Pre-orders are now closed. Batches will be dyed and dispatched by Friday 2nd August.

#YarnFromTheMeadow takes inspiration from the small hay meadow that we live next to. A few acres of tussocky grass, grown to be cut for hay or silage, depending on the weather, and occasionally used as grazing for the cattle that are raised on the fields all around us. Bounded by an avenue of sweet chestnuts on one side, ancient oaks on the other and with a scruffy hedgerow bordering the lane, it's home to rabbits, mice, shrews, and voles; a hunting ground for a beautiful barn owl and untold kestrels and buzzards. Adjacent to fox earths, and badger setts, and criss-crossed with the well-worn tracks of the muntjac, fallow, and roe deer that pass through, I walk it with the dog, with Chris, and sometimes just to breath in the air and turn my face to the sun. And I take photos, endlessly. Of the views, the sky, the weather, the flora and fauna, the changing of the seasons.

I'll be using all of the above as inspiration for this year's limited-run series. Two shades each month throughout 2024, dyed on a variety of fingering weight yarn bases, using the dye technique that creates our gorgeous ~flash~ shades.

July – and the fields around us are humming with life! The harvest is underway, and the lanes are busy with tractors carting straw bales and trailers of grain. In our little meadow the grass is growing after its first cut and as I walk with the dog each step launches dozens of crickets. Their chirruping is an intense soundtrack now the birds are too busy feeding and fledging to sing quite so much! The first shades is inspired by the long grass that is left behind in the field margins – bleached by the sun and swaying in the summer breeze, this is the stuff a summer meadow is made of and I love it. A slightly abstract photo of the seed heads gave me pale straw, warm gold, and hints of peachy pink and lavender to play with, and I love this shade! I've called it in the moment.

The second shade is a gorgeous mix of violet, lavender, raspberry, and palest pink tones that I picked out from one of my favourite meadow residents. After the hay is cut the 'weeds' always grow back first and fastest and there are currently some gorgeous flowering thistles providing food and lodgings for all manner of bees and beetles. A bud, a fading flower, and a scruffy almost-seed head gave me all the soft and vibrant tones I needed to make perfectly defiant.

Both shades are dyed on delf | fingering, a perfect blend of superwash merino wool and silk that was one of the first yarn bases in our range but has been quietly retired for some years. Waiting in the wings for its chance to shine again! And shine it does, with 20% silk and a gorgeous tight twist it is soft, has an amazing sheen and is perfect for shawls and lightweight garments...

We use professional acid dyes with good light and wash fastness and do our best to exhaust every dye bath and reuse water wherever possible to reduce any further environmental impact. Occasionally a small amount of 'loose' dye may remain in the yarn after rinsing (most likely with deeply saturated shades) and we always recommend hand washing in very cool water and pre-washing your yarn separately if you are intending to mix light and dark shades in a single garment/project. 

We recommend hand washing your finished projects in cool water to preserve the vibrancy of the dye and, as with all small-batch, hand-dyed yarn that doesn't have dye lots, we also recommend knitting alternate rows from two skeins when working on larger projects to avoid noticeable changes between skeins.
 

delf | fingering
weight: fingering/4ply/sock equivalent
fibre: 80% wool - superwash merino, 20% silk
needle size: 2.00 - 3.50mm
metres: 365m per 100gm skein
care: Hand wash in cool water using gentle wool detergent