The Kirkja Shawl

June 2012 780

And then I designed a shawl and it appeared in Knit Now. Okay, things are never quite that simple. Earlier this year I was exchanging ideas with Knit Now magazine, a UK knitting magazine focused on accessories and keen on showcasing British design. The editors were doing an issue on "heritage" and when I mentioned I was part Faroese, the end result was the Kirkja shawl.

The sample is knitted in Old Maiden Aunt 100% merino 4ply in the delicious "Buttermint" colourway (it takes just one 400 yrds skein!). I knitted the sample back in late spring, but I must somehow have known I'd need a ray of sunshine in December. Isn't it just a stunning happy colour?

I opted against a traditional Faroese shape as I wanted the shawl to be an accessible knit for intermediate knitters. No shoulder shaping or casting on several hundred stitches. Instead I chose to play with geometric patterns so familiar to Faroese knitters and showcase them in an easy triangular shawl.

It was really good working with others for a change. I tend to Wear All the Hats when I design, but I had the support of the Knit Now team during the whole Kirkja design process. It was fab seeing the finished photos from the professional photo shoot and I really enjoyed the bantering back & forth about stuff that non-designers find dull (i.e. pattern formatting & charting software).

Kirkja can be found in Knit Now issue 16 which is out with subscribers now and will be in UK shops tomorrow (December 13, 2012). Not only did it make the cover, but it also came highly commended by the editors and got a four-page spread inside the magazine.

(I'd pop champagne but I think I need some tea to warm myself up instead! It is freezing outside and our flat is cold. The glamorous life of a knitting designer!)

2013: Craft Resolutions

As we are getting well into December, I have begun thinking about my craft resolutions for 2013. I wrote a post last year about what I had been doing throughout the year and what I hoped to do in 2012. I'll do a review of my year in knitting soon, but today I want to think about the year ahead of us. I think it is going to be an exciting one! I asked on Twitter what craft resolutions people were making for 2013. Quite a few people wanted to focus on wearable garments rather than "fun-to-knit garments" or quick accessories. There was also a lot of determination to finish things that had been languishing for far too long and to re-ignite the crafting bug. Finally, some of you wanted to improve your skill sets or switch from one type of crafting to another. I got quite fired up by reading about people's resolutions!

These are some of my own thoughts about crafting in 2013:

• Do more dress-making. I have a "sizeable" stash of dress fabric and some very cool patterns lying about. Dress making is less portable than knitting or crocheting (which is why I do less of it, I guess. I do a lot of my crafting whilst on-the-go) so I will need to schedule it in: "This week I'll sew some cool stuff!"
• Be adventurous. I think 2013 will be the perfect year to try out some new techniques and new crafts. I've been thinking about screen printing for some time now and I'd also like to  knit/crochet some things that are avant-garde/way out there rather than practical.
• Think about my personal style when crafting. This ties into the previous point about being adventurous. I always have silly hang-ups about what I can wear and what I cannot. Time to push myself out of my comfort zone and make myself some awesome pieces. Also: stop making things that look great but which I'd never wear.
• Talk about crafting! I want to share my enthusiasm about knitting, crochet and dress-making! I want to write more about what it means to make things and I want people to feel confident about making things for themselves and their loved ones.
• Be mindful about my crafting. I read an article the other day about how to speed up your knitting. I thought about it for some time afterwards and concluded that while I understand that people want to KNIT ALL THINGS (and do so quickly), part of knitting's appeal is the thoughtfulness it engenders in the knitter. I  am not always able to appreciate every single stitch I knit, but I would like to become more mindful of what it is I am doing whilst I am making things.

I have more to say about the last point but that is (also) for another blog post.

What are your crafting resolutions? Are you planning to conquer a particular project? Do you want to try out a new craft? Are you planning on knitting from stash only (oh honey: we've all tried that one!)? Or wil 2013 be the year you knit 12 jumpers in one year?

Share your craft resolutions with the rest of us!

Pattern & FO: Baker Street Gloves

Baker Street is the third and last pattern in the Old Maiden Aunt/Karie Bookish yarn club collaboration.I feel a bit sad about the yarn club drawing to a close. It has been a lot of fun for both Lilith and I - not to mention the horde of knitters who have been taking part. Also, I cannot believe it is December already!

The Baker Street gloves are knitted in the "221b" colourway in Lilith's Bluefaced Leicester Aran. The gloves are knitted to an unusually tight gauge on 3.75mm in order to make the gloves extra warm and also extra durable.

Lilith loves these gloves and nearly nicked them when I first showed them to her. I really like them too. They are super-cosy and due to the nature of the stitch pattern and construction, they fit snugly across many shapes/sizes of hands. I like having my fingers all cosy, so the gloves are rather long - but as with most of my patterns, I have shown how to modify this in the pattern.

A little bit about how I put the collection together.

I started out by sketching a motif I could play with across many types of accessories. The motif becomes increasingly more elaborate and complicated throughout the club patterns: the shawl had a fairly easy repeat and the hat started incorporating the motif in the round and into shaping. The Baker Street patterns adds twisted stitches to the motif and instead of repeat it in a sort of diamond formation, I chose to stack it. OK, so this is designer mumbo-jumbo. Basically this just means that all the patterns use the motif differently and yet they all work together.

I have been wearing my Baker Street gloves these past few weeks: winter has hit the UK and I needed something a bit more cosy than my usual fingerless mitts. These were perfect - heavier yarn than my other fingerless gloves and the length/fit of them ensured my hands were warm. Of course I were slightly worried that I'd meet a knitter who'd ask me about my gloves. Well, I was on constant Whip-'Em-Off alert, but I escaped unscathed. It's a pleasure to be able to wear them with pride in public now!

Thank you so much to all yarn club participants. The club-only exclusivity for all the patterns runs for the remainder of this month. By the beginning of January, the patterns will be available for everybody via the magic of Ravelry.

I'm off to make æbleskiver now. The Old Maiden Aunt studio is open tonight as part of the West Kilbride (Craftstown Scotland) Yule Night and I offered to bake some Danish Xmas goodies for the Knit-In. Yes, it's most definitely December..

On the Road

I have been travelling quite a bit for work lately. Fortunately, travelling frequently means uninterrupted knitting time - and so I have been able to get a few things well under way recently.

This particular project is part of my oft-mentioned Doggerland collection. The design uses Faroese Snældan 1ply yarn - and I am happy to announce that the yarn will soon be available to purchase in the UK thanks to The Island Wool Company. My Doggerland collection even has a tentative release date too: look out for more announcements and a slew of blog posts towards the end of February. It has been a long time coming, but I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

So, I have been knitting my way up and down the country. London was on the itinerary earlier this month. I managed to combine seeing trends in summer knitwear with a trip to Loop London (very cute place - I escaped with buttons) and hanging out with good buddies. Still, London is no longer as magical as it seemed when I first visited aged 13. Then again, few things are as magical as they seem when you are young.

And yesterday I was assigned the role of Official Photographer when a real textiles legend came to Edinburgh.

Again. Travelling. Again. Knitting on my way there. Not a bad way to spend one's life.

First I had brunch with a handful of Edinburgh knitters (thank you for the company). I also visited a new Edinburgh yarn shop run by the very lovely Kathy who is the sole UK stockist  of lace yarn from St. Kilda (ooh).

I really enjoyed meeting Kaffe Fassett. As you might imagine he had interesting things to say about colour, drawing upon tradition, and how to engage with textiles. I mentioned my mild obsession with knitters' hands and he responded by talking about he thinks about his own hands when he works and what handmade means compared to machine-made. I was also taken with the thoughtful way he spoke about conformity and the 20th century rejection of folkloric traditional art.

Mostly I felt I was bathing in a sea of colour (which was impressive seeing it was a dark and dreary November night). Then I travelled home whilst knitting. Yet again.

FO: The Whitman Hat

Hey, I finished a hat.

I dug deep into my stash and uncovered a skein of some Latvian yarn I bought off ebay in late 2008. I knitted a cardigan from it in early 2009 and so had a couple of left-over skeins kicking about. Since 2008/2009 I have clearly become accustomed to far better quality yarn as I did not enjoy knitting with it at all. Twine should cover this experience fairly comfortably. Still, it is hard-wearing yarn (my cardigan has held up very well) and I love the colour.

The pattern? I looked through all my books and magazines, and came up with a pattern from Lene Holme-Samsøe's beautiful Mere Feminin Strik (now available in English translation through Interweave Press). I haven't knitted from a Danish pattern in ages, so I thought it would be a nice little challenge.

It wasn't a challenge at all, actually.

The hat is knitting from the crown downwards with the Shetland Fir Cone pattern organically flowing outwards. You knit the last repeat straight which then organically flows into the ribbing. Yes, I used the word "organically" twice, but that was deliberate. The design has been thought-through with each element guiding you towards the next.

It was a really good knitting experience even if the yarn could have been better - and interesting from a design point of view.

What is currently on my needles, then?

I am still working away on Bute. One front & the back are done. It's my treat-knitting. The thing I get to knit on when I have dealt with soul-destroying paperwork or dealt with a beastly chart problem. I hope to have it finished by the end of December, but we shall see.

My knitting group project is Brooklyn Tweed's Quincy hat. I am knitting it in Rowan Cocoon in "Shale". It is simple, meditative garterstitch with an applied i-cord edge. The sort that would drive me up the wall if I had to knit it without distractions, in other words. Perfect for knit night.

A new hat design is also in progress. So far I have just swatched several versions of the same idea and worked out a bit of maths. It's part of my Doggerland collection which I am slowly pulling together. Exciting stuff (for me at least).

I'll leave you with a piece of street art I saw the other day..

 PS Whitman? Why's the hat called Whitman? A very simple, almost trite, explanation..

My Lovely Woollie Horse(s)

"Did you see the 'knit your own sheep' thing outside?" - "I am not sure I want to know.." Dave and I are creatures of habit and we have frequented the same little antiques shop for years. We have come to know the guys running the place quite well: they ask me how to thread a vintage sewing machine, we bring them tea, and the banter is always exquisite. Occasionally I go home with vintage buttons. However, the guys are also very good at pulling practical jokes and I thought the 'knit your own sheep' remark was one of them.

Then I saw what they had put aside for me.

"Are they knitting looms?" one of them asked. No, not knitting looms. "I saw them in the house - this 1930s place up north - and I thought of you," the other one said. "They're yours if you want them."

And so this afternoon I became the proud (if bewildered) owner of two pre-WW2 woollie horses.

They both bear brass plaques marking them out as Tulloch of Shetland woollie horses. The only thing I have been able to discern is that the V&A have a Tulloch of Shetland woollie horse in their collection (identical judging by the description? I am basing my dating upon them, incidentally). Anybody able to shed more light on this company?

So, what is a woollie horse? It is more commonly known as a jumper stretcher or a jumper board. You use them to quickly dry wool jumpers and stop the jumper stretching out of shape whilst drying. They are still being manufactured - Jamieson & Smith sell them - and are said to still being used extensively in Shetland.

Seeing as I would not use two woolie horses, I have given the second one to Ms Old Maiden Aunt. It will feel right at home in her shop window.