Flowers, yarn and the Northern Yarn 10th birthday

Hello to you, I hope you had a lovely weekend!  It’s Monday, the sun is shining although it’s not so warm here in Winwick and I can see big black clouds rolling past in the distance.  I’m hoping they’re not going to come this way as I’ve got some fabric drying on the line; big daughter and I are going to have a go at making ourselves dresses after my t-shirt success a short while ago and I’ve washed our practice fabric ready to make a start later this week.

Whilst I was out in the garden, I was admiring the flowers that have come out over the last couple of weeks.  We get a lot of sunshine on this particular border and it’s always alive with bees and other pollinating insects now the flowers are blooming.  (Just a heads up – photos of bees and a moth coming up.)

Look at the size of these Oriental poppy flowers!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such enormous poppy flowers, and just to try to show you in context, I’ve zoomed out a bit for this next photo …

I’m not even sure where these poppies came from, although I think it might have been from a plant sale in the village (well, I say “sale” but it was a collection of plants on someone’s drive being sold in aid of Girl Guides if I remember rightly) and this is the first year that it’s flowered.  There’s a second plant growing as well – not exactly where I would have wanted giant poppies but I’m not going to move them!

There are obviously more to come by the look of the giant buds on the plants – hooray!

Elsewhere in the garden, the bees are loving the Centaura montana and it’s like planes coming in to land at an airport watching them take turns to check the flowers for pollen …

It makes me very happy to see wildlife in the garden.  The little pond that I created from the bottom of an old water butt a few years ago also sees lots of use as a bird bath, a home for water beetles and a drinking bowl for Hattie the cat who, like the dog, only seems to really like the water when it’s a bit on the murky side.

There are so many shades of green in the border!

I love how lush all the leaves are, and the pops of colour seem to stand out even more against the green backdrop.

This was an unexpected pop of colour against a green backdrop, though …

I spotted it in the greenhouse on the mesh I’ve had up to protect plants over the winter and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these before.  It’s a cinnabar moth, often mistaken for a butterfly as they come out in the daytime, but the caterpillars like to eat ragwort and there’s plenty of that around in Winwick – not great for the horse owners around here as ragwort is poisonous to horses, but generally they have enough sense to stay away from it.

 

The baby cardigan I was knitting is finished (and there is a link to horses here as the baby’s Mum keeps horses), and the baby has finally arrived after being very reluctant to show his face to the world and taking longer to be born than everyone was hoping!

The pattern is Newborn Vertebrae and is free on Ravelry (this is a Ravelry link).  The yarn is West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply in Winter Icicle, one of my Winwick Mum colourways, and the baby’s Mum and Dad are delighted with it – always a big compliment for hand knitted gifts!

My talented friend Lynne Rowe has just published a crochet baby cardigan pattern in case crochet is more your thing than knitting and you’ve got a baby to make for.  This is another very cute little jacket!  The link to Lynne’s cardigan is here: Crochet Baby Cardigan

On to more yarny things and on Saturday, I drove up to Lancaster to Northern Yarn* as Kate, the shop’s owner, was celebrating the shop’s 10th birthday.  Hooray!

I’ve known Kate for most of the 10 years that Northern Yarn has been open as I found her Poll Dorset yarn (now called Jennett after a courageous Lancastrian lady – you can find her story on Kate’s website) and wanted to use it for my Easy Cable Socks pattern back in 2016 just after her yarn had been released into the world.  Kate has a number of Northern Yarn yarns now, spun from fleeces sourced from local farms and named for local people and landmarks.  I’ve even helped with picking over the fleeces for one of the batches …

This photo was taken in 2017 when I had short hair and I’m with Wendy who owns the amazing Yarnsub website – if you ever need to substitute a yarn for a project, this is the website to check.  You can read the blog post about our day out with the sheep, the lambs and the fleece here: From sheep to socks – sorting fleeces

Oh … and here’s a photo of the lambs from that day – I couldn’t resist!

Well, fast forward to 2026 and Kate’s shop at King’s Arcade in Lancaster was all set up for the all-day birthday party.  There’s a thriving community around the shop – weekly knit sessions both in the daytime and the evening, plus workshops and knitalongs – and by the time I arrived, the shop was full of customers who had come along to celebrate with Kate.

Some of her regular knitters had knitted this wonderful “10” in the window …

and there were paperchains made of Northern Yarn yarn ball bands across the ceiling …

These are some of the yarns that Kate has created with the local fleeces …

and I was in time to chat to Ruth, after whom one of the yarns is named.  She is an excellent knitter, often featured on the Northern Yarn Instagram page in one of her makes, and she also knitted these sample socks in Kate’s brand new Northern Yarn sock yarn …

Oh, did I not mention that there’s a new sock yarn? 🙂

Kate got in touch with me a while ago to say that she’d finally created a sock yarn and it would be ready in time for the shop birthday, and would I like to try it out?  Ha!  You know exactly what I said and a few days later, a parcel containing Lune, the brand new yarn, arrived in the post.

Why is it called Lune?  Well, that’s the name of the river that runs through Lancaster and comes from the Brittonic language for “healthy and pure” (Brittonic languages are forms of Celtic language – you can read more here).  All Kate’s yarn names have a story behind them and you can read more about them on the Northern Yarn website.

The yarn is a blend of shearling Aberfeld (a Bluefaced Leicester/Texel cross), Lonk (a hardy native Lancastrian sheep), black Shetland to create a lovely grey base and 20% eco nylon.  The yarn is currently available in five colours including the undyed grey and they are all dyed with natural dyes and named after plants which grow along the banks of the River Lune.  Kate has developed fantastic contacts with the local farming community over the years and this latest venture with sheep belonging to Dusty, Fiona and their son is another great sheep-to-yarn connection for the shop.

Kate sent me a ball of the undyed grey to try out …

and I was very keen to get it onto my needles … after I’d got the baby cardigan finished as I didn’t want to be late with that!

I was going to use my Basic 4ply Socks pattern just to see how it knitted up, but after a few rounds of the leg I realised that I didn’t want to knit those at all – I wanted to knit a pair of Easy Cable Socks which is where my connection with Northern Yarn started.  I’m using my usual 2.5mm needles and it’s knitting up a treat.  The stitch definition is beautiful, as you can see from the second photo!

Lune hasn’t been superwash treated and it’s a British breeds yarn so it’s not as smooth as Merino-based yarns such as Yarnsmiths Merino Sock or Laughing Hens Cozy Sock; it’s more like West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply which is a bit more woolly, but because it’s not been treated (Signature 4ply isn’t superwash but it is machine washable), it feels more like knitting with a no-nylon yarn.  I really love knitting with yarns like this as it feels like I am much closer to the source of the yarn, and that’s why I’ve spent so much time knitting with no-nylon yarns over the years – you can see all the socks and patterns here: No-nylon Yarns.  In fact, all the patterns in the main tutorials in More Super Socks, including the Easy Cable Socks, are knitted with no-nylon yarn and that’s how I found Kate in the first place …

There is nylon in this yarn, though, so it should be great for socks and Kate has been wearing her pair non-stop over the last few weeks since she got the yarn and is very happy with how they’re holding up.  If this has sparked your interest and you want to know more, have a look at the Lune* website page and you can read more about the story of the yarn there.

I had a lovely time chatting socks and yarn with Kate, Ruth, Mairwen and Miriam who were all in the shop celebrating, and I wasn’t going to leave without some woolly treats of my own!  I bought myself another couple of skeins of Lune as I know I will want to use it again – the colours are Great Burnet (red) and Teasel (brown).  I didn’t know the name of the colours when I picked them up but I’m thrilled to have a Teasel colourway as I grow those in my garden!

After I had squished pretty much every ball and skein of yarn in the shop (Kate has some gorgeous mohair, it was incredibly soft!), it was time to leave.  I still had time on my car park ticket so I decided to take a wander into Lancaster city centre and Kate gave me some ideas of places to see – I’ll tell you more about my wander another day.

I had to take a photo of the woolly slug on the window frame because it really made me laugh.  It was made for an event and after everything was tidied away, the slug stayed and now lives on the window frame.

Northern Yarn isn’t my local yarn shop but I feel a very strong connection to Kate and the shop through her yarn and my Easy Cable Socks pattern, and I do wish I lived a bit closer so that I could be part of the knitting community that surrounds the shop.  Maybe you live closer and didn’t know about it, and if you’re looking for a shop that’s well-stocked with a warm welcome then you can’t go far wrong with heading for Northern Yarn if you’re ever in the Lancaster area.

Happy 10th birthday, Northern Yarn – here’s to many more years!

 

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