves swatching with different yarns to learn more about them. Right now we are focused on cotton blend yarns as the weather gets warmer and wool might not be your preferred fibre to work with.

The short answer? Yes! The long answer has something to do with wanting to make sure that the finished product comes out the right size, the yarn works for the project and that you ensure that things aren’t going to go awry (at least as much as you can). The answer that you hopefully come to is that you WANT to make a gauge swatch. 

Want to improve your knitting techniques? Here are some videos from Joeli Creates to help you out.

Somewhere buried deep in your subconscious, is the saying “Read all the directions before you start,” That made sense when you were in grade school and were taking a test for a grade, but, for some reason, once we add some pretty, colorful string, sharp pointy objects, and a must-have finished object dangling in front of us, all of that advice seems to disappear.

Today we share a round up of some great blog posts talking about how to knit lace. Lace knitting produces some beautiful items but can be a bit tricky to work. So we've had a look around and found some great blog articles to help you get started!

You know what i mean right…I'm talking about those projects that you’ve had on the needles since you decided to walk through the yarn bombed door into the addiction we all know and love.

We scoured through YouTube and picked out some of our favourite crochet tutorial videos for you. If you want to learn to crochet or work through a new project, these videos will hopefully help you out.

We love cowls. We especially love cowls in bright fun colours like this one from Debbie Bliss. 

Want to learn to knit? Earlier this week we talked about the tools and materials you might need. Today we wanted to talk about some ways to actually go about learning to knit. If you can't take a class in person the Internet can be a great resource, but it can also be overwhelming. So we went through and picked our our top 5 videos that can teach you how to knit. 

Learning to knit is one of the most valuable skills you can acquire. The great thing about knitting is that with a few basic starter pointers and an easy-to-follow knitting kit, you can be well on your way to creating fantastic woollen designs for yourself and your family and friends. If you’re new to knitting, the thousands of wools, yarns and tools and accessories can be daunting. So we’ve put together a simple guide on what you need to learn to knit.

We're thrilled so many of our customers are taking part in Rowan's 2016 Knit Along.

At Laughing Hens we pride ourselves on offering a wide range of yarns in natural fibres, suitable for all your knitting projects. Our newest addition is Debbie Bliss Rialto Luxury Sock. This latest yarn in the Debbie Bliss range is sure to please sock knitters, with a wide variety of colours.