This Thing of Paper: Introducing the Incunabula Cardigan

Welcome to the fourth of ten posts introducing the patterns in This Thing of Paper. We are close to launching, so I want to take you through the patterns and their stories.

Incunabula is a fitted bottom-up cropped cardigan with a mock-cable and textured detail at both fronts and the back. The 3/4 sleeves are worked seamlessly top-down using the short-row method. It is worked in Blacker Yarns Classic DK — a wonderful workhorse yarn on the heavier side of DK. The buttons are from my bottomless button stash but Textile Garden sell similar. I knew I wanted to design a cardigan that was technical to knit, yet easy to wear. It was also inspired by my librarian friend Lauren who has an enviable knack for wearing cardigans.

Incunabula are books printed before 1501 (I know that some people struggle to pronounce the word, so think of it as in-ku-NA-bu-lah. Or call it Inky. We are among friends here). Incunabulum means 'cradle' in Latin - and scholars used to think of the earliest printed books as being the cradles of knowledge. I am particularly fond of this type of books as they hover somewhere between manuscripts and actual printed books (I write more about this threshold in the book essay). 

We shot the photos at Innerpeffray Library - the oldest lending library in Scotland. They own an incunabulum which I was allowed to handle. It was terribly exciting and also somewhat meta - handling an early printed book whilst wearing my Incunabula cardigan! I wore the cardigan with my bookshelf dress and my mustard brogues. I have seldom felt more stylish as I did walking around the Library, picking up 16th and 17th century manuals on calligraphy, astronomy, and mathematics. Good times.   

Finally, I want to draw your attention to a little detail. The mock cable and textured panel on the back extends into the bottom-ribbing. Isn't that pretty? 

This Thing of Paper: Introducing the Psalter Shawl

Welcome to the third of ten posts introducing the patterns in This Thing of Paper. We are close to launching, so I want to take you through the patterns and their stories.

The Psalter shawl is knitted in two colours of DyeNinja camel/silk 4ply. You will need one skein of the pale parchment colour, and two skeins of the rich contrast colour. The shawl is a variation upon pi-shawls with an easy slip-stitch section (you never use more than one colour a row and the repeat is surprisingly small!) and an equally easy knitted-on border (again, a surprisingly small repeat). Psalter was my travel project last autumn and it lends itself very well to being an on-the-go project as the small repeats work up as satisfyingly tiny chunks. The just one more repeat mantra works so very well with Psalter. The end product is big and gorgeous.

This was one of the first patterns I designed for the book. I knew I wanted a big, sweeping shawl (because big, sweeping shawls are the best) and I knew I wanted it to look like an illuminated letter. Indeed, the Psalter shawl is a giant C if you look at it at a 90-degree angle! I loved the idea of wrapping myself in a piece of writing, and when I fell in love with the geometrical motifs in the Luttrell Psalter, I knew exactly what to do. The yarn choice was also a no-brainer. I am a big fan of DyeNinja's saturated, rich colours and the drape of Sheila's camel-silk made it ideal for Psalter. The sik content makes the colours look as though they are illuminated from within — perfect for this shawl.

The photo shoot look place in front of a 15th century building. We styled it with dramatic, strong colours and a simple red linen dress so we could really make the shawl pop. Psalter did not really need our help though - it proved to be endlessly photogenic (as the 150 photos on my computer hard-drive can testify). 

The accompanying essay looks closer at the Luttrell Psalter and asks questions about who gets to make books, and who is allowed to have a voice within these books It is possibly the one essay that comes closest to my old métier of writing about texts — but I also reflect upon the idea of agency and authority in a wider sense. I wrote This Thing of Paper during a period of personal upheaval, and I think this is where you might be able to tell.

I am very much looking forward to seeing people's own takes on both the Psalter shawl and the essay. This book is so much about giving you agency to tell your own stories through my patterns. 

This Thing of Paper: Introducing the Scriptorium Mitts

Welcome to the second of ten posts introducing the patterns in This Thing of Paper. We are close to launching, so I want to take you through the patterns and their stories.

The Scriptorium mitts are worked in the round with an afterthought thumb. They are a great little colourwork project: the tops of the hand feature mirrored quills/feathers, whilst the palms have a small pattern meant to invoke writing. The mitts have contrast cuffs and thumbs - the cuff comes complete with a tiny pattern reminiscent of manuscript decorations. The sample uses Blacker Swan 4ply - a plump, lovely fingering weight yarn that comes in a wide range of colours.

The pattern is named after the building/room in which scribes worked on writing books. I have long been fascinated by makers' hands and wanted to design something that played off that obsession. It was an obvious idea to make a pair of mitts, but I spent some time playing around with what sort of mitts would work.

Did I want something which a scribe would have worn whilst working in a cold scriptorium? Something like a wrist warmer with no thumb or shaping? Seeing as I wanted to emphasise the hand, I decided against a wrist warmer. It was not until I began thinking about quills, scrolls, and ink that the decision was made for me (of sorts). Playing around with charts, I liked the way a quill filled my blank canvas. The rest of the design came together rather quickly. 

The pattern essay is concerned with makers' hands and bodies. I discuss the twin notion of memory and creativity. My story of how I got back into knitting is included (as it is itself a story about memory and creativity) and I dig into the idea of makers' bodies. I particularly like the idea of people using their hands to knit something celebrating the making of things with your hands. 

This Thing of Paper: Introducing the Vellum Cardigan

Welcome to the first of ten posts introducing the patterns in This Thing of Paper. We are close to launching, so I want to take you through the patterns and their stories. Vellum is a bottom-up cardigan worked in the round with a steek. It features a colourwork yoke with additional colourwork detail around the cuffs. It is knitted in five colours of Blacker Yarns Pure Lustre Tamar DK, a blend of Wensleydale, Teeswater, Cotswold and Black Leicester Longwool with a touch of Cornish Black Mule lending it bounce. This yarn is perfect for colourwork with a rich colour palette whilst the neutral main shade has incredible depth. The buttons are from Textile Garden: not only do they match perfectly but the design also echoes the colourwork pattern.

The book is divided into three stories. Story 1 is the story of books before printing, and Vellum is inspired by beautiful handmade manuscripts. During my research I found myself captivated by all the processes involved in producing a single page of manuscript, and I felt strongly that my book needed a pattern that encapsulated the care and knowledge needed to produce an outstanding piece of work.

Vellum is fairly straightforward to knit (all that stocking stitch!) but it also involves careful planning of the colourwork palette, patience in preparing for steeking, and care in finishing the garment to a satisfying standard. I opted to cover my steek with a ribbon that also echoes the colourwork yoke. I know that many of you will enjoy sourcing the right ribbon that reflects your own vision.

And that is what I hope to achieve with this cardigan. Obviously it visually mimics the beautiful manuscripts I've poured over during my research, but it also involves getting involved with the process of making. The accompanying essay examines this to much greater detail, but you are very welcome to skip straight to the cardigan pattern if you just enjoy knitting! Incidentally, this is my partner's favourite pattern in the book.

Everything is Connected

Twenty-one years ago I set up my very first website. It was hand-coded and had an "under construction" ruler at the top. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Today you get to see my new website. It does not have an "under construction" ruler at the top, but it does have a lot of cool stuff: tutorials for you to peruse, a workshop section that's easy to navigate, and a small shop for pre-ordering my new book. Speaking of which, I have also added a section where you can see sizing and yarn requirements for the book patterns. I still think pulling a website together is the coolest thing ever. I hope you find it useful and helpful.

I've been on the road quite a bit over the last few months.

(Initially the plan was to have the book published before my busy season kicked in, but production delays meant that I have been juggling book production and website development with workshop teaching. I am very grateful to be so busy, but it has also taken a toll. We live in a world where we admire "being busy" but often forget that "being busy" is a case of too much work and inadequate planning. Hopefully now that the book is nearly here and the website is live, I can begin to breathe again. Maybe just a little bit?) 

One of my adventures took me to Faversham, a picturesque market town in Kent, England. It is home to The Yarn Dispensary, a yarn shop which has quickly become one of my favourite stops. I ran two workshops in the quirky and colourful shop, and it was such a relief to be back teaching after a summer of staring at a screen. I may be an introvert, but there is something about teaching that I just love. Maybe it is knowing that people will leave with confidence in a new skill; maybe it is that feeling you get when talented and creative people are in a space together; maybe it is that I feel good when I make other people feel good; maybe it is all of the above.

After the workshops, a friend took me to Margate to visit the sea shelter where TS Eliot wrote part of The Waste Land. I stood in the sea shelter, waved my arms around whilst kids skateboarded around me, and then we went for pizza. In a peculiar twist of fate, I have been waiting twenty-one years to make that pilgrimage. Looking out over Margate Sands and the North Sea, I kept thinking about how things can feel circular at times. Here I was in a place where Eliot wrote a key part of a poem which has defined so much of my life. Here I was looking out over the North Sea — the body of water covering Doggerland, an ancient land mass with which I feel a strange sense of belonging. It was beautiful. 

Vesterlyng, Denmark.

As I am writing this, I have just returned from another journey filled with connections. I taught two classes at Knitwork, a Copenhagen knitting festival. I took the opportunity to spend a few days with my family (my mother has been fighting cancer this year — her prognosis is good, thankfully, but it has been a tense year). My family drove us out to Vesterlyng, a low-lying area that is part beach, part sea, part fen. The sunset flickered across the pools of water, while the resident cows were silhouetted against the sky. This is my childhood landscape. An odd, unsettled (and unsettling) place of utter beauty. No matter how many people visit, it feels remote.   

Copenhagen was good as well. I walked familiar streets, my feet remembering the routes rather than my head trying to map where I was going. I really enjoyed my time at the festival: the colour palette was very different to the ones I'm used to at UK shows (if you think there is no unifying colour palette because of all the different dyers & companies, there is still an underlying aesthetic consensus that is difficult to escape — we are all caught up in our particular times & places), the general skill level was exceptionally high, and I found it so interesting to see a particular Danish sense of style (I need to write more about this). I left feeling very inspired and also intrigued. It felt good to get out of my shell. 

Now I am home, but not for long. I am away to Inverness next week to teach at Loch Ness Knit Fest where I am looking forward to meeting old and new friends. Then I'm flying off to the Oslo Strikkefestival (where I shall be investigating how the Norwegian aesthetic plays out against what I saw in Copenhagen. I have some ideas already, but let's see how they fare. Denmark & Norway are connected in interesting ways.).

And then .. and then it is time to release my book. I'll be sharing details about the book launch parties soon. I cannot wait to show you all the things we've been working on for so long. 

Phew. Hello and welcome to the new site. 

A New Favourite: Brushwork Sport

One of the perks of my job is that I get to swatch a vast range of yarns. My design process hinges on knowing which yarn would be right for a design, and I only get there by swatching several yarns. When I started knitting again after a long break, I thought all yarns were somewhat interchangeable as long as you matched gauge. Many years later I know that a) not all yarns are equal, b) a yarn's properties goes way beyond its weight, c) fibre plays a huge part, and d) the construction of the yarn is important too. In fact, finding the right yarn for a project can sometimes feel somewhat scientific (as does yarn substitution). One of the yarns I have swatched recently is Blacker Yarns' birthday yarn, Brushwork. I have worked closely with Blacker Yarns over the last year or so — they are the main yarn provider for This Thing of Paper — and I understand their passion for producing yarn with provenance, stories, and lineage. We share a strong interest in yarns that belong to a certain landscape and place. After all, a space becomes a place once we pour stories into it.

Brushwork comes with plenty of stories, and, dear reader, one of those stories is that it broke my heart.

As soon as I unpacked the yarn, I knew I was in trouble. It is a lofty, soft, sproingy yarn with subtle flecks of colour. I held it in my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze, and it bounced back in my hand. I am not a spinner, nor do I possess a brilliant yarn construction vocabulary, so my best description is that Brushwork reminded me of a cross between Rowan Felted Tweed and Jamieson's Spindrift — but definitely its own beast. Reading closer, I learned it was a mix of Bowmont, Castlemilk Moorit, and British Alpaca.

Let the swatching commence.

As a personal sacrifice, I swatched twice: first on 3.5mm and then on 4mm. The first swatch gave me a nice, firm fabric. It bloomed slightly upon blocking but retained its shape nicely. It would make for a beautiful cardigan or jumper where the yarn would do most of the work. The second swatch was much drapier and supple. Knitted on 4mm needles, Brushwork would definitely make a beautiful scarf or hat. I began thinking about cables and pom pom-adorned hats.

The heartbreak came when I learned that this is not going to be a permanent addition to the Blacker range. Brushwork is as close to my Platonic ideal of a yarn that I have found — bouncy, complex, soft, woolly, takes all sorts of stitch patterns - but it is not sticking around for me. Instead it will make its debut at Yarndale where you will all snap it up (because you are clever and recognise brilliance when you see it).

Heartbreak in a yarn ball. Which is pretty much the highest praise I can bestow upon it.