The Scrumptious Collection – Volume 1

We’ve long been fans of Fyberspates yarn, in fact I’ve been buying hand dyed skeins from Jeni since way before Meadow Yarn was even a pipe-dream and of course, when the barn was ready to be filled with yarn Fyberspates Scrumptious was at the top of the list! We’ve never struggled to find beautiful things to knit with it either… from scarves and stoles that make the most of the glorious drape of the Lace weight yarn (there’s one in progress at the moment!) to cabled hats in Chunky weight and shrugs and pull-overs that show off the sheen of the DK. We were, however, very excited to hear a while back that Jeni was working on a pattern collection and now we’ve got our hands on it we’re even more excited.

The Scrumptious Collection volume 1 contains 20 patterns that show-off the Scrumptious yarn range to its full potential. Ranging from quick knits, like this fab chunky hat…

Arncott Hat by Jen Arnall-Culliford

to Lace weight Cardi’s and Slipovers like Hethe & Tirrold:

Hethe by Judy Furlong

Tirrold by Jen Arnall-Culliford

There’s truly something for every knitter in this lovely collection and anyone who’s a fan of Fyberspates already will appreciate patterns that make the most of the lovely drape and sheen that is common across the range.

We’ve also just added the 4 ply yarn to our current range…

Scrumptious 4 ply

The same great feel as the other weights with a nice twist for added stitch definition.

Leaving you with my current faves from the pattern collection (although they change daily!)

Hinksey Mittens

Stonor Cardigan

Not only knitting…

It has become apparent that I don’t knit enough… (you may just have heard the gasps and splutters and guffaws from the other members of this household in response to that declaration) What it boils down to is this; in order to blog regularly about knitting I need lots of new exciting projects with which to wow you! Hmmm… the will is certainly there, I’m just not so sure about the time! So, in lieu of the exciting knitting and in an effort to make this blog a bit more than a showcase for new products and special offers (nice as they are!) it’s time to broaden our horizons. Meadow Yarn is so much more to us than simply a ‘yarn store’, it’s fundamental to our way of life… to us living in harmony with our children, our surroundings and each other! Home educating our boys, growing on our allotment, surrounded by beautiful rural Suffolk there’s a lot to share. To sum it up life is not only about knitting!

This glorious Easter weekend we pottered and pootled around, seeing friends, stopping by nurseries and garden centres, discussing the possibility of hens in the back garden, hunting eggs, picnicking and finding treasures all along the way…

At this time of year, just slightly before the Cow Parsley really comes into flower our local hedgerows and verges are filled with these. Alexanders were introduced to the UK by the Romans (that’s enough to get the boys interested!) and the celery-like stalks were braised or boiled and eaten for hundreds of years before falling out of favour and general culinary use. We picnicked at our favourite playground on Sunday and were surrounded by billowing swathes of Alexanders so I couldn’t resist sneaking a few stems away to ‘prettify’ our garden table. They smell quite pungently fragrant and the zingy lime green stems combined with lemony flower heads make for a lively combination. Perfect for a terracotta pot and with any luck the seeds will find homes in our lawn meadow and we can harvest our own Alexanders in the future!

Talking of zingy, lemony green, Kate Davies of the wonderful Needled blog released her latest pattern on Friday. Deco  (Ravelry link) has shot straight to the top of my ‘to do’ list and I’m very much liking the yarn / colour she’s chosen for her original  (and the Orla Kiely dress is really very nice too!!)

© Kate Davies / Needled

You can buy the pattern direct from Kate’s blog or via Ravelry

Kate’s blog is my top ‘must read’ and a new post is always sure to enlighten in some way or another. As well as being a fabulous knitwear designer she is an inspirational person…

And it did end up being a ‘knitting’ blog post after all!

Needle Candy…

There’s nothing better than a trawl around the wonder that is Flickr to boost the spirit and get the creative juice going and while I often find myself drooling over ‘finished objects’ – be they amazing quilts, knitted or crocheted beauties or simply little peeks into everyday lives with vintage treasures sometimes all I really need to see is yarrrrnnnnnn…

Colour, texture, situation, the heady combination of all of these…

1. NORO Kureyon 165, 2. fuzzy friend, 3. my malabrigo stash, 4. not true-to-color at all., 5. Untitled, 6. Prep Work: Winding the Hanks, 7. Sundae, 8. c r o c h e t, 9. Ta-da!, 10. Malabrigo Sock :: Arbol, 11. Cakes of Sundara FSM, 12. Silky Signals, 13. arauncania coliumo multy yarn, 14. stashbusting, 15. Ball Winding Noro, 16. feels like fall.

Now, if that doesn’t make you want to pick up your needles nothing will! I am feeling the vibe from honey mustard, sage green, pumpkin and deep rich red with the occasional citrus zing at the moment… What’s getting your creative juices flowing?

Manos del Uruguay ‘clasica’ baby blanket

One of the nicest things about selling yarn for a living is seeing all of the wonderful things that those innocuous little balls/cakes/skeins get transformed into. The rise and rise of Ravelry has certainly made that easier for us solitary on-line businesses to catch up with our knitters’ progress but there’s no substitute for the ‘real thing’ and I am lucky to have a wonderful group of local patrons via my Tuesday night ‘Stitch & Sip’ who work their magic with the yarn I peddle and then bring the finished objects back to show me!

Like this…

Several skeins of Manos Del Uruguay Clasica in the gorgeous ‘Hercules’ shade transformed into a wonderful baby blanket – set to become a family heirloom for sure!

A tactile garter stitch border with a soft, snuggly centre panel, complete with teddy sporting complimentary silk ribbon!

Thanks for loaning it to us to photograph Liz! (Now I just need to come up with a better technique for photographing blankets, hmmm…)

It’s also given us the opportunity to test out a fab new feature in the shop. If you’re in need of inspiration for the yarn you’re viewing we’ll be offering wonderful glimpses of the potential as we come across them! Just click the ‘inspration’ link…

my world : the ‘meadow’

Inspired by a new series on a blog I like to read, I thought you might like a peek at a little piece of our world.

This is where we work…

the meadow yarn office

We are incredibly lucky to rent this amazing office/warehouse space! One of those happy ‘friend of a friend of a friend’ finds that we still can’t quite believe – even several years down the line!

It’s a big part of our ‘world’.  A space where the family can happily hang out while we work.  A truly inspirational place to spend time – so much more than just an ‘office’. The right hand part of the building, with the windows, is the office. The left hand part is the back of a range of open garages – where the tractor is often parked and where the summer visiting swallows nest around this time each year. It’s also now that the buttercups come into flower. They apparently don’t make particularly good hay – which is what the meadow is cut for each summer – but they do make for a very beautiful outlook…

the meadow yarn 'meadow'!

And somehow I always feel inclined to knit something yellow at this time of the year! Most especially when the sun is shining!

autumn inspiration…

autumn has arrived!

A perfect walk in the woods. Not quite ‘russet’ yet, rather gold & green with the occasional flash of pink from the heather and all under a blue sky…

Chevron Scarf

The Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts seemed an apt accessory for a leisurely family walk with a slight nip in the air…