Whinlatter Fern Cowl

Some of you may know that I hail from the Lake District. Actually, that’s a misnomer, I’m from Cumbria, of which the Lake District is a part, and I’m from the very edge of this wonderful county along the west coast. Cumbria has been in the news recently, suffering once again from severe flooding. It breaks my heart to see it like that, not mainly because I know, due to it being a far-flung star-system of the galactic Westminster Empire, it is over-looked and ignored when it comes to funding and help is always slow to reach there. And such is the way with provisional areas, I, and many people that I know who I went to school with there no longer call Cumbria their home. We left for university and the lack of jobs kept us away until roots grew in new towns, and new countries, far from the land that nurtured us.

But there really is no place like your childhood home, is there? And Cumbria is a beautiful, beautiful county – it knocks The Shire for six and no mistake, it could rightfully be called God’s own land.

Knitting this new cowl recently I kept thinking of Whinlatter, and I really couldn’t put my finger on why. Perhaps it was the shade of green that was taking me there? Or the peaks worked at both the top and bottom? And then it really hit me – whilst both the colour and the shape were reminiscent of the fells of Cumbria, it was the ferns that line this forest floor that I had subconsciously remembered!

The subtle lace work in the cowl working into these striated arms culminating into pleasing triangular peaks in a lush forest colour was enough to subconsciously pull me back to a place I once called ‘home’. And what better way to honour that than to name the pattern after the place of inspiration?

The Whinlatter Fern Cowl is on sale now.

Whinlatter Fern Cowl
£3.00