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I’m back from a whirlwind week up North. The Curious Handmade Country House Retreat was an amazing time: I’ll have more to share about it once I’ve gathered my thoughts! In the meantime you can check out the lovely photos everyone took on Instagram under the #CHcountryhouseretreat hashtag. I also traveled on to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival, where I got to spend even more time with some wonderful knitters, designers, and lovely woolly people of all sorts. Today, though, I want to share an interview I did with the marvelous Daphne of The Fibre Co. We talked about the development of the new yarn (a favourite topic of mine!) about the alchemy of dyeing and colour selection, and about what Daphne’s looking forward to in the near future.
Show Sponsor:
Meadow Yarn is an inviting online retailer selling yarn, needles and notions. It’s a small, family business based in rural Suffolk in the UK. Meadow Yarn was born out of a passion for beautiful yarn and knitting accessories and aims to bring you a range of great products. Yarns stocked include madelinetosh, Eden Cottage Yarn, the Fibre Co and many more.
Show Notes:
As you’ve probably heard on the podcast, the Fibre Co. and their wonderful new yarn Cumbria sponsored us on the retreat. I designed a new shawl using fingering weight Cumbria, and introduced it to the retreat participants. Today I can finally introduce it to you!
The Hill Top Shawl was inspired by the rolling fields, stone walls, and craggy hills of gorgeous Cumbria in the north of England.
To celebrate the launch, Hill Top Shawl is available on Ravelry at 30% OFF for a short time, until Tuesday, March 29.
Just make sure to use the code HILLTOP30 when you check out in Ravelry.
There is an everyday magic to this place, where a touch of untamed wilderness still endures amid a tradition of rural life that reaches back back centuries. Cumbria is the ancestral home of Peter Rabbit and the epitome of what Robert Blake called “England’s green and pleasant land,” and it stole my heart years ago. I’ve poured that love into this design: an elegant crescent-shaped shawl with a rustic soul.
I’ve interspersed super simple garter stitch with eye-catching lace panels, and finished it all off with a sweet, engaging picot edge. You might drape this shawl around your shoulders as you nestle in at home with a book, safe from the elements, or wrap it snugly around your neck for comfort as you head out bravely on a weekend hike. This classic accessory will keep you warm and cosy wherever it’s worn.
This is a fun, quick knit, and from the response at the retreat, I think you’re really going to enjoy it! It’s available to buy on Ravelry now. I’ve started a KAL thread and as a prize I’ve saved one of the retreat goodie bags to share, including a handmade project bag, vouchers for several free patterns, and most wonderfully, two skeins of Cumbria Fingering from The Fibre Co. Join us for chatter, support, and some fun over the next six weeks!
