Sirdar

Everyone at Sirdar is 100% dedicated to hand knitting. We hope that our enthusiasm is infectious.

Sirdar – A brand with a great heritage

In 1880 the original spinning company was established in Ossett by the Harrap brothers, Tom and Henry, originally using only wool fibres. With only a handful of employees, the brothers set out to create a good name for themselves and to produce high quality products. Ten years later the business moved to the site it currently occupies in Alverthorpe, Wakefield.

By 1934 the company was being run by Tom’s son Fred and he decided that the future of the business should be dedicated to spinning hand knitting yarns and selling them directly to independent retailers. Consequently he needed a strong brand name and chose Sirdar, meaning leader, after Lord Kitchener’s appointment as Sirdar of the Egyptian Army. This was the start of a passion to create inspiring yarns in great colours and to design hand knits that were both enjoyable to knit and stylish to wear. The first Sirdar yarns and leaflets were launched at that time and since then the brand has gone from strength to strength.

Mrs. Jean Tyrrell, Fred’s daughter, who had become Chief Executive of the company by 1960, secured the first editorial features in women’s fashion magazines, introducing Sirdar to a vast audience of potential hand knitters. Mrs. Tyrrell was awarded an OBE in recognition of her pioneering work.

Following a management buyout in November 2007, the company was acquired from its previous owners, Sirdar PLC, by three directors each with extensive experience in the industry.

Knitting made fashionable

Over the years fashion has played an important part in our development and we have built up the most amazing design archive – from the necessity of the 1940’s wartime knitter (who wanted to knit something quite glamorous as well as helping the war effort), through the fair isles and space dyes (called randoms) of the 1970’s, the batwings and mohairs of the 1980’s, up to the more recent fashion for the fancy Foxy and Funky Furs – Sirdar has created something from every fashion movement and our design archive is incredibly diverse.

Today, design is at the very heart of what we do. We visit the world’s leading yarn and textiles exhibitions in Italy, Hong Kong and the USA to find inspirational new trends in colour, yarn and design, which we translate into our own Sirdar style – a style that we hope is perfect for today’s hand knitters. Our emphasis is on sourcing good quality yarns and working closely with the best manufacturing partners world-wide.

As well as keeping an eye on major fashion trends, we also have yarns with a timeless quality and appeal. Our best selling yarn, Snuggly, is the UK’s favourite hand knitting yarn for baby and its quality, softness and easy care characteristics have been adored by generations of knitters. Wash ‘n’ Wear, a beautiful double knitting crepe yarn, is another lasting quality. This incredible yarn has been a mainstay in the Sirdar range for over 35 years.

Today’s fashion is returning to natural fibres with the emergence of beautiful new fibres such as bamboo and soya. With a team of 20 specialists, we publish over 300 new designs a year and stock a collection of over 750 designs in leaflets and books. We have an extensive yarn range with an incredible 900 individual colours and you can see the complete collection on this web site.

The Sirdar range is sold through an extensive network of independent retailers, specialist knitting and craft shops and department stores throughout the UK.