Blacker Yarns Launches Lyonesse

Lyonesse shade card

The first of May will see Blacker Yarns, a company that sells 100% pure, natural British yarns, launch its latest summer yarn called Lyonesse. I was fortunate enough to receive a ball of this yarn, a 50/50 blend of soft white Corriedale/Merino with linen. Lyonesse comes in two weights, DK and 4 ply, and six colours: moonstone (cream), aquamarine, jade, rose quartz, ruby and lapis (blue). A shade card is available here for £1.50.

Why the name? The company told me: "This is our summer range, named after the mythical sunken land of Lyonesse, lost under the waves millennia ago from the far west coast of Cornwall". She went on to tell me that Lyonesse's six summer shades and its linen composition make it ideal for summer cardigans, tunics, cowls and shawls.

Although I received a complimentary ball of Lyonesse to review, my thoughts are purely my own and are not influenced by Blacker Yarns. The shade I received is a pretty pale pink, called rose quartz. Happily it's my favourite shade out of the six on the shade card.

Lyonesse rose quartz

The first thing that struck me was the yarn's lovely, soft feel, squishy without being furry or shedding in any way. I thought that it would knit up well using patterns with stitch definition. Rose quartz also has a vintage look about it and a very subtle variation in colour due to the linen. I was going to find a one ball pattern to knit but was swayed when I browsed through loveknitting.com's free patterns to find one suitable for Lyonesse - at the time of writing Blacker Yarns hadn't released any of their own patterns to support the new yarn.

When I saw West Yorkshire Spinner's free downloadable PDF pattern, Summer Palace Cropped Sleeve Jumper, I immediately thought it would be perfect for my ball of Lyonesse. And so it was! The pattern in the smallest size requires four balls of DK and I only had one, so couldn't knit up the whole jumper - I'll have to wait until Lyonesse is on general sale - but what I did knit with one ball looks amazing.

This is the jumper's back and you can see that the yarn has clear stitch definition and knits up really well. It has a very cool feel to it, perfect for summer months. The pattern has three quarter length sleeves but I'm going to change it to short sleeves instead. Here's a close up of the stitch pattern:

Please note I haven't blocked the piece yet because it's not finished!

I'm thrilled with this new yarn and look forward to it being on general sale. It's great see another 100% British yarn from a British company.