HYGGE Pattern #2: Skovtur

Time is a rare gift. This month sees friends and family celebrating big birthdays or momentous life changes; I am travelling a lot for work; and I struggle to find pockets of time between it all. The air now has a slight touch of chill to it in the mornings or evenings. The world is slowly tilting and I feel the pull inside me to embrace it.

Skovtur is the second pattern in the HYGGE collection to be released. Skovtur means "a trip to the forest" or "a walk in the woods" in Danish. I designed these fingerless mitts knowing that I'd be reaching for them again and again. Right now they are a perfect layer of protection against that slight chill, but soon the long cuffs will come into their own as the autumn winds hit Scotland. The colourwork lends an extra layer of warmth as well.

Skovtur [Skorw-tur] uses two colours of Thick Pirkkakanka from Midwinter Yarns. I used the Teal and the Deep Orange (I also used this colourway in the Fika shawl but in the thinner Pirkkalanka yarn) - but the world is your oyster when it comes to colour combinations.

Some possibilities:

+ Barely There Grey & Stonewashed = wintery North Sea colours.

+ Raspberry & Plum = fruity jams and preserves.

+ Mulch & Mustard = earthy, autumnal leaves.

+ Denim & Natural Pale Grey =  your favourite jeans.

+ Blush & Soft Turquoise =  stones and the sea touching each other.

+ Black & Barely There Grey = class Scandi combination of high contrast

As long as you use two colours with sufficient contrast, you will be fine. If you are unsure whether there is enough of a contrast, take a black & white photo. Do the two colours look identical? Then you need to switch out one of them. Do the two colours do distinctly different? Then you are fine!

Note that Skovtur uses one hank of each colour - but in reality you are using roughly a quarter of a skein of the contrast colour. The next HYGGE pattern is also knitted in Thick Pirkkalanka and uses just over 1.5 skeins. In other words, if you think you might want to knit something to go along with your Skovtur mitts, you will want to order an additional skein of Thick Pirkkalanka in your contrast colour of choice. 

You'll be able to see the HYGGE samples at Yarndale later this month (note to self: stop wearing them!) and Estelle of Midwinter Yarns will be super-happy to offer colour advice.

Enjoy - I am off to knit :)

In the Loop 4

Most of my late August was taken up by work for In the Loop 4. If you don't know ITL, it is an academic conference about knitting and crochet. This year it took place in Glasgow - the culmination of many years' work by the Knitting in the Round crew at Glasgow University - and I had been persuaded by the organiser, Linda Newington of the Knitting Reference Library at Winchester School of Art - to submit a an abstract. Lo, my paper on Faroese jumpers and Nordic knitting traditions was accepted and much time was spent researching and writing. I am very thankful for the staff at The Mitchell Library for being particularly helpful.  

Miss @kariebookish talking at #intheloopglasgow

A photo posted by Louise Scollay (@knit_british) on Aug 26, 2015 at 7:37am PDT

In the Loop was exceptional. While I talk knitting every single day, I found it invigorating and useful to discuss my discipline in a more academic way: Just how do we define the idea of authenticity in knitting? What role does gender play? How do we address the problem of sustainability within our practice? What about knitting and lifestyle commodification? These are just a few of the topics the conference touched upon. I felt my brain stretch with every paper and I left thinking about my own work in a new way. I also relished being able to spend time with my woolly chums: Louise, Susan, Jeni, Tom, Helen, Zoe, Anna and Anna. And meet new woolly chums like Tom, Alison, Anna, Siun, Helen and Mary. I salute you all for inspiring me, making me think and making me laugh.

Absolute privilege to hear Annemor Sundbø talk about Setesdal jumpers. Privilege. #knittinghistory #knittingtradition #knittersofinstagram #knitting #intheloop4

A photo posted by Karie Westermann (@kariebookish) on Aug 26, 2015 at 10:20am PDT

There were many great papers. Here's a short selection of the ones that have stayed with me.

Dinah Eastop on archives, preservation, and digitalisation. Some real problems facing the archivists trying to digitalise cultural heritage,

Annemor Sundbø on the Setesdal jumper. An absolute honour to listen to Annemor talk about the evolution of a Norwegian design classic.

Helen Robertson and her textile practice was incredible. Helen places Shetland textile practices within the landscape - I was blown away and completely inspired by her thoughtfulness.

Alison Mayne and Kate Orton-Johnson on knitting communities in the digital age. Two very different, yet very similar approaches. This is a topic dear to my heart (for obvious reasons) and both nailed their papers.

Rose Sinclair delivered an outstanding paper on 19th and 20th c women's craft guilds, clubs, and societies. She also spoke with authority of the erasure of race within crafts. I really hope she publishes this paper - more people need to know about her research.

Jonathan Faiers delivered a plenary talk on knitting on the runway. This was my other 'goosebumps' moment as he moved from Schiaparelli's bow-knot jumper through 20th C high fashion history towards today's super-bulky knits. Very, very thought-provoking work on trompe l'oeil knitting. So thought-provoking that I had to skip the next session just to digest and unpack Faiers' words.

Sustainability was given a lot of thought. Tom van Deijnen spoke about his visible mending work whilst Tone Tobiasson and Ingun Klepp delivered a call to arms about wool being part of a sustainable future. I found both talks incredibly engaging and inspiring.

Finally, I want to leave you with this film by Anna Kouhia. I found it very moving and poetic. I was lucky enough to have a conversation with Anna about how our bodies influence our crafts - the movement of our hands, in particular. I hope you will enjoy this as much as I did.

PS. ITL4 featured a fashion show which included work by Gudrun Johnson, Lucy Hague, Kate Davies and myself. You can catch it here. I don't usually think of my work as being part of fashion, so seeing it in this context felt a little strange (I need to think more about this, clearly). I also only had one sample home that I could lend the show which I slightly regret. Oh well. It was interesting.

Introducing: The Hygge Collection & Fika

Yesterday was a bit of a hectic day. We walked all over Glasgow trying to get good photos of the first pattern in the Hygge collection. After having posed in three different locations, David said to me: "I never asked. What's the shawl's name?" - I replied: "Fika. Fee-ka. It's a Swedish word for a coffee-break where you spend quality time sorting out the world with your loved ones." Silence.

And then he marched me to a coffee shop and we snapped a handful of photos there between sips of coffee.

In many ways, the Hygge collection feels different to the other things I've designed. I think that is why I struggled to understand what Dave knew instinctively: I should not be posing somewhere - I should just relax with a cup of coffee. This thing is more personal and very down-to-earth. Maybe this seems odd coming from a designer, but I am slightly shocked that I've allowed myself the freedom to be relaxed about designing. The stitch palette was fun: textures that let the yarns shine and some easy lace motifs. The colour palette was even better (I'll show you more later but how good is that orange Pirkkalanka?).

I have worked on some very conceptual things in the past (and will again in the future) but Hygge is just about the little joyful things I find in my everyday life. While the collection is very much about my Scandinavian heritage, I think you can find your own pockets of hygge no matter who you are or where you live. 

Fika will be released as a stand-alone pattern on August 31, but you can pre-order the Hygge: Knit the Things You Love to Wear collection now. It'll cost slightly different things depending upon where you live, but it is 25% off from now until August 31. The collection contains five small projects (Fika is by far the more time-consuming!) - all accessories and all items you'll keep reaching for again and again.

I am now going to sit in the back yard with a cup of coffee, my pile of books, and I'll get back to my research. August is a crazily busy month for me, but I do need to make time for myself. Sitting in the sunshine seems like a good start.

Two Events!

I am currently putting last touches to my workshop schedule for late 2015/early 2016. I am sitting on my hands a little bit as some of the events are not mine to announce, but I can give you the heads up on two of the several one-offs I will be doing.

August 26-28, 2015: In the Loop 4 - From Craft to Couture. This is an academic conference held in Glasgow at which I am giving a paper on the semiotics of knitting with special reference to The Killing. Other speakers include luminaries such as Annemor Sundbø, Lynn Abrams, Jennie Atkinson, Tom Van Deijen, Roslyn Chapman, and Linda Newington. I am so honoured to be involved.

February 27-28, 2016: Joeli's Kitchen Retreat, Manchester. This promises to be so much fun. I'm running classes alongside Kate Atherley, Jules Billings and Joeli herself. Some very special guests are going to be there alongside exclusive vendors. ETA: Joeli's down to just eight four slots, folks!

Aside from one-off events I'll be teaching at various yarn shops as well (old and new friends alike!) and I'll be posting the schedule as soon as we have worked out all the details. Last year got a bit crazy (along the lines of "if this is Wednesday, this must be Belgium") so this year I have included some downtime into my schedule, so I can a) sleep, b) spend time with my loved ones, and c) design!

The Vintage Shetland Project: Stories & Stitches

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It was an early morning in March 2013 that I first heard Susan Crawford talk about her Vintage Shetland project. We were at the inaugural Edinburgh Yarn Festival catching our breaths over a morning brew before the doors opened. And then Susan started sharing her ideas and I forgot all about my cuppa. The idea was stunning: Susan was doing research into Shetland knitting, but she was not just researching a much-loved knitting tradition but she was doing so using her background in fashion history. Could a tradition such as Shetland encompass fashion history? Of course it could, Susan argued, and she wanted to write a book about Shetland knitting and fashion-as-social-history. 

Over the next few years I saw Susan work hard on the book. Working in the Shetland Museum and Archives, she whittled down the pieces she wanted to write about - not only did they need to be unique and beautiful, but they also needed to contain multi-layered stories. The items had to tell stories about Shetland, about the people who live there, and about the vagaries of the Shetland knitwear industry. They also had to reflect larger trends within the early 20th century. Shetland knitting is a complex tapestry of interwoven stories, and Susan knew her selection had to be right. In the end she decided upon 25 pieces that she wanted to analyse in-depth and recreate. Some of the pieces proved to be technical headaches - I will come back to one of these - whilst others prompted Susan and her husband Gavin to launch a new yarn line simply so the garments could be reknitted in the 21st century to the right gauge and colours.

cardigan-horz

Fast forward to 2015 and Susan has now launched a crow-funding venture via Pubslush. The initial goal of £12,000 was reached within a few days, but it is heartening to see how people keep wanting to support Susan's book. Anything above the goal will be spent on extra material for the book, help Susan with the cost of hiring extra hands, and take some of the pressure of the publishing process. I have been seeing much of this process up-close and it really does carry an enormous amount of pressure and stress. And I cannot help but be so proud of Susan for imagining this whole project into being and doing so with so much care. It goes without saying that Vintage Shetland backers are richly rewarded: from yarn rewards and ebooks to exceptional experiences like taking a tour of the Shetland Textile Collections with Susan or taking a special workshop at Susan and Gavin's farm.

I have my personal favourites, of course. A stunning late 1920s/early 1930s jumper knitted in natural shades with incredible geometric stitch patterns. A hugely wearable cardigan from late 1940s/early 1950s with bands of light blue and red motifs (you can see it on the left in my little photo montage - who wouldn't want that in their wardrobe?). A fabulous 1920s tunic/crossover jumper which is just so heart-achingly on-point. And then there's this beret which is deeply intriguing.

swirlhat-horz

I saw an early sample of this hat at the Crawford farm last year. The construction is quite hard to figure out and I spent ages discussing it with Susan (before she let me have a closer look at the hat!): was it some sort of strange intarsia technique? Was it constructed sideways and worked with short rows? What was going on? It turns out the strips of colourwork were re-purposed from another project of sorts (maybe swatches that the knitter couldn't bear to leave unused or maybe surplus strips knitted to line a buttonband? Maybe strips cut from a too-large project? I will let Susan tell you the actual story!) and then re-assembled to make a beret using scraps of yarns - evident if you look at how the crown shaping works. The beret looks quite straightforward at a glance, but it is one of the most technical pieces in the book. I know it was tricky getting the various gauges right between the colourwork bands worked in one direction and the 'joining' stocking stitch worked in another direction. This is what I love about knitting - it is both so straightforward and complex.

Please do check out the other participants in the blog tour - you can find details below. There are so many ways to approach Susan's project - from vintage lovers and Shetland experts to people who just love the stories Susan will be telling (like me!). I have enjoyed reading every single entry in this blog tour. This project has really captured people's imaginations.

Please also keep up with Susan via her blog which is always a great read. I also recommend you listen to her interview with Jo of Shiny Bees - it is a fantastic interview that really showcases Susan's passion for knitting history and fashion. And do support the Vintage Shetland project if you possibly can.

Thursday 9

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KnitBritish

Saturday 12

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By Gum By Golly

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Hazel Tindall

Wednesday 15

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Ella Gordon

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Jess James

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Jen Arnall-Culliford

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Maja Karlson

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Karie Westermann

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Rachel Atkinson

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Woolly Wormhead

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Deb Robson

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Julia Billings

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Helene Magnusson

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Tom Van Deijnen

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Kate Atherley

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Jamieson & Smith

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Donna Druchunas

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Felix Ford

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knitsonik

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TBC

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Donna Smith

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Susan Crawford

All images copyright Susan Crawford and used with permission. 

Sizing Tips for the Scollay Cardigan

The Scollay-along is having its Cast-On Party this Friday, July 17. It is not too late to sign up in the Ravelry thread - people have been swatching, discussing yarn choices, and pondering buttons. I have also had a few questions about which size to choose, so I thought I'd write a few words about fit, measurements, and how to think about sizing.

First a little story.

Once upon a time I worked for a yarn company helping people figuring out sizing and fit. One thing happened again and again: people saw a super-slouchy jumper, decided they wanted to knit it and then went up two sizes because they wanted a super-slouchy look. I always wanted to cry at this stage, because the slouchy look was built into the design. Part of being a designer is thinking about how we want things to fit and we do most of the work so you can just start knitting.

So, let's start by looking at the cardigan itself. I will share my fit consideration - then we'll discuss how you can make informed decisions based upon that!

On the left, you see the cardigan on me; on the right, you see the Knit Now photo shoot of the same cardigan! Lyndsey and I are both wearing the 1X cardigan, but as you can see we look vastly different.

Scollay was designed to be a go-to cardigan with a few inches of ease. Ease means there is extra room to spare between the circumference of your bust and the circumference of your cardigan. Designers think about ease when we design - and you need to check how much ease is included in the garment when you are choosing your size and you also need to think about how you like to wear clothes.

Lyndsey wears Scollay with the ease I intended. It makes for a casual cardigan which will look fabulous over a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. It has a relaxed fit which makes it easy to wear.

Quick Recap: designers think about how we want our designs to look when we write the patterns. Scollay is designed to be worn with slight ease.

Although I am wearing the same cardigan, I am far more busty than the gorgeous model and so I am wearing Scollay with negative ease. Negative ease means that my bust circumference is larger than the circumference of the garment. I am wearing Scollay with roughly 1.5 inches of negative ease - but because knitted fabric has a lot of give, you are not seeing gaping buttonbands (unlike what you'd expect from woven material). The negative ease showcases the stitch pattern a bit more and I personally like the snuggly feeling I get with negative ease.

Be honest with yourself about how you like your Scollay cardigan to fit. How do you usually wear cardigans? Do you like a relaxed fit? Then pick the size that is closest to your normal size. Do you like how it fits me with zero-to-negative ease? Then pick a size down.

This is the really important bit: find out your measurements.

For some reason (i.e. society and arbitrary high street sizing) we tend to think ourself far bigger than we usually are. I know a lovely lady who's about a size L who knitted herself a size 3XL cardigan because she went with what she thought she saw in the mirror rather than her measurements. One of the things I really love about knitting is that it allows us to make clothes that fits us in shapes and colours that flatter us - so get a friend to help you measure yourself. Be honest with yourself and write the measurements down. Then compare your measurements with the ones given in the pattern (which includes ease, so choose your size with that in mind)

Customising Your Scollay Cardigan

I have really long arms and a short body - the sleeves fit me perfectly and the cardigan hits me just below the hips. You may want 3/4-length sleeves and a slightly shorter body that hits you just above the hips (or maybe you have a long torso and want your cardigan longer). Because all the stitch pattern work happens by the edges and the yoke, it is fairly straightforward to customise the length of the sleeves and the body. There is no recalculation of the lace pattern - you just need to work fewer/more inches in reverse stocking stitch before working increases/decreases.

Likewise you may find you have very generous hips, so cast on for a larger size and decrease down to a smaller size. Or you have very slender wrists, which means you start out with a much smaller size and work your way up to the right number of stitches. Or if you feel you want to include short rows for your bust, you'll be relieved to know you just need to work them in forgiving reverse stocking stitch.

There will be plenty of help, laughter, and chat in the KAL threads.

Thank you to Kate Heppell for kind permission to use the photo of Lyndsey in the cardigan. Photo by Dan Walmsley for Practical Publishing; hair & make-up Cassie Stewart; styling by Kate Heppell. My photo's taken by David Fraser.