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Helpful info about our yarns, our services, and us
New to Colourmart? for key points click here
LUXURY MILL END YARNS SINCE 2005.
Welcome to ColourMart, the top online supplier of remainder luxury yarns, particularly cashmere, silk and extra fine merino. We source our yarns from the best Scottish and Italian mills and then package them to suit the needs of hand and machine knitters, weavers, hand dyers, and even spinners.
We've been supplying luxury yarn worldwide for over 10 years, and pride ourselves in our customer service. Our loyal customers have even created a very active Ravelry group dedicated to our yarn (click here to see).
Welcome to ColourMart, the top online supplier of remainder luxury yarns, particularly cashmere, silk and extra fine merino. We source our yarns from the best Scottish and Italian mills and then package them to suit the needs of hand and machine knitters, weavers, hand dyers, and even spinners.
We've been supplying luxury yarn worldwide for over 10 years, and pride ourselves in our customer service. Our loyal customers have even created a very active Ravelry group dedicated to our yarn (click here to see).
We offer twisting together multiple plies of any yarn (of the same color or different colors, indeed of different fibers too if you wish). To arrange for this, please tick the relevant options in your basket against the yarn (if twisting options are not shown, we will not twist that yarn).
Note that we attempt to get a balanced yarn but twisting is a craft process and we can not guarantee a perfect result.
Twisting should always work with singles yarns (eg 1 13NM yarn) because a balanced final result is possible with singles yarn input. We can twist up multiple ends of already twisted (eg 2 28NM) yarns but the final result will be twisty EXCEPT if you want lots of plies, say 4 plies of lace weight to make a dk - then we can double twist the plies (for example 2 plies twisted one way then two lots of the result twisted together the other way, called a 2x2 twist) when we can still aim for a balanced result. Sometimes it is also possible to relax the twist in a twisty resultant yarn by skein winding and soaking - we will do the skein winding for free but soaking / washing incurs a charge so you may wish to do that yourself.
An alternative to twisting is to just choose to have multiple plies of yarn wound together on one cone. This is free and the end result is rather like knitting from multiple cones at once (which some customers do, often). Note that if you ask for say 3 cones of yarn wound 4 strands together you will still get 3 cones, with the multiple stranded wound yarn on each cone - if you want them all on one cone please tick the "larger cone" option in your basket. Note also, though, that we can not skein wind multiple wound yarns - as the individual strands are just parallel the whole thing ends up a big mess...
And talking about skein winding, we offer this for many yarns, with or without washing. The skeins are one yard length.
NOTE the twisting, winding and skein winding options usually delay the shipment of your order - it is safe to assume by 2-3 working days. OUR WORKING WEEK is Monday to Friday, with Friday being a short day.
Note that we attempt to get a balanced yarn but twisting is a craft process and we can not guarantee a perfect result.
Twisting should always work with singles yarns (eg 1 13NM yarn) because a balanced final result is possible with singles yarn input. We can twist up multiple ends of already twisted (eg 2 28NM) yarns but the final result will be twisty EXCEPT if you want lots of plies, say 4 plies of lace weight to make a dk - then we can double twist the plies (for example 2 plies twisted one way then two lots of the result twisted together the other way, called a 2x2 twist) when we can still aim for a balanced result. Sometimes it is also possible to relax the twist in a twisty resultant yarn by skein winding and soaking - we will do the skein winding for free but soaking / washing incurs a charge so you may wish to do that yourself.
An alternative to twisting is to just choose to have multiple plies of yarn wound together on one cone. This is free and the end result is rather like knitting from multiple cones at once (which some customers do, often). Note that if you ask for say 3 cones of yarn wound 4 strands together you will still get 3 cones, with the multiple stranded wound yarn on each cone - if you want them all on one cone please tick the "larger cone" option in your basket. Note also, though, that we can not skein wind multiple wound yarns - as the individual strands are just parallel the whole thing ends up a big mess...
And talking about skein winding, we offer this for many yarns, with or without washing. The skeins are one yard length.
NOTE the twisting, winding and skein winding options usually delay the shipment of your order - it is safe to assume by 2-3 working days. OUR WORKING WEEK is Monday to Friday, with Friday being a short day.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any problems with your order. We accept returns for any reason up to 3 years after purchase, and will generally offer your choice of a full refund, basket credit or replacement if possible for any yarn purchased in the previous 12 months. Between 12 months and 3 years after purchase we will generally offer your choice of a replacement if possible, or a basket credit. We do not usually pay for return shipping costs. If the yarn is not returned in its original condition, or we processed it for you such that it may be harder to sell (eg twisting or skein winding) you may be responsible for any loss in value.
The prices you see are the prices you pay and include postage. We ship worldwide via priority air mail which means packages usually arrive within 7-10 days, often less, but they are not officially late until 3 weeks has passed, and (although they typically leave UK the same day or next day) a few do take this long or longer, depending on the receiving country (Canada can be particularly slow).
August 2020 update. Royal Mail have now been charging very high COVID surcharges for several months and so we are having to pass some of this on to customers in some countries. Normal air mail charges are still included for free. Sept 2020 update. USPS latest prices to international shippers to the US now price untracked parcels at the same level as tracked, which is much higher than we previously included for free. So we have now made tracking required for US orders, and we are asking US customer to pay $8 per parcel contribution to the tracking part, whilst we are still including the per kg postage part for free (one parcel can include up to 9 of our standard 150g cones).
EU / Brexit VAT update. We are registered for the IOSS scheme which means we pay the full VAT on all orders to EU countries, so EU customers should not have to pay VAT or handling charges. Our IOSS number is IM2500013220 and our UK VAT number is 881377689.
The requirements for small parcel air mail mean that orders greater than 1.9kg (including cones and packaging) need to be split into two or more parcels. Although we usually ship them at the same time (unless you ask us not to), they may arrive on separate days.
Postage within the UK is at First Class rates.
For NON-US customers, normal air mail has no tracking, but we do offer tracking, signed for, or both depending on what Royal Mail offers to any given country. Again for this we charge $8 per parcel. If you wish to add this please select the appropriate option when checking out (after confirming shipping address). We can also ship large orders in one package by courier if required, for an extra fee.
August 2020 update. Royal Mail have now been charging very high COVID surcharges for several months and so we are having to pass some of this on to customers in some countries. Normal air mail charges are still included for free. Sept 2020 update. USPS latest prices to international shippers to the US now price untracked parcels at the same level as tracked, which is much higher than we previously included for free. So we have now made tracking required for US orders, and we are asking US customer to pay $8 per parcel contribution to the tracking part, whilst we are still including the per kg postage part for free (one parcel can include up to 9 of our standard 150g cones).
EU / Brexit VAT update. We are registered for the IOSS scheme which means we pay the full VAT on all orders to EU countries, so EU customers should not have to pay VAT or handling charges. Our IOSS number is IM2500013220 and our UK VAT number is 881377689.
The requirements for small parcel air mail mean that orders greater than 1.9kg (including cones and packaging) need to be split into two or more parcels. Although we usually ship them at the same time (unless you ask us not to), they may arrive on separate days.
Postage within the UK is at First Class rates.
For NON-US customers, normal air mail has no tracking, but we do offer tracking, signed for, or both depending on what Royal Mail offers to any given country. Again for this we charge $8 per parcel. If you wish to add this please select the appropriate option when checking out (after confirming shipping address). We can also ship large orders in one package by courier if required, for an extra fee.
We will happily try to match any samples sent to us. We will also send
small free skeins of up to 6 yarns (even if you are not ordering) as
long as you have them in your shopping basket on the site, just email us
directly at colourmartcashmere@gmail.com or add a request to your order
when checking out if you are ordering at the same time. We charge US$0.50 each for any samples above 6, and we also charge if you ask for more than one samples shipment between orders.
We also sell a sample pack ( click here to see it), which includes a selection of small skeins showing most of our yarn counts, and a washed skein to show how the yarns may bloom after washing.
We also sell a sample pack ( click here to see it), which includes a selection of small skeins showing most of our yarn counts, and a washed skein to show how the yarns may bloom after washing.
We only share your personal information with other organizations if it is necessary to provide you with yarns (eg with postage / courier companies).
All your information is encrypted before storage on our website.
All of the financial part of your purchasing, whether by Paypal account or by card, is handled by Paypal directly. We do not have access to any of the details you use to pay us
to see our detailed privacy policy, click here: privacy policy
All your information is encrypted before storage on our website.
All of the financial part of your purchasing, whether by Paypal account or by card, is handled by Paypal directly. We do not have access to any of the details you use to pay us
to see our detailed privacy policy, click here: privacy policy
Our prices are pretty competitive anyway but we do have additional discounts :-) On most of our yarns (not sets) :
- if you buy 6 or more 150g cones of one color of one yarn type you can tick the box for "kg cone discount" in your basket against that yarn / color. This will reduce the price, usually by more than 20%, more if the item is on KONE SALE!, occasionally less. Ticking this box means you are agreeing to have the yarn sent on larger cones than 150g, typically on cones of around 900g but sometimes a mix of cone sizes.
- if you buy 6 or more 150g cones of more than one color of one yarn type you will automatically get a discount on all the cones, typically 15% but can be more on sale items... a similar deal works for 50g cones of some yarns..
- all customers build up a 5% credit for all purchases on our website, which is added to their baskets at the end of each month.
- if you buy 6 or more 150g cones of one color of one yarn type you can tick the box for "kg cone discount" in your basket against that yarn / color. This will reduce the price, usually by more than 20%, more if the item is on KONE SALE!, occasionally less. Ticking this box means you are agreeing to have the yarn sent on larger cones than 150g, typically on cones of around 900g but sometimes a mix of cone sizes.
- if you buy 6 or more 150g cones of more than one color of one yarn type you will automatically get a discount on all the cones, typically 15% but can be more on sale items... a similar deal works for 50g cones of some yarns..
- all customers build up a 5% credit for all purchases on our website, which is added to their baskets at the end of each month.
The first thing to say about the NM numbers we use (2/28NM, 3/10NM and so on) is that if you find them difficult to understand, you can ignore them (and use the gauges table here instead) :-). The next thing to say is that pretty much any factory spun yarn sold in the world will have been described by it's spinner in NM terms or equivalent, it's just that as we sell industrial cones which we buy with these numbers on, we use them - many craft yarn sellers leave them off.
So what do they mean? well the number before the "/" is how many strands the yarn has. The number after the "/" is how many meters you can get from each gram of each strand. So a 2/28NM yarn has 2 strands, each one giving 28 meters per gram. When you put two strands together, the weight per meter doubles... put another way when you double a strand the meters per gram halves. The same principle applies to more than two strands, so the rule is that to get the total meters per gram for a multi strand yarn you divided the number after the "/" by the number before it. So a 2/28NM yarn gives 14 meters per gram (28 divided by 2), whilst a 4/7NM yarn gives 1.75 meters per gram (7 divided by 4 = 1.75). What sometimes seems a bit odd about this resulting number is that the lower the number the thicker the yarn... a 2/28NM yarn will give 8 times as many meters from say 50g as a 4/7NM yarn ( 14 from above divided by 1.75 from above gives 8).
Other useful tips about NM numbers:
- they work the same way as the more typical numbers on other supplier's yarns - if a 50g ball has 500 meters in it then the total NM number for that yarn will be 10 (500 divided by 50)
- if you multiply the NM number by about 500, you will get yards per pound (YPP)... so the 2/28NM mentioned above is about 7,000 YPP
So what do they mean? well the number before the "/" is how many strands the yarn has. The number after the "/" is how many meters you can get from each gram of each strand. So a 2/28NM yarn has 2 strands, each one giving 28 meters per gram. When you put two strands together, the weight per meter doubles... put another way when you double a strand the meters per gram halves. The same principle applies to more than two strands, so the rule is that to get the total meters per gram for a multi strand yarn you divided the number after the "/" by the number before it. So a 2/28NM yarn gives 14 meters per gram (28 divided by 2), whilst a 4/7NM yarn gives 1.75 meters per gram (7 divided by 4 = 1.75). What sometimes seems a bit odd about this resulting number is that the lower the number the thicker the yarn... a 2/28NM yarn will give 8 times as many meters from say 50g as a 4/7NM yarn ( 14 from above divided by 1.75 from above gives 8).
Other useful tips about NM numbers:
- they work the same way as the more typical numbers on other supplier's yarns - if a 50g ball has 500 meters in it then the total NM number for that yarn will be 10 (500 divided by 50)
- if you multiply the NM number by about 500, you will get yards per pound (YPP)... so the 2/28NM mentioned above is about 7,000 YPP
Some of our best offers are "sets". Usually these are 200g or 300g of the small bits we get left after winding orders, off the cone, grouped by color (in beautiful combinations!). They are typically 20% - 30% cheaper per gram than our 150g cones of the same yarns, and you get many more colors :-) Most customers who work with these sets use a pointy cone to put the off cone cakes on when knitting, and we will supply a free such cone with the sets if you ask for one on checkout. For some sets on sale now, see here.
As you can see, a few of the sets are for full cones, these are just a cheaper way of buying cones of random weights that we have decided not to sell as 150g standard weight.
As you can see, a few of the sets are for full cones, these are just a cheaper way of buying cones of random weights that we have decided not to sell as 150g standard weight.