Good morning! If you're here looking for the new Meadow yarn pack, click on the following link to go straight there >>
❧🏵️ MEADOW YARN PACK ❧🏵️
If you'd like to read on, I'm sharing more of the inspiration behind the Meadow blanket.....

I always embark on a very curious and creative journey when I design colour palettes for blankets, as I am never quite sure where the inspiration will come from or how it will manifest itself inside my Creative Mind. Sometimes I mull over possible themes for a very long time (years) before it feels right for them to come to fruition, and sometimes the ideas just seem to ping in at a moments notice. The Meadow blanket was definitely a PiNG moment!! The idea for the colour palette landed inside my mind with such force one sunny morning that I immediately knew I would be powerless to resist it's charms.
Those of you who've been reading my blog for a while will be familiar with the small meadow I visit which is just a five minute stroll from home. I mostly feel the pull there in late May when the buttercups are in full flower, and over the years I've often shared photographs of the haze of golden flowers. It's a such a stunning sight and one of the many reasons that May is my absolute favourite month of the year.

This year during May and June, I often felt drawn to the meadow when I was feeling in need of some breathing space. We were still in quite a severe lockdown back then with pretty much everything shut so that we were only venturing out for our daily walks.

I strolled around the meadow almost every day throughout June, most often on my own when I craved solitude. It became my sanctuary, a haven of tranquillity where I could calm down my racing thoughts and find some peace for my emotions to gently settle.

As June progressed I began to notice more and more wild flowers hiding in the tangle of tall summer grass. The buttercups were still there, but their vibrant golden yellow was joined by a beautiful palette of summer shades. Purple and white clovers, vetches and trefoils, creeping thistles and creamy meadowsweet, wild sorrel and hogweed.
I found myself absolutely transfixed by the beauty of these common wild flowers....

...hogweed...

...clover...

...buttercup.
I spent long moments slowly wandering the pathway around the edge of the meadow searching for flowers and taking in the colours. It was a beautiful time - long slow days with many hours to spend day dreaming and creating inside my mind.

I still walked the meadow through the days of July as it continued to deliver a welcome period of quiet calm to my days. By this time, most of the flowers had gone and the tall summer grasses had well and truly taken over. There was a delicious purple haze over the meadow - I don't know what this particular grass is called but it's very delicate and its smoky purple hue looked amazing.
OH>> I just had a little search online and found this, aren't we so so fortunate to have so much information at our fingertips? So this grass ↑↑↑ is "Yorkshire Fog grass" - wow, I am LOVING that!!

Into August and pretty much all the wild flowers had gone, with the exception of the hogweed....

....towering above even the tallest grasses. I learnt the hard way that hogweed should not be picked as it really irritates the skin. In fact, it's not the thing to pick any flowers from the meadow as the area is protected and I have a lot of respect for these kind of rules.
I spent a lot of time walking throughout the summer months, often covering many miles across fields and around quiet narrow lanes around my town and neighbouring villages. I saw so many wild flowers growing in abundance, along verges and rough grass around fields and roads, and I noted that most of them were the same species that were growing in the meadow. So one stormy summers evening, I went off on a mission to gather in some stems for my photographs, taking care to pick only one or two from each spot. I walked just under five miles in my quest to gather in all the shades that I needed...

....ahhhhhh, such a wonderful spread of summer colour! I decided to include some blues in this colour palette to represent the summer sky, and I'm really happy with the overall feel of it. Actually "really happy" doesn't even come close to describing my feelings here - this delicate and pretty colour palette is absolutely full of summer light and warmth and I couldn't love it more. It has a healing quality which instantly gives me a calm feeling and transports me back to my quiet, solo walks around that glorious field of living colour. I am very much hoping that the Meadow blanket will be blessed with the same calm, healing vibe.

As is usual for my blankets, I've chose fifteen shades of Stylecraft Special DK for my Meadow blanket
Starting from the top and working clockwise ::
🏵️ Wisteria 🏵️ Lavender 🏵️ Cloud Blue 🏵️ Duck Egg 🏵️ Sage 🏵️
🏵️ Lincoln 🏵️ Meadow 🏵️ Pistachio 🏵️ Dandelion 🏵️ Buttermilk 🏵️
🏵️ Parchment 🏵️ Mushroom 🏵️ Pale Rose 🏵️ Raspberry 🏵️ Grape 🏵️
You can find the Meadow yarn pack in my shop at Wool Warehouse, click on the following link...
❧🏵️ MEADOW YARN PACK ❧🏵️

It's hard to put into words how much I adore these colours - they are extremely calming (without being dull) and bring a gentle warmth which reminds me so much of my summer meadow walks. They sing to me of sunshine and a light breeze, of soft footsteps around quiet pathways, of tall waving grasses, distant hills and calming views. And of course the floral delights are represented in all those glorious hues - the pinks, purples and golden yellows of the wild meadow flowers.
Beautiful, all of it.

The wild flowers that I gathered from the roadside lasted a few days indoors - I plopped them into recycled glass jars and really enjoyed observing their gentle beauty up close.

It was fun to play with the colours, matching flowers to yarn and marvelling at how the "Dandelion" shade was the absolute perfect match for buttercups. It couldn't be a more perfect colour for the Meadow blanket.

I have to confess it was a sneezy affair having wild flowers and grasses on my table - atchooooo! So much pollen!

But in the days that I had wild flowers in my table I absolutely made the most of it. I played endlessly with my yarn pegs, and sampled a whole stack of possibilities for a stripe pattern that would do these colours justice.

After a lot of false starts, I eventually settled on something simple but rather perfect. This is a variation of a "crossed treble" where the stitches are worked in pairs so that they cross over each other. It immediately reminded me of the tangled criss-cross of grasses and flowers as they grow in such abundance in the meadow.

These neat rows of little crosses create a beautiful pattern - it's a weeny bit lacy and a weeny bit textured but all very subtle I'd say. And oh, it makes for some delicious, easy-breezy crochet! Perfect for beginners (if you can crochet a UK treble, then you can create this stitch I promise) - there is just enough concentration needed to keep you on your toes, but the ease of these rows makes it extremely pleasurable.

When I was first working on the design ideas for the Meadow blanket, I knew straight away that it would be perfectly suited to creating a "colour story". If you've followed along with my CALs before, you are probably familiar with the Moorland and Woodland blankets? Both of these blankets were designed as a colour story, which means that the stripes are ordered in such a way that the colours tell a story of a particular landscape view.
From a design point of view, this represents a fairly major challenge - it's not nearly as easy as it looks to create this kind of effect whilst keeping a track of yarn quantities. But you know me, I do really love a colour challenge and I think "story blankets" are my absolute favourites to design.

In the above photo, you can see on the left that I've created a graphic representation of the Meadow Story. This should hopefully give you an idea of how the ninety stripes will look once they all come together to create the full length blanket. My aim is to use the colours to recreate the tranquil feeling of strolling through a quiet meadow surrounded by flowers, with a beautiful distant view of rolling hills and summer sky.
As well as the Meadow colour story, there will also be a second option to create a "mixed stripe" Meadow blanket where all fifteen meadow colours are dispersed evenly throughout the whole blanket. Over the past few years I've enjoyed giving more than one option for my CAL blankets and it's always wonderful to see the excitement as everyone makes their decision as to which version they prefer. I'll be sharing some sneak peeks of the two versions of the Meadow blanket a little bit closer to the start of the CAL.

Needless to say, I'm really, really excited for this blanket journey to begin and for us to enjoy a meaner in the meadow together. Just a reminder that there is no need to sign up for this CAL - it's all very relaxed here in the Attic so all you need to do is gather your yarn together and join in when the pattern is released in the New Year.
I'll be writing more about the CAL a little closer to the time (just over six weeks until the CAL starts), but here is a quick round-up of information for you :
♥ The Attic24 MEADOW CAL will will run for 8 weeks in total, beginning on Friday 8th January - that'll be the day when the pattern will be published here on my blog and I'll give you all the information you need to get started. I'll then give weekly updates every Friday throughout January and February 2021 so that we can make the most of weekend hooky time.
♥ There will be a full picture tutorial here on my blog for the new Meadow stripe pattern. Each week I'll share the colour stripe order for the two different versions of the Meadow blanket I'm making (Colour Story and Mixed Stripe)
♥ The MEADOW YARN PACK contains 15 x 100g balls of Stylecraft Special DK and is enough to make one blanket/throw. There is no printed pattern included in this pack, all pattern info will be here on my blog, with updates every Friday throughout January and February 2021.
♥ The Meadow blanket will measure approx. 120cm x 175cm. You will need two packs if you wish to make a larger/double bed size blanket. I'll give starting chain/pattern guidance for those of you wishing to make larger (or smaller) blankets.

I'm extremely grateful to my friends at Stylecraft Yarns and Wool Warehouse for all the hard work they've done to make sure that this gorgeous collection of yarn is here for you. Wool Warehouse are continuing to work under very tricky conditions, keeping their fabulous staff safe with social distancing measures and an increased work load. They will do their best to get yarn out to you as quickly as they can, and to ship overseas at the present time, but as postal and delivery services are snowed under right now, please expect that there maybe some slight delays. The CAL begins in just over 6 weeks, so hopefully enough time for you to gather your yarn together.
As always thank you so so much for your friendship and enthusiasm as I embark on another blanket journey, it means the world to me that I get to have your company, especially in the depths of winter when life can feel like an uphill struggle. Thank you, thank you xx
❧🏵️ MEADOW YARN PACK ❧🏵️
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ps my lovely planner friend Rachel of Elliebeth Designs has designed some truly beautiful planner stickers to go along with the Meadow CAL which will be available as part of her WNW (what's new Wednesday) tomorrow. I have a discount code for you, so I'll be sure to post more info for you in the next day or so. xxxx