ABOUT US
ABOUT SARAH DURRANT - OUR BUSINESS
Sarah Durrant came from the UK and established her business in Australia in 1988 as a designer/maker of knitted textiles and women's knitwear. Working with both machine knitting and hand knitting techniques, she soon established a reputation for design that was both unique and wearable, the use of exquisite yarns sourced from around the world, and flawless technique and quality of finish.
Sarah has been retailing Colinette Yarns across Australia since 1997. She first started using Colinette Yarns (from Wales) in some of her own designs in her ready to wear collections, then realised that other knitters in Australia would gain equal pleasure from being able to work with these yarns themselves. Thus, the business developed - first selling the yarns alongside her knitwear designs, direct to her customers at craft fairs, wool shows and markets in the southern and eastern states, then establishing a mail order business to serve the rest of Australia. Now, in late 2003, we can take our service world-wide, via the internet. The yarn pages are now fully functioning, and we intend to have some of our exclusive ready to wear knitwear designs available in 2004.
WHY DO OUR CUSTOMERS PREFER TO DO BUSINESS WITH US ?
Quite simply, because they consider us to be the specialists - for over 6 years we've retailed no other brand yarns but Colinette, so we really know them well. And because we design and knit with them ourselves we can offer you valuable first hand knowledge and advice, and outstanding support of the product. Importantly, we won't pressure you into an inappropriate sale, our aim is to ensure you've made the best possible retail choice. Our customers come back to us again and again, and that's how we like it.
Price-wise, you'll find it hard to do better. We have the Colinette Yarns flown directly to us from Wales, and we're able to perform all Customs clearances ourselves, so have no need to employ costly customs agents. Likewise, our customers don't pay for our shop-front - we only have a 'virtual' one !
Our customers also love our range and availability of stock. All our internet range of yarns and patterns are in stock and ready to buy all year round. We know how frustrating it is when we really want to get started on our knitting, only to find our favourite yarn's not available, so we order regularly, direct from Colinette. And if you're wanting a yarn/colour that isn't featured on our pages, ask us about it! We always have many other yarn types and colours in stock which we use for our own design range or, (if you think you can bear to wait a few weeks !) we can add your choice to our next order to Colinette.
ABOUT SARAH
Sarah first learned to knit as a very young girl, taught by enthusiastic Aunts and family friends. Like many young girls, the opportunity to design and knit her own dolls clothes sparked her interest in the craft, then her first item knitted to a commercial pattern was a toy poodle, pattern and materials provided by an Aunt during a stay in Bedford. In fact, Sarah was so fascinated by the process of making all those loops for the dog's fur, that she went on and knitted several more poodles exactly the same !
But things got really serious when she joined the British Army ! Though she'd continued to knit through her teens (and dabbled in just about every craft she could discover) it was through her twenties that she really polished her knitting and designing skills (along with her Army boots). An amusing picture, perhaps - a young woman in combat dress, knitting at every opportunity ? But there was a very active 'knitting circle' amongst the female soldiers where she worked in the UK - of a size and skill base that would rival any of the knitting groups now popping up in the hotels and cafes in contemporary Australia.
Sarah left the services as a Warrant Officer in the mid eighties with an MBE (we'd like to say it was awarded for services to knitting but............ ) and then went on to be a lecturer at a College of Arts & Technology in Norfolk. She even managed to get knitting into her syllabus there - introducing an enthusiastic group of students to the basic skills during their weekly electives programme.
She finally had the opportunity to develop her passion for knitting into a business when she migrated to Australia in 1987.
Yarns
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