Mid‐summer has arrived, and with it balmy evenings and sunny days. It is just beautiful here in New England right now, with gentle breezes rustling the oak leaves and the scents of roses and lilies filling the air.
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In other words, it's a perfect time for meals out of doors. A lazy Sunday breakfast or a light lunch under the sun umbrella – what could be better....

So here is a new knitting pattern for some placemats to help set the scene, the Mendip Placemats. These are worked in one of my favourite yarns, Rowan Yarns Original Denim. This is a 100% cotton yarn with a wonderfully crisp texture.
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They are also in this season's key colour of dusky blue. I love it when the coming trend is also a favourite classic shade. Indigo, denim, blue... the colour of ages‐old tradition, our youth and next season all wrapped up into one. Perfect.

Blue is everywhere. It's the colour of the sky, the sea, lakes and oceans. We see it at the edge of a glacial ice flow or the vibrant shade of a robin's egg.

Our woodlands spring into early summer with carpets of bluebells, and we name some of our most treasured places with names such as the Blue Mountains of Australia, or the Blue Ridge Parkway of North Carolina – one of my favourite places to sit and knit.

It is no coincidence that the Japanese word for indigo blue, Ai, is also the word for love.

However, since then colours have toned down quite considerably. Here is the colour forecast for Fall/Winter 2015/2016 with the "Stormy Weather" colour I featured before. In this forecast collection the blue is now dark, reflective, almost retiring and sombre.