About me

Hi. I’m Penelope. Well, Penny actually. Growing up I only ever heard the full name I was christened with if I was in trouble (so quite a lot!).

Fast forward several years, and because I have always had some sort of knitting or crochet project on the go, my husband took to calling me Penelope Knitstop, and the name stuck.

I was made redundant in July 2021 so decided to see if I could sell a few handmade bits and pieces so I could buy some more yarn. But I’m an OCD sort of personality. If I do something, I do it a lot, in depth, studied from all angles and to the exclusion of everything else, so here we are. enough products to offer a full range, and enough balls of yarn to open a shop of my own.

I knit and crochet to relax. There’s something hypnotic about the rhythmic action of weaving a length of yarn into a finished shape, so to be able to do this and offer the finished items for sale is amazing.

Shortly after setting up my business page on Facebook I realised that unless I charged about £150 for a tiny pair of knitted bootees I was never going to be able to do much more than cover my yarn costs, so I invested in a hand operated circular knitting loom. This allows me to produce some lovely, quality items such as my double thickness beanies, headwarmers and scarves much quicker and offer them at a much more reasonable price. All are still handmade, knitted, hand finished and hand embellished by me, in my Cotgrave home just outside of Nottingham. But the bulk of the bit in the middle is done by hand cranking a handle which operates 46 needles.

So rest assured that I still knit and crochet in the evenings in front of the tv. And that every item you see listed here, or offered under the Penelope Knitstop brand will have been made by me. Even those lush pom poms!

I hope you enjoy browsing my products, and welcome any and all feedback.