Funny Old Life: An Knitterly Interlude

Taking a tiny break from writing about Doggerland. Of sorts. Here are some other things that have been happening.. + BBC4 continues to have unlimited access to my brain. They have just started an archaeology season, for heaven's sake. If you have access to BBC iPlayer, I recommend watching The Peat Bog Mystery. It first aired in 1954(!) and it is an excellent insight into how archaeology was communicated to the masses. No gloves when handling artefacts! Lady archaeologists get to talk about cooking! Sir Mortimer Wheeler is especially fascinating (just check out his wikipedia page). Also, the artefacts themselves are fabulous and you get to see some of the highlights of the National Museum of Denmark including an awkward assessment of the Gundestrup Cauldron ("Nazi eagles"!).

+ I was very amused by this news story: the author of Fifty Shades of Gray went to a Romance Book convention/trade show under an assumed name, unveiled her real identity interrupting a panel discussion before telling them to "stop talking about my book!". Good times.

+ I have been playing with the new Rowan sock yarn, Rowan Fine Art sock. It's their first sock yarn, it's 'handpainted' (well, sponged) in South Africa and has a really interesting base: merino, polyamide, silk and mohair. Hmm. It looked very pretty in the skein:

I wound the yarn last night for a quick swatch. It is quite variegated compared to the semi-solid sock yarns I have been using over the last couple of years, but the variegation works pretty well. For shawl design purposes, I think you'd look at slipped stitches, textures, and well-defined big-chunks lace.

The base is interesting - it has a fairly tight twist compared to other commercial sock yarns but not quite the high twist you get from, say, Wollmeise. The silk makes for nice drape + sheen. Such a contrast to the rustic yarns I've worked with over the last few weeks.

+ I found a photo from my old primary school the other day. This was taken a few years before my time, but I loved it as soon as I saw it. Look at all the handknits! And do I spot handknitted socks on the young gent on the left? My friend Kaisa told me the photo looked like  a cross between Grange Hill (British kids' show) and The Killing. She may have a point.

+ Finally, the fine people of the Netherlands have a new king. Seeing I am not a royalist, that shouldn't really register on my radar. What did register was Garnstudio's patterns they released to coincide with the coronation. Fun little fact: my first knitting project in many, many, many years was a little stripy cotton jumper for the little Queenie when she was first born. Isn't it strange how life works out?

It is a funny old life.

When the Design Process is a Difficult Mistress: Making Doggerland Pt 2

The Doggerland design process. Last time I wrote about all the preparation I undertook before starting the actual hands-on work. I had compiled a moodboard, worked out the colour palette, researched the history/archaeology background and found out that I really had to simplify my design vocabulary before getting anywhere close to the ideas in my head. What happened next? What happened next is exactly what happened between the last post I wrote (posted on April 15) and this one (posted May 2). Other Work happened. I have a portfolio career and it's one that I really enjoy - but it also means that I cannot devote all my time to just one project. Bills need to be paid, projects need to meet deadlines, and clients need to be met. I have a good work ethic, so I managed to carve out time between other projects but it was really frustrating to sit on four finished designs and not being able to release them before I finished the next four designs!

I was also surprised by all the new skills I had to acquire. I had to learn how to use two new software programmes, I had to create pattern templates, I had to write a style sheet (which means I use uniform abbreviations and terms across all patterns) and I had to think of schematics. For an indie designer like me, that was a lot of non-knitting stuff to consider and it took time to get to grips with these things. I could not afford to hire someone to do all these things for me, sadly, so it was learning on the job!

But I got back to knitting eventually.

I mention 'sitting on four finished designs' - I guess I could have started releasing patterns by that stage but I would have felt really uncomfortable if the flow of pattern releases was then interrupted by, say, three deadline projects. I don't think it is particularly fair to knitters when it happens - it would speak poorly of time management on my part to have a start-stop-start flow to the Doggerland patterns. I'd rather have the vast majority of patterns finished by the time I start publishing them. It is fairer to you (and fairer to my peace of mind).

So, where am I at now? I am sitting on 6½ finished designs with most photography done. I took out a couple of patterns a few weeks ago because they felt like filler to me and I'd rather have eight strong designs than have a larger collection. The next few weeks will see me winding down the amount of work I do (i.e. I'll be working a normal working week rather than the insane 60+ hrs/wk I have been pulling the last few months). I once mentioned a Late March release date - I am now thinking it will be June. It is a bitter pill to swallow.

So, what lessons have I learned? What mistakes did I make? Why the beep does it take me this long? Stay tuned.

When the Design Process is a Difficult Mistress: Making Doggerland

It has been just under a year since I first wrote about this great idea I had for a collection of knitting patterns. Doggerland has been a long time coming, in other words. As I started pulling everything together and prep the patterns for general release, I thought I'd share the design process. Hopefully it'll be of some interest to budding designers - I certainly would have loved a series of blog posts on this topic when I first began! When I first got the idea of designing a series of patterns inspired by Doggerland (the landscape now submerged by the North Sea between Scandinavia and the UK), I first began by compiling a moodboard. I began with free association: moss, lichen, flint  and stone. Once I had a good selection of images, I began sorting through them until I could see a definite theme emerging. The colour palette was very easy to spot, but I had to keep chipping away at my pinned images until I was left with strong textures and an organic feel.

See those words? Colour palette. Strong textures. Organic feel. Those became my keywords. I knew those words encapsulated Doggerland. I had to aim for those words every time I worked on the collection.

Next, I did research. I knew I had to learn more about archaeology, the Stone Age (specifically the Mesolithic period when Doggerland began to vanish), and geology. I wanted to learn about what sort of art these people made, what sort of motifs they used, and how they interacted with the landscape. I visited the library, I spoke with archaeologists and material culture specialists, and I I read a lot of academic articles in English, Danish, and German (my German was not equipped for academic papers on marine archaeology, it is fair to say!). I enjoyed this part of the process - possibly I enjoyed it a bit too much because I let it drag on and on. I also forgot what part I was playing: I wasn't a specialist and I didn't need to be. I was the designer.

Oh. Art. Motifs. Landscape. More important words.

Around mid-summer 2012 I began acquiring the yarns I wanted to use. I wanted organic yarns from the present day North Sea regions - I tentatively call them site-specific yarns although that is a loaded term in art circles - because I wanted the yarns to be grounded in a very specific landscape. You will see a lot of Snældan yarns popping up as well as yarn from Garthenor, New Lanark, and Hjeltholt. I was very conscious of the colour palette and as a result I chose mainly neutral/undyed colours (with one notable exception).

Then I began sketching and swatching. This is where I hit a wall. Everything I did turned out to be too complex, too intricate and simply too much. I needed to find a simpler design vocabulary, to pare things down, and to edit my ideas. This took a surprisingly long time. I had my first workable design finished by mid-Autumn 2012, though I had a lot of sketches and swatches to show for all my work. These have not been discarded, but may be reworked into other designs (never throw out ideas!).

I had done most of the legwork - the conceptualising, the visualisation, the research, the sketching, the swatching and even some knitting - but the hard work had just begun.

Next: Moving from ideas into actual objects - and what I could have done differently..

Catching Up

If the knitting world ever decides to have a competition for "LYS with Best View", Gourock's Once A Sheep has to be a top contender.

I made my way out there last week - just before winter really hit Scotland again - and I couldn't believe my eyes. If I lived in Gourock, I'd be camped out at OAS knitting and staring at those mountains all day long.

(I just had to check on Google maps those were mountains because I am still just an ickle Dane from pancake-flat Denmark who thinks Scottish hills are mountains .. but nope, them there are mountains)

OAS has a lovely range of yarns and fibres - they seem to be carving out their own niche with a particularly strong selection of spinning wheels (and related equipment) and hand looms. If you went to the recent EYF, you will have seen Karen and her helpers demonstrate spinning and weaving. They also have a nice selection of needle-felting supplies which is a rare sight in Scotland.

I meant to travel further afield this past week but the combination of foul weather and catching up on sleep following that amazing (and exhausting) day at Edinburgh yarn Festival meant that I had to stay at home and focus on clearing my to-do list. Which included writing a few patterns and doing a lot of knitting.

This is one of the patterns from the Doggerland collection. It is knitted in Snældan 1-ply (also known as Karie's favourite lace yarn ever) in the "Basalt" colourway. It has a different construction method to the rest of my shawl patterns and I really love how the yarn drapes in this photo. Better photos to come, of course.

And better photos to come of the Gillean hat, another Doggerland pattern.

At Edinburgh Yarn Festival I taught colourwork using this hat pattern so there are some people out there with a preview of Gillean! It is a good colourwork project if you are unsure about stranding. You are just working with two colours and the crown shaping is very clever (even if I have to say so myself).

Again, this hat uses Snældan yarn - this time in 3-ply which is roughly equivalent to DK. The two main colours are undyed and the trim just adds a pop. I really love working with this yarn - it is a bit sticky (perfect for colourwork) and very bouncy.

Finally, I did a podcast with Louise of the Caithness Craft Collective Podcast. We recorded at Edinburgh Yarn Fest which is why 1) you can hear loads of people in the background and 2) I am slightly hyper. It was lovely to meet Louise - it felt like meeting an old friend - and she made the whole recording/interviewing process a lot easier than I had anticipated.

Edinburgh Yarn Festival 2013

The inaugural Edinburgh Yarn Festival took place yesterday. In a word, it was mental. We arrived just before 10am ( thanks to me setting the alarm to 5.45pm rather than 5.45am) and the queue was already very long. I had time for a cup of coffee and a quick hello to familiar faces before heading off to teach my class on two-handed colourwork.

I had a lot of fun with my class trying to cover everything from colour theory, yarn dominance and Continental knitting before delving into two-handed colourwork. I am proud to say that my students didn't bat an eyelid and asked really great questions throughout. They all left with some fabulous swatches - and later I saw several of them buying materials for colourwork projects. I love my job!

After the class had ended, I went out into the Drill Hall and it was .. packed. Here's photographic evidence - the tables in the foreground was part of the in-house cafe who had to call in extra help!

According to the organisers, EYF played host to 1452 adult visitors, 220 children, 40 stallholders, 30 volunteers .. and 4 dogs (that I saw). The vendor space was divided into three sections. The front hall, the main hall (which you see in the background) and the "wing". The place was packed.

How packed? Well, I have been joking with Lilith of Old Maiden Aunt that we need to run t-shirts saying "I survived the Old Maiden Aunt scrum at EdinYarnFest 2013!". To wit:

Lilith's looking fairly relaxed there, but we were all running on adrenaline! The lovely lady in the turquoise cardigan is Cathy of StitchMastery fame. She was an ocean of calm throughout the day.

Louise Hunt of the Caithness Craft Collective podcast interviewed me which was a lot of fun. We actually managed to find somewhere away from the crowd so there won't be too much hustle and bustle in the background. I also met Aimee of the knit.spin.cake podcast so who know what might happen there in the future!

A huge thank you to everybody who stopped me just to say hello: a lot of familiar faces and a lot of unfamiliar ones. I was also amused by how many people stopped my partner Dave to say hello - and I have also spotted him in several photos posted by people on Ravelry and Twitter. Ladies do like a bearded man in a well-loved knitted jumper!

So many lovely things to see, touch, smell, and buy .. but I just wound up with two small purchases. It was very late in the afternoon before I had any time to look at the stalls and I was much too tired to make informed decisions. I did scout out some definite future purchases from Skein Queen, Lionness Arts, Ripples Crafts, and Yarn Pony. Nothing beats seeing colourways and feeling base yarns in person.

And nothing beats spending time with good people: Joeli, Kat (check out The Crochet Project! Way to go, Kat!),  Amanda of OwlPrintPanda, Kristen, Cassandra of The Stitchery and waving busy hellos to Ysolda (who was there with Sarah, Bex and the magical photobooth). It was very good to meet up with Susan Crawford - Gavin & Dave exchanged tips on modelling knitwear which was hilarious (so I may have been close to hysterical laughter that point of the day but it was still funny).

Shout-outs to the wonderful people of Glasgow Stitch'n'Knit who insisted I sat down occasionally and the marvellous Cayt who brought me breakfast at 2.30pm! What was it I said about being fuelled by adrenaline?

Finally, thank you to Jo, Linda and Mica who organised the event. You did such an amazing job weaving all these strands together and creating something as beautiful (and mental) as Edinburgh Yarn Festival 2013. Thank you, thank you.

Let's do it all again next year!

Preview: Edinburgh Yarn Festival

Look what I spotted on the streets of Glasgow the other day..

The inaugural Edinburgh Yarn Festival is taking place on March 16 at Edinburgh's Out of the Blue arts venue and I am terribly, terribly excited.

The day looks to be pretty spectacular: more than 35 stall holders (some of whom are completely new to me!), interesting classes, and a lot of fab, fab people there.

The real emphasis is upon Scottish talent in the textile world and the organisers have come up with some crackers. I know we have a really special thing going on with dyers & designers here in Scotland but it still feels amazing to see the roll call at EYF: Ysolda, Ripples Crafts, Old Maiden Aunt, Skein Queen, Yarn Pony, Tin Can Knits, Kristen Orme, Travelling Yarns, Shilasdair, Alpaca Loft Fibre and OwnPrintPanda. Several fabulous local yarn shops are also supporting the event: Once A Sheep, Woolfish, Wee Country Yarns, and The Woolly Brew all have stalls and the marvellous Kathy's Knits is extending her opening hours (remember, stockist of the ultra-rare St. Kilda laceweight!). A real smorgasbord of the best we have to offer here in Scotland.

Plus the Festival is also playing hosts to some serious English talent. None other than Susan Crawford will be there with some exciting news about A Stitch in Time Vol. 1! Textile Garden will be showing off their outstanding selection of buttons. LionessArts and her beautiful yarns will be there too, good god.

And I’ll be there too. I am teaching a class on two-hand colour knitting - it’s completely sold out, sorry - and as a special treat, the class participants will be the very first people to get a pattern from my Doggerland collection. You’ll see several of my designs on the Old Maiden Aunt stand including the OMA yarn club patterns. Please do say hello if you see me. I'll probably be my usual stressed, awkward self but I love meeting people who share my passions. My partner David will be there too, so if you see a skinny man wearing a beetroot-coloured jumper, that's the one. He doesn't knit but he adores knitters.

I am so, so excited. It’s Saturday March 16. £2 on the door at Out of the Blue (the Old Drill Hall), Edinburgh. Come support the Scottish creative community!

Gosh, it is going to be so much fun.