Wear What You Make - Building a Handmade Wardrobe pt 1.

Over the last couple of months of using Instagram regularly I've noticed something. I feel happier and relaxed when I wear something I have made. And so my thoughts turn towards the fabric stash and wanting to make things that will continue to make me happier and more relaxed. Reader, I bought a  sewing pattern with a view to make some wardrobe basics that'll keep me as happy as my knitted items. But what about knitting?

A photo posted by Karie Westermann (@kariebookish) on Oct 15, 2015 at 2:58am PDT

Knitting is my first love and I am so lucky that I get to design what I want to wear - and share it with everyone! Wearing what I make is the best feeling (and I've started using #wearwhatyoumake as my own personal hashtag to track my handmade wardrobe adventure) and it's something I'm thinking hard about for 2016 too. Simply put: I want what I design & make to be easily integrated into an everyday wardrobe.

I recently spent some time going through my clothes. It's a good exercise that keeps me aware of what I own, what I treasure, and what I keep wearing. I do this semi-frequently and I always learn something from doing it.

Observations:

• Colours lean towards teal, navy, mustard, and deep cool reds. Neutrals are navy blue and brown.
• I tend to wear dresses more than anything.
• I wear the denim, skirts and the cord skirts most. Pencil skirts get most wear.
• I own two pairs of trousers (1 pair of jeans, one linen) which I rarely wear.
• Three cardigans get most wear: the Stevie Cardigan (knitted in navy Rowan Wool Cotton) is beginning to show wear & tear; my brilliant Scollay cardigan; and the mustard yellow Hetty cardigan which goes with everything.
• I still wear shawls but I have grown fond of very big shawls recently - I tend to wear Proserpine, Fika (currently floating around Britain as a sample - I miss it), Swale and Kirkja (it's smaller but mustard yellow).
• I shy away from cute patterns (owls, deer, moustaches) but love geometric patterns. Mostly I like to wear things made from plain fabrics.

A photo posted by Karie Westermann (@kariebookish) on Aug 23, 2015 at 5:17am PDT

From the observations, I have learned the following lessons:

• I love bold colour combinations.
• I need more cropped cardigans.
• I need another navy cardigan and another mustard yellow cardigan.
• And a brown cardigan. And a teal one.
• I need to add pockets to skirts & dresses. Pockets are brilliant, yet rarely appear in high street women's wear.
• I need to make myself more skirts (I've said this every year since 1989 or thereabouts).
• Handmade makes me happiest.

Obviously there are problems surrounding a handmade wardrobe: slow fashion takes time, money, and skill. I am privileged because I can devote time to building a handmade wardrobe (and can justify it by calling it work). Not everybody can do that and that is okay. A good place to start is to wear what you make (and think about whether you'll wear what you are making) - but that is something I'll explore in the next instalment!

Happy November, everyone!

A photo posted by Karie Westermann (@kariebookish) on Oct 11, 2015 at 5:03am PDT

Clutching My Gladioli - On Making It Work as an Indie

Currently BBC4 is showing a series about the independent music business in the UK. The series traces how record labels like Factory, Rough Trade, Mute, 4AD, and Beggars Banquet made it possible for less mainstream bands to release records. Many of the bands turned out to be hugely influential and enduring (Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, The Stone Roses, Suede, Franz Ferdinand, and Arctic Monkeys to name but a few!) and today UK indie labels continue to champion new music that would never be signed by major labels.

As someone working as an independent knitting designer, I recognised a lot of what was being covered in the documentaries - from small record labels operating out of a bedsit in Sheffield via creatives forming loose partnerships to dealing with complex distribution problems/solutions and worries over intellectual properties. I love many of the bands covered by the documentaries, but it was eye-opening to see how much of the amazing music was being created in an environment that was in many, many ways similar to how the indie knitting industry works.

Everything I do is created at my kitchen table. I have a small nook with a desktop computer (which needs replacing) and some bookshelves where I keep all my designing resources. I create my own layouts, my partner does my photography & art, I model my own designs, and everything passes through my hands. I deal with emails, accounts, wholesale, distribution, workshop dates, social media, marketing (which is always my sore spot), and obviously pattern designing & writing. I hire in technical editors to work on my patterns, but what you see is what you get and you get me.

And most indie designers work like that. Some have pooled resources, others have grown to the stage where they have one or two people on staff. But we are all just very, very small independent ventures.

Why be independent? Is it that much fun to do accounts at 11am on a Friday night? I think most people understand the allure of having full creative control - and yes, being able to decide what to design in which yarn is amazing - but the allure of intellectual property is even stronger. Quite simply, indies choose to own the right to their work.

I learned a hard lesson when I first started out: I handed over the rights to a pattern for a pittance and saw somebody else make a lot of money from it when I could barely cover rent. And that got me thinking. I still work with mainstream publications on occasion (and some of them are incredibly indie-friendly and lovely!) but time & experience has taught me to be wary of Big Besuited Companies offering me deals too good to be true.

Indies pay the price by having to do all the things - including all the tough things mainstream publishing would normally have done for us - but I maintain it is worth it.

So, clutching my gladioli, I began thinking about where indie knitting businesses are heading.

The BBC4 documentaries on UK indie record labels traced the trajectory from bedsit record labels with rough DIY graphics to bands like The Smiths appearing on prime time TV and finally a world where indie labels are regularly outselling the big record companies.

Knitting is not the music business (there's a big difference in gender make-up for one thing! It made me sad to see many female musicians simply disappear as indie music became bigger in the 1980s and 1990s) but maybe there are lessons to be learned there.

Here are some of the lessons I have gleaned from the documentaries:

• Surround yourself with people who understand and support your ethos.
• Don't try to follow the crowd but embrace what sets you apart.
• Take control of as much of your own operations as you possibly can.
• Choose your collaborators with care and imagination.
• "Indie"can become a very diluted term when Big Besuited Companies realise it is an untapped market - this will result in products that look, talk, and walk like indies but have big money and committees behind them.
• Digital marketplaces mean that everybody can sell their products (music, books, knitting patterns) so quality control is difficult. Indies still need gatekeepers (or "curators" as I believe the Pinterest generation calls it!)
• Don't believe the hype lest you want to turn into Morrissey!!

There isn't a right or wrong way of making it work  as a creative. Some people work best as part of a larger team with stylists, graphic artists, distribution centres, remote printing, and so forth. Then you have stubborn donkeys like me who enjoy having my fingers in every pie.

What about you as a knitter?

Some knitters love following a particular design house and yarn brand with big budgets and aspirational marketing; others find themselves more at ease at an indie show where they get to know the dyers and the designers. Some people prefer buying a magazine with glossy ads and a plethora of patterns; others like buying single patterns they have especially chosen for one particular yarn. And some prefer to just spin their own yarns and knit without a pattern.

The world is your oyster - you can to pick and choose as you like. And as an indie girl that really makes me happy.

On Body Shaming, Self-Acceptance and Growing Up

Hey, this is me out walking yesterday

I was heading home from Yarndale last Saturday. I had been on my feet all day talking to awesome people all day, so was relived to find a supermarket next door to the train station. I bought a sandwich, a fruit salad and some drinks - this would be my dinner as I'd arrive back in Glasgow around 10.30pm. The train was busy with rugby fans heading home from Leeds, but I managed a seat. I sat down, sighed with relief and took a bite of my sandwich. Behind me came a drunk man's voice: ""You should cut down on your sandwiches; you're a fatso" and I paused for a second trying to process what I just heard. The man continued to insult every single female in the carriage before moaning about his ex-wife to his friends. The guy clearly had a problem with women - and I ended up almost feeling sorry for the guy. He was born into this world with all the privilege at his disposal (straight, white male living in a First World country) and yet his life was such a disappointment to him that he felt the need to lash out at other people with less immediate privilege than him.

Then I started thinking about body shaming and how insidious it is. I was the first girl in school to hit puberty, though I was a year younger than the other girls and so, for a very long time, I had a very weird relationship with my body. I am naturally 'blessed' with an hourglass figure which meant I received a lot of unwanted attention when I was an insecure teenager and in my early twenties - both from men who viewed my body shape as an invitation and from catty girls in my school who viewed me as a threat (I never understood the last one, by the way). I wore baggy black clothes for a very long time trying to hide my body.

Looking back, I have been every clothes size imaginable - from a UK size 10 (EU 38, US 6)  to a UK size 22 (EU 50, US 18). I wasn't very happy when I was a 10 nor was I very happy when I was a 22. My unhappiness had very little to do with my body and far more to do with my lifestyle: when I was a size 10 I was recovering from illness; when I was a size 22 I had just graduated from university into a job market that had hit rock bottom. Over the years I have learned that I feel most comfortable when I hover around a UK size 16 (though clothing sizes are very arbitrary at the best of times) - and I have realised I feel happiest when I don't hide away in baggy, black clothes. My body is not a shameful object - it is just me.

As I get older, I feel much more comfortable being me. I have also become increasingly aware of how I live in a society that tries to fuel all kinds of insecurities to make me conform and consume. As a woman I'm told: be attractive! be attractive in a really specific way! be attractive in a really specific way and don't have any opinions because that is unattractive! be attractive and then we will tear you down for being attractive! I happen to work in an industry that is full of strong women who run their own businesses. I see a lot more diversity in my industry (though we can always do better, but that is a big discussion and one for another day) than I see in mainstream media. I feel inspired and invigorated by the people who surround me - from the smart, intelligent conversations on Twitter to the slow fashion ethos I keep witnessing at yarn shows. I feel really empowered by the women around me - I am sure most of you don't even realise how fantastic you are!

But if I had not just been at Yarndale; if I hadn't stumbled into this industry where I see awesome women being themselves; if I hadn't accepted myself for who I am; if I hadn't realised that society doesn't want me to be happy unless I conform (and bah to that!); if this train journey had happened to a younger Karie in another place and another time, I think I would have had a very different reaction. And that is actually the thought that's haunted me for the past week or so.

(Yes, that is a new hat pattern. More on which later.)

PS there are a tonne of great resources on how to deal with other people trying to take ownership of your body, how to deal with body-shaming, and how to be a positive role model for young women in your life. I'm not going to add any links to this blog post, but feel free to share links on Twitter etc and I'll happily do a round-up.

Yarndale, pt 2: Yarns & Friends & HYGGE

At the moment I am on a self-imposed mini-break, so I am a bit late talking about the things I saw at Yarndale. Still, it means I can look back and write about the things that really made an impact. Firstly, Yarndale turned out to be one of my favourite yarn shows so far. The venue was decked out with crochet bunting, crochet mandelas and a lot of handmade signage. It felt very cheering and welcoming - in other words, very Yorkshire! The vendors were a good mix of perennial favourites, old friends, and small vendors who rarely do shows. I managed to get lost a few times and I know I missed a couple of vendors I wanted to see, but here are some of the vendors that stood out for me:

I completely missed her at the EYF marketplace, so I was determined to seek out Laura's Loom - both her hand-woven fabrics and her yarns are gorgeous. Her materials are sourced from the Yorkshire Dales and Cumbria - and the colours are both rich and subtle. Blacker Yarns was another must-visit. I loved being able to browse their breed-specific yarns and work out future colour combinations in my head. I had lucky enough to previously receive a pre-release sample of their birthday yarn - the gorgeous Cornish Tin - and I tried to ferret out whether Cornish Tin was to remain limited edition or not. The fabulous Sonja said that when it is gone, it is gone. So get your mitts on it now!

The Island Wool Company and I go way back. They backed and supported me when I did Doggerland and we have another collaboration in the works. However, I had actually never met them in person - just a lot of long phone conversations! - so it was a huge thrill to finally meet one half of the team at Yarndale. Many hugs were exchanged and hopefully you'll like what we have in store. Other friends with stalls included Sarah Alderson (who launched her book An Elven Reckoning at Yarndale - my personal favourites are the Norui jumper and the Rhien shawl), Ripples Crafts, The Crochet Project, Joeli's Kitchen, my style crush Jess with her Ginger Twist Studio, Tilly Flop Designs with Julie's amazing knitting postcards and tea towels (I lost track of where you were!), and the ever lovely Ann Kingstone. I also happened upon my old boss from my years with Rowan Yarns - it was so nice to catch up with Jem and see her designs. We both agreed that the past fourteen months or so have been such a whirlwind!

My purchases were modest. I have a lot of things on my plate over the next few months, so I wasn't looking to spend a lot. However, I felt inspired by the Knit British single breed swatch-along, so I went looking for yarn that fit the bill. As Louise pointed out afterwards, I was meant to look for undyed wool but I crave COLOUR at the moment.

Yarndale purchases. Carefully plotted over the course of the day. #yarndale2015 #knitlocal #planning #singlebreedyarn

A photo posted by Karie Westermann (@kariebookish) on Sep 29, 2015 at 4:26am PDT

I was quite taken with the Exmoor Horn Wool - the colour range was really, really nice and the yardage is good - and I am looking forward to seeing how it works up. According to the lovely people on the stall, the yarn is a recently off-shoot from the Exmoor Horn Breeders' Society's work on preserving one of Britain's native sheep breeds. I am weak in the presence of a good story - especially one which involves heritage and landscape - and so two balls came home with me. I do have plans for them that involves more than just swatching, but I am not giving myself a deadline! I also bought one of the Wovember badges from Laura's Loom - it matches my winter coat perfectly!

But Yarndale was also the book-end of two very, very stressful months. I spent my last reserves of energy that fabulous Saturday and I have been exhausted as a result. So, I had a very strongly-worded conversation with my boss (i.e. me), and she allowed me to take most of this week off. She should probably allow me to do this more often! However, the final HYGGE pattern will be a few days delayed, emails have remained unanswered, admin has been pushed to one side, and I've not done any design work. I am sure the world will not end.

PS. The BBC has a really nice article about the concept of HYGGE today. Thank you to everyone who passed me the link xx

Sunlight Shifting

So this is what September feels like: waking up, sitting at computer, remembering to have lunch, working, saying hello to David who quietly comes home, finally shutting down all screens, looking up, and seeing the sunlight shifting outside the window. Soon it will be dark. Soon it will be winter and I will wonder where the year went. At the moment I am hanging on. I am happy because I am too busy to remember to be sad. I am content because I have no time to rue things. I am singing because I have no time to think. This is better than it has been. I miss my friends whom I haven't seen for a long time. I miss hearing the birds sing and feeling the sun on my skin. I miss waking up and having an empty day. I need to relearn how to take time off.

We went north this weekend and I saw the sunlight shifting. The light is bluer up north. It is clearer, more translucent, and more fragile. I sat on a stony beach and watched the waves roll in. Then we had a photo shoot and I straightened my shoulders while the gulls cried. Now I am south again, back to warm light, asphalt and stolen moments.

The sunlight is shifting and I am moving with it.

(photo by David Fraser)

Pattern: the Fika Shawl (and other Musings)

Well, first of all, the Fika shawl is now available to buy on Ravelry. It is the first of five accessory patterns that make up the Hygge collection - a collaboration with Midwinter Yarns. Fika is the Swedish word for 'taking a break from the fast-paced world and hang out with friends (or yourself) over a cup of coffee and watch the world go by'. I bet having a word like 'fika' makes Twitter conversations a lot easier.

But releasing a pattern all about slowing down and allowing yourself to breathe is .. well, it strikes me as deeply ironic. The past three weeks have been hectic - even by my usual standards. I have been hard at work on this collection, magazine commissions, various future collaborations, and some overdue design work as well as writing/giving a paper at the knitting conference In the Loop (among other things - it was rather full-on!). I had two hours off yesterday and they felt amazing.

I cannot wait until I get a chance to grab my friends and head out for a really relaxing fika - maybe at the local Swedish cafe? That would be fantastic.

Anyway.

The Fika shawl is knitted in two hanks of Ohut Pirkkalanka - or Thin Pirkkalanka. It's a fine-weight Finnish pure wool yarn - Ravelry calls it as 3ply/light fingering. I'd call it a heavy lace with a nice grip. The yarn is heathered and only blooms slightly when you block the shawl. I like it a whole lot and am curious if anybody knows what the '100% wool" covers? I could swear there was a bit of Gotland in there, but I am not an expert.

The next pattern in the collection is out next week. And the next is out the following week etc. But for now you can buy Fika (or the Hygge collection if you want to save money) on Ravelry. I am off to find some coffee and maybe ten minutes of quiet solitude.