West Yorkshire Spinners Country Birds – new birds in the flock!

Did you know there are brand new colours in the West Yorkshire Spinners Country Birds range of Signature 4ply?  They were launched and flew the nest last Monday so you may have seen them around on social media or if you’ve been into your local yarn shop, but if not then today’s the day I get to tell you all about the new birds in the flock!

What’s more, there’s a brand new pattern book to go with them, too!

Oh, did I mention that I’d had secret knitting going on this year?  Well, phew, I can tell you about it at last!  This has been a long time coming and it’s been so hard to keep the secret!

Let me show you the yarns first.  There are four new shades representing four British birds: (l-r) Jay, Swallow, Starling and Green Woodpecker

They match the existing Country Birds yarns with colours that represent the birds alternating with black and white or blue and white sections.  You can see how the yarns knit up into their stripes here …

Aren’t they lovely?  You’ll have noticed that each of the socks has a pattern to it and I’ll show you those in a minute, but first let me show you the yarns themselves.

Each one takes the colours of the birds they represent and as always, the WYS Dye House genies have made an amazing job of matching the colours of the birds.  You can see here what the birds look like and how well the yarn matches them …

They were a joy to knit, as always – I do love Signature 4ply!  All of these yarns would be great for any sock knitter from beginner to experienced, and if you’re looking for a simple pattern to show off those lovely stripes then look no further than my Basic 4ply Socks pattern, along with the Sockalong tutorials if you need help getting started.

If you’re looking for something more adventurous, however, then let me introduce you to some new patterns!

First up is Jay.

Now, as you should know by now if you’ve knitted any of my patterns, there’s always a story behind the pattern and of course it’s the same here!  I wanted to think about what the bird was like, what its characteristics were and how that could help me to choose the right type of pattern to work into the sock.

Jays are shy birds, despite being part of the crow family (think also of jackdaws and magpies) – you certainly wouldn’t consider any of those to be shy!  Jays, however, don’t like to stay long in one place and flit from branch to branch.  We have one that visits our garden and it’s always gone in a flash of pink feathers, reappearing from a different tree to where you saw it disappear.

I wanted a pattern that represented the flitting nature of the bird and I found it in this lace pattern that doesn’t quite end but simply starts again – it flits, just like the jay!

(The professional-looking photos here all belong to West Yorkshire Spinners; there are some pattern close-ups taken by me but you’ll know which they are 🙂 )

The pattern runs down the outside of each foot so you only have to work in the lace pattern for half of the stitches – and then there’s a narrower version on the back …

The back pattern panels are also mirrored so you can either wear them together at the back or you could wear your socks the other way around so that the front outside panels were together and the back panels to the outside.  Either way, not only does the lace pattern flit, but so do the panels! 🙂

Here’s my close-up photo of the pattern panels so that you can see them … on the left is the front and on the right is the back.

Next is Swallow.

Oh, I did enjoy designing and knitting Swallow!  For years, I thought that the birds that swooped and chattered on the wires near to our house were house martins, but earlier this year at big daughter’s yoga retreat, I learnt that they might actually be swallows instead.

I wanted a pattern that swooped just like the birds do and I created one using twisted stitches.  Twisted stitches are brilliant for making a pattern stand out and they don’t require a cable needle so they’re very easy to create too.  Swallow’s pattern is the same on the front and the back of the socks which gives that lovely swirling pattern all over the socks.

Here’s my pattern close- up for Swallow …

Doesn’t it stand out beautifully?  I’m very happy with this pattern!

 

The third bird pattern is Starling.

Starlings are familiar birds in the UK and when they start to roost together in the autumn, they create huge aerial displays or murmurations in the evening.  They’re an amazing sight to see – thousands of birds swirling in carefully choreographed patterns in the sky, swirling and twirling and always chattering to each other.  That’s what I wanted to try to capture in my Starling pattern and I’ve done it by creating a pattern that runs down the inside of both socks and is mirrored so that you get the swirling movement across both socks.

Ooh, aren’t those stripes gorgeous?  I love them!

I’m not sure if you can see the murmuration pattern any more easily in my close up photo but here it is anyway!

And now, it’s the turn of Green Woodpecker.

I didn’t know until I started to research this bird that they don’t spend much time in the trees at all as they’re ground feeders although they do sleep in bore holes in the trees, so the tapping sounds you hear in the spring could be green woodpeckers but could just as likely be their more-often-spotted cousins, the Greater Spotted Woodpecker.  I’ve learnt plenty working on these socks!

For this pattern, I wanted something that would represent the woodpecker and, of course, we all associate them with the holes the trees, so that’s what I’ve gone for.  It’s lucky that the green woodpecker does spend some time in the trees as trying to design grass or the woodland floor onto socks would have been far more difficult! 🙂

For this pattern, I’ve gone for a mock cable which creates “bore holes” down the “trunk” (leg) of the sock and you’ll be pleased to know that it’s all done with increases and decreases with not a cable needle in sight!

Here’s my close-up …

Ooh, that might be just a bit too close but I hope you can see!

 

All four yarns and the pattern book Along the River are available now from your local WYS stockist and also online retailers – they should be winging their way abroad too so if you live overseas then do check your local yarn shops too (you can see a map of WYS retailers here).  You can also buy a copy from my online shop here.

 

So what do you think?  It’s been so nice to revisit the patterns again to show them to you, and I hope you’ll agree that whether you knit the patterns from the book or just knit plain socks, these lovely yarns will a fabulous addition to your sock drawer!