In the spring of 2021, I am changing the crochet hooks I offer in all of my crochet kits and gift sets, to a type I know you are going to love even more.
Update July 2021: Please see my latest crochet hook news.
Until now, I have always offered a range of bamboo crochet hooks. Manufactured by UK company Whitecroft, these are lovely hooks at an affordable price. (You can find many very cheap bamboo crochet hooks on auction sites, but I wouldn’t recommend them as the quality is often poor.)
But the one major draw-back from my point of view is that the Whitecroft hooks come in a horrible plastic sleeve!
Since everything at Little Conkers is as sustainable as I can make it, and one of the reasons people opt for bamboo hooks is precisely to avoid plastic, I have always been uncomfortable with this. In most cases, these sleeves are the only plastic in my kits. I have even been removing the sleeves for some of my kits, so that the sets I sell are entirely plastic free for customers, but that leaves customers without the reassurance of the branding on the hooks, and leaves me with a pile of non-recyclable plastic sleeves.
I have attempted to set up a dialog with Whitecroft about whether they could replace the plastic sleeves – so many other crochet hooks are simply packaged in cardboard, so it’s not as if there is no alternative – but to no avail, so I have been testing out other sustainable crochet hook options for my kits.
I am very excited by the new hooks I will be offering, and I can’t wait to hear what my customers have to say about them. The hooks I have settled on are Pony ‘Perfect’ crochet hooks.
These beautiful hooks are 100% natural, made with three different woods sourced from sustainably-managed forests. They are smooth, strong yet flexible, warm to the touch and a real pleasure to crochet with. My bamboo crochet hooks were lovely, but these are *really* lovely!
The attractive patterning, unique to each hook, is achieved without artificial pigments or dyes, and they are (of course) packaged in aplastic-free cardboard sleeve.
The hooks are 15cm long, and another benefit is that this range comes in a wider range of sizes than my bamboo hooks – so it includes interim sizes 3.25mm (US: D) and 3.75 (US: F).
I will have to increase my prices to reflect the increase in my costs in making this change, but this is part of an overall review of my pricing that I’m undertaking, taking into account the effects of Brexit and the pandemic that are making it harder for me to source materials and increasing their cost.
You might be interested to know that on 31st March, I paid £21.60 for a box of the 100% recycled A4 printer paper I use for all my printing, and that on 3rd February cost me just £15.30. That’s over a 40% increase in 8 weeks! The cost of my boxes, tissue and packaging paper have all similarly increased. I think we are all just going to have to adjust our view of what our money can buy. £10 really no longer gets you what £10 used to get you just a little while ago.
Anyway! At least changing my range of crochet hooks is something I’ve planned, researched and see as a real positive for my customers, unlike these many other ‘invisible’ cost increases.
Over the next few weeks, all my crochet kits, gift sets and my Crochet Starter Kit will be moving over to include these Pony ‘Perfect’ hooks. I am also offering the crochet hooks for sale individually and in small sets. I hope you love them as much as I do!
