Eirwen Godfrey from Pontypridd turned her love of knitting into a successful business.

When Eirwen retired from her job as a receptionist at a college in Cardiff she felt she needed to do something to supplement her income.  Eirwen has a passion for knitting, particularly with fine yarns but could never find the colours she wanted. She thought there would be many other knitters with the same problem so she came to PRIME Cymru for free help and advice in developing her idea for dying and selling quality yarns through a website.

Eirwen now hand dyes high quality yarns, such as silks from India, kid mohair from Bradford and cashmere from Scotland which she sells to the public through her web site ‘KnitWitches’.

Knitwiches Yarns is situated in a very small village on top of the mountain above Pontypridd, in the South Wales Valleys.

Eirwen says “I hand dye beautiful luxury yarns, silks, cashmeres, kid mohair, merino etc. It’s so lovely to be able to share a passion for colour and beautiful yarns with my customers. I don’t remember ever not being able to knit, after I got out of my teens I had a long break from knitting, and got back into it some years back and fast developed into a complete addict with a huge stash.

My search for the more unusual and then luxury yarns led me to hand dyed yarns. I’m an addictive knitter and Knitwitches Yarns has been borne out of my compulsion to find and knit with beautiful, luxury yarns, and then by the need to get the colours in the yarns that sang to me, and the rest as they say is history and here I am talking to you, with my very own yarn business.

All yarns are individually dyed in unique, vibrant colours, and sometimes I’m so pleased with the colours I dye, they don’t even make it to the website as I cream them off into my own personal stash (ooops shouldn’t have told you that).”

Information on Eirwen’s business can be found at www.knitwitchesyarns.co.uk