Now that we have introduced each colour in the Cornish Garden palette, it's time to put them together.
The photos of the gardens really speak for themselves, so here we show the yarns collected in groups and then worked in coloured swatches.
The Lost Gardens of Heligan are amongst the most famous and popular of Cornish gardens for visitors.
The 200 acres languished after the 1914-18 war, which killed many of the gardeners and also the enthusiasm of the Tremayne family to try and preserve t hem. So the brambles, ivy, bindweed and other non garden plants took over. The great house was only re-developed as apartments in the 1970’s and then the gardens were re-discovered in the 1980’s.
While bluebells are lovely, there is something bigger, brighter, more Cornish and altogether longer lasting about the blue of hydrangeas. So there was really no other option but to call our Cornish Garden blue shade Trebah. The gardens are open every day of the year and are praised by visitors for being dog friendly as well.
Boconnoc is a large estate which today specialises in opening for events ranging from private weddings to steam fairs, along with classical concerts, yoga retreats and garden open days. There has been house on the site since 1086 and the current mansion built in the 18th century, is set in extensive parkland with a lake, sheep (of course!) and deer, as well as woodlands and an old sawmill.
There are a few buds which are the colour of this yarn, but not many flowers! So again we have chosen to go for sculpture, with the Tremenheere Sculpture Gallery and Garden, which is set in a valley overlooking St. Michael’s Mount near Penzance.
Cornwall is a rocky, stony place and of course many people create beauutiful rockery gardens, emulating the flowered cliffs and river valleys or the heathered moors. So for the natural simple undyed base yarn, we decided to seek a stone rather than a flower, and it was obvious that we needed to go to the Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden at St. Ives.
Choosing colours is pretty important! All our customers tell us they go for the colour first. So we have tried to both inspire and reassure – we have the comfortable familiar shades which everyone buys regularly – the favourite blue, the natural fawny grey and a deeper brown-mushroom grey. Then of course we need some brights! So we have pink, yellow and green – not just any pink, yellow and green and certainly not the ones used for ice-creams or icing cakes! We have a deep bright raspberry pink, a rich ferny bright green and a strong orange-gold yellow.
Why?
We do like to experiment with our Birthday yarns and Cornish Garden is no exception – like the previous limited editions, it has challenged all of the blending, carding, spinning and finishing teams!
After going for DK in Cornish Tin and DK and 4-ply in Tin II, we selected Sport for Brushwork and then Aran for Tor. So it seemed appropriate to choose 3-ply and Sport this time around – not least because the rare fine English Merino in this blend was calling for a finer yarn.
Part One described the rather special Merino, Merino cross and Romney wool making a third of the blend. We have also, of course, included around 60kg of Shetland and 80kg of Blue-faced Leicester. Both are firm favourites with our Blacker Yarns customers, for softness and soft natural colours of Shetland and for pearly drape from Blue-faced Leicester. So these have been part of most of our birthday yarns.
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