A Post About a Walk and Some Cowls. . .

Happy New Year to all and I hope everyone had a great holiday season.

We spent it pretty quietly, watching a lot of telly and eating far too much.  So it was great to get out on the hills again.

Yesterday, our rambling group headed to Ambleside, a place I have walked from many times, and know well,  but I was delighted to find out that part of the intended route was going to be new territory. We hiked a nine mile circular from Ambleside, starting off very gradually on flat paths around Rydal Water.

The air was possibly the stillest I've ever known it to be in the Lake District.  As a result the water was like glass and beautifully reflected the surroundings.

We then headed up above Grasmere, towards Alcock Tarn. This part of the walk was new to me, but as I have probably mentioned before, stumbling across tarns in unexpected places is one of the great pleasures of walking in the Lakes.

And here it is.  Not the biggest or the most spectacular but pretty in its own way. Had the day been brighter, there would have been a lot more of the fells reflected in the water.

Here's another shot of it from above as we started our return journey along a pleasant high ridge.

We descended back into Ambleside via Nab Scar, part of the Fairfield Horseshoe. This is looking down on Rydal Water again.

Spending five hours on the coach travelling up and back is perfect knitting time.  This is one of the projects I'm currently working on - a very simple cowl called Polkamania by Felix Ford.  I'm using some Shetland 4ply as the background colour and a crazy Zauberball for the dots - I love seeing all the colour changes. And don't those dots look right at home in landscape?  I should probably call this my camouflage cowl.  Once I reach halfway, I will probably reverse the two yarns just for some variety.

I love to photograph my knitwear as much as possible outdoors, so I also took the opportunity to wear my first finished object of 2019!  This is the Midwinter cowl by Laura Aylor,  knit in a variety of yarns from deep stash.

It's bulky weight so it knit up very quickly and while it looks a little odd just worn on its own (I knit it at a slightly tighter gauge, so it would be firmer around the neck), tucked under some outerwear, it's a really cozy, splash of colour.  It is also very warm - almost too warm for UK winters but will serve me very well for Canadian cold.

I seem to be a bit cowl obsessed lately.  Just over the holidays, I completed the Poza cowl by Ysolda Teague.  This was knit using just one 25g ball of cashmere lace from Yarntelier.  It was a bit of an impulse buy at a yarn show; I fell in love with the colour and I'd never knitted with cashmere before.  This pattern was perfect for a one-skein bit of luxury.  Ooooh, and it is so lovely and soft.

I'm also becoming slightly obsessed with mohair.  The trend these days is to knit a strand of mohair together with wool for a softer,  more muted look.  I plan to test this out later in the year.  But first, I completed my Birds of a Feather shawl by Andrea Mowry. I paired some hand-dyed mohair from Qing Fibre with my favourite Daughter of a Shepherd hebridean/zwartbles 4ply and I love the rustic deliciousness against the fluffy warmth of the mohair.  This looks perfectly at home in the woods.

My knitting resolutions are fairly simple for 2019.  I just want to cast off more than I cast on (i.e. start attacking those WIPS!).  And I want to knit more stash than I acquire. I shall be carefully weighing both.  We'll see how it goes. . . .

In Which My Knits Reflect the Weather. . .

March certainly didn't herald the beginning of spring in the U.K. Instead we got the "beast from the east" - snow, sleet, and minus temperatures, all from weather systems hitting us from Siberia. Our condenser pipe froze and we were without heat or hot water for four days.  We got off lucky - many people got stranded on the highways, or had no water at all after thawing pipes burst.

And at least it didn't happen during the Edinburgh Yarn Festival which is next week - what a disaster that would have been!

I just realized that all three knitting projects I cast on during the last ten days or so are using various shades of grey yarn.  Coincidence?

I have knit the front and back of Spin Me Round by Francesca Hughes. I'm using Blacker's Westcountry Tweed DK which has the most lovely tweedy bits of colour among the grey. I wanted a pattern with a lot of stockinette to show off the smoothness of this yarn but with just a bit of texture so it wasn't too boring to knit.  I am at the stage where I am pondering how long I want the sleeves to be.

Kate Davies keeps releasing a pattern each week as part of her West Highland club and it's now become almost automatic that I'll be stash diving and casting on.  Highland Rogue is a long and wide cowl that wraps around twice and only a really soft yarn will do. I reached for one of my favourite blends - BFL and Masham - from the Countess Ablaze. This colourway is called Grey Skies Over Manchester.  Yep, that fits the weather bill.  I have renamed my cowl Weather Rogue.

It's an easy six row repeat and produces quite a squishy fabric, although you have to knit 64 inches in total so this is a long-term project.  I thought it would be perfect to take for train knitting up to Edinburgh.

But  Kate's also released Stronachlachar, a wonderful cabled short-sleeved top. It works both on its own or as a nice layering piece.

I really wanted a neutral colour for this as it will go with a lot of my wardrobe. I also thought it would be a lovely summer top, but too warm if knit in pure wool.  So I have cast on with Blacker's Lyonesse DK, a mixture of wool and linen. This should give it a nice drape and be quite comfortable to wear in the summer months. It is knitting up quite quickly and I am loving the twisted cables.  I think this will have to be my main EYF project as I'm quite addicted already.

Mind you, I'm already itching to cast on her latest release - Myrtle.  Simply gorgeous.  I may look out for some yarn for this when I'm at EYF.

One more week - so very excited!

This Thing of Paper, This Thing of Beauty. . .

"As a knitter, I find the connections and parallels between knitting and books compelling. The move from something handmade to machine-made is one which is perhaps most poignant to us knitters as the world keeps reminding us it would be quicker (and probably cheaper) if we bought a machine-knitted garment rather than insisted on making it ourselves. And yet we persist."

These wise words are from the introduction to Karie Westermann's new book This Thing of Paper, which explores these connections between knitting and the early production of books. It rings a bell on so many levels for me.  I started my career over twenty years ago as a bookseller in an independent bookstore.  A bookworm since seven, I absolutely loved my job.  Then came the rise of the chain stores with their unfair discounts and competitive advantages. And then Amazon came along. And then pallets of cheap mass market books stacked high in Costco and Walmart.  It was all about the price, not the experience and not the knowledge and passion of the staff. I got tired of people wandering in, asking for recommendations, browsing carefully curated displays, then writing down titles and ordering online. In short, it was no longer any fun.  I then moved to publishing and found a whole tribe of dedicated people in the indie presses who were as enthusiastic about good writing, creativity and undiscovered talent as I was.  But they were just a small part of the huge publishing conglomerate that I worked for and frequently never given the respect and resources they deserved. When my bosses started regularly referring to books as units, then publishing was no longer fun, particularly when social media was in its early stages and it was more important to get "likes" of books than to actually read or talk about them.

What has all this got to do with knitting?

Well, since I moved to the UK and started going to wool shows around the country, meeting knitters in person and through ravelry,  I have definitely found my tribe again (and it's no coincidence that knitters are often huge readers too). An appreciation of the physical object, of the time and talent that it takes to produce something of beauty, either in text or texture, unites us all.  I will admit that when self-publishing first started to make inroads into the industry, I was skeptical.  But for knitting and other craft books, it's been a revelation; authors and makers have really been able to take a theme close to their heart and produce gorgeous and authentic books that reflect their vision and passion. Would a mainstream publisher have taken a chance on Kate Davies' earliest books ( I think they would now, but I'm glad she has retained all the creative control and is continuing to self-publish).  Would they have looked twice at something like Anna Maltz's quirky and fabulous  Penguin:  A Knit Collection?  Probably not.  And these are only two examples of the many wonderful and original self-published craft books I have added to my collection over the years, and that keep on appearing. Long may it last!

And This Thing of Paper is another incredible example.  The book itself is a joy to hold; as much thought has gone into the production values as the patterns. The paper, font, photography are all beautiful and Karie has written short essays on the various aspects and components involved in creating medieval manuscripts and early printed books.  A bit of book history and part of it too - a copy is going to be held in the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, such an incredible honour.

I was one of the Kickstarter backers for this project and thus lucky enough to test knit one of the patterns - the Rubrication Shawl - back in June.  It is a stunning pattern, which as Karie writes, was designed to resemble "nibs spilling ink across a surface and droplets becoming leaves (we often refer to a leaf of paper, of course). It is a pattern which is both text and texture."

I used Countess Ablaze's English Gentleman Fingering in one of my favourite wool blends, BFL and Masham, and I love the vibrant colour and soft and cozy feel of this shawl. It shows off the intricate stitch patterns perfectly.

There are eleven patterns in total - two cardigans, one jumper, four shawls (a Karie specialty), one cowl, a pair of mittens and a hat and fingerless mitts set. Reading through the essays and seeing the inspiration behind the designs has also inspired me to pay tribute to the innovation and creativity that has personally touched me, as a reader, as a bookseller, as a publishing sales rep and marketer, and as an appreciator and collector of the printed word.  The history of the book is ongoing. The indies are holding on and in some cases making a comeback.  There is every reason to be positive and celebratory. Print is definitely not dead.  We can read. We can knit. Sometimes I wish I could do both simultaneously. We can persist.

I've already knit one other project in the book, inspired by one of my favourite small presses, but I will leave that for another post. There is a KAL starting up in Karie's Ravelry group on Monday, January 15th and running through to March. Pop in and join us!

Knit to the End of the Year and Turn. . .

2017 will be a hard year to beat.  I had two absolutely marvellous and unforgettable trips to Shetland and the Hebrides, with lots of lovely weekends away to parts of the UK that were new to me. And this really was the year that I had loads of fun with my knitting.  Back in January, I decided my word for the year would be colour - I really wanted to cast on more colourwork and to really think about picking colours that would work well together.  Looking back at my projects, I'm really happy and also surprised at what I came up with.

It started with my Lausavisa jumper, designed by Karie Westermann.  This is one of my favourite knits of the year and I wear this a lot. I definitely need more yoked sweaters in my closet.

I played with colour, not just on yokes but sleeves, the body and even as a single contrast row. 

My Kildalton cardigan, designed by Kate Davies was my most complicated knit of 2017 and continued the trend of knitting a lot of blue, which I hadn't really registered until I brought all these photos together.  

And here are the rest of the tops I knit. I was really chuffed to get to my goal of twelve garments in one year. I got so many comments on my teal Carpino, designed by Carol Feller (second on the top row ), saying that the colour really suited me, so maybe I need to further explore the blue family.  Mind you, I'd also really like more reds in my wardrobe too.  And then purple is this year's  Pantone colour . . 

My favourite knit of the year - and the most colourful - was my Next Year in Lerwick sweater (bottom right), designed by Tori Seierstad.  I learned so much from this project, and while I may be reluctant to embark on another with quite so many colours (and thus ends to weave in), it has cemented a love of fair isle for me.

I also knit quite a few cowls and shawls, again experimenting with how different coloured yarns could be combined, whether through intarsia as in my Harewood Hap by Bristol Ivy, inspired by Mondrian, or my Marled Magic Shawl by Stephen West, which taught me tons about mixing yarns together for texture and shading, or my Strandwanderer by Lea Viktoria which cleverly made the most of a variegated yarn.

With every project you gain in knowledge and confidence and I'm excited to see where my knitting takes me in 2018.

It's already off to a colourful start.  I subscribed to Kate Davies' West Highland Way yarn club at the end of last year. She has developed her own line of 4ply yarn, called Milarrochy Tweed and there are twelve patterns to come over the next few weeks, using both Milarrochy and Buachaille, and Cumulus, a wispy silk/mohair blend - I'm very curious to see what she comes up with for that!  As part of the yarn club, we received a 25g ball of each of the twelve Milarrochy colours.   Those 1200 metres whispered "sweater quantity" to me and I was quite impatient to start knitting with this gorgeous yarn. I searched around Kate's previous patterns and settled on the Stevenson Sweater, which I had actually been wanting to make before my Shetland trip, but just never got around to it.

I've managed to use all twelve of the colours (sorry, the light isn't great in this photo and thus the vibrancy of all these shades doesn't really come through).  You can read all about Kate's development of the yarn in these posts on her blog, here and here, and the inspiration behind her palette here.

It's fascinating reading and the yarn is lovely to knit with. With a little care, as it is only a 1ply,  it spit-splices successfully and so I don't have too many ends to weave in. I should be able to finish this over the weekend and I'm looking forward to seeing how the yarn blocks and blooms.

I have two words that I will be chanting to myself throughout 2018 -  especially at wool shows. They are STASH and WIPs.  I have far too many of both and really need to make a dent in the former and get the latter off the needles.   I did get as far as listing and organizing the lot over the holidays, so there is really no excuse - I just need some self-discipline!

Let's see where this year takes us. . .

Finding Inspiration From Books and Books That Inspire. . .

Last weekend I traveled to Harrogate for their annual Knitting and Stitching Show. It's a different type of experience in that the proportion of yarn vendors is much less than the usual shows I attend and they are spread out among fabric and embroidery booths (which is not to say that I didn't buy any yarn as one of the booths was Jamieson and Smith, but that wasn't my prime reason for going).  There are lots of displays by talented textile artists which I really enjoy seeing.  Two in particular caught my eye.

Hue is a collective of textile artists working in Hertfordshire, in the south of England. They got together to read Robert Macfarlane's book The Old Ways, about all the paths made by nature, the weather, history and folklore, that one can find - hidden and visible - across the U.K.  While I still haven't read it, I do own a copy and this exhibit has really inspired me to crack it open.

The artists decided to create works out of fabric and stitching in response to the parts of the book that really resonated with their reading experience.  In the photo below, are a number of works in the same size as the paperback copy, re-imagining the cover. These were sold in aid of charity.

This was my favourite with its 3D effect.  I'm sorry I don't have the artist's name - I couldn't see it listed with the work.

Other works in the room included Landmarks; Green Hollow by Elisabeth Rutt. She hand stitched over old maps and felt.

She also created these "Pebblescapes".  Above is Coast and below is Gneiss, with their "darned" pebbles.

This piece is titled An Unquiet Sea by Carola Garvie.  She drew an outline of the Shetland islands on linen and then embellished the sea around it with wool and silk.

This was also this stunning 3D piece  - Where Are the Crickets? by Janette Day-Brown. The bark is created with machine embroidery. 

The second room that really caught my eye was an exhibit by Amy Twigger Holroyd.  One wall was dedicated to showing how to re-fashion or repair a basic child's sweater.  

She also had some amazing embellished knitwear inspired by English cathedrals.  Her approach to sustainable fashion was so creative and interesting that I had to pick up her recent book which will no doubt make for some fascinating and thought provoking reading alongside The Old Ways. Meg, aka Mrs M's Curiosity Cabinet reviewed the book on her latest podcast here.

Speaking of projects inspired by books and books that will definitely inspire, I should be getting my copy of Karie Westermann's This Thing of Paper any day now.  This is a collection of eleven knitting patterns, all inspired by the love of books - their history, their construction, the pure physicality of this most beautiful and powerful object. 

Books and knitting - is there a better combination?  I got to test knit the Rubrication Shawl for Karie and will do a separate post on that shortly, but this book has really inspired me to go to my bookshelves, delve into my stash and celebrate both.  I'll be casting on the Psalter Shawl first and I have chosen colours that reflect my love of Persephone Books.  They are the most gorgeous books I own with their classic grey and cream covers and then that unexpected burst of colour inside as their endpapers reproduce fabrics from the era in which either the book is set or was published.  I shall be using some Titus 4ply and Lichen and Lace in the pewter colourway.  And then adding a third colour - Ripple Crafts' Assynt Storms 4ply which is just a riotous explosion of colour. 

 

I can't wait to cast on.

The Seventh Wave Cowl or My First Humble Forays into the Design World. . .

So a funny thing happened after attending a knitting retreat. . . 

Back in February I was in Manchester for a weekend of knitting workshops, talks and general socializing with lots of creative and fun people.  One of the workshops I took was given by designer Karie Westermann and it was about publishing patterns in magazines.  I wasn't really that interested in the actual designing process but curious as to how the magazine industry worked. About two weeks before the retreat, we were assigned homework: to pitch an idea for a design around the theme of Romantic Beachcomber and send it to her ahead of the workshop.

I got some good feedback on my pitch and shortly after, LoveKnitting put out a call for submissions on - surprise, surprise - a coastal theme.  On a whim, I tweaked my homework and sent it in and to my shock, it was accepted!  Now came a strong learning curve - I had a few weeks to write up my first pattern, knit it and take some photos. Oh, and for some reason I had submitted a design in laceweight!!!!

I was kindly supplied with some yarn, a skein of Portland Lace from the Yarn Collective. It's merino wool and the colours are curated by designer Melanie Berg. They are very subtly but beautifully tonal.  I used a colourway called Morning Rain (pictured above)  but I'm in love with most of the shades in the collection, Washed Denim and A Day in the Woods in particular (well worth a look at the links above).  The yarn was smooth and soft, very pretty and easy to work with.  I'd definitely knit with it again.

And so after a few weeks of knitting almost non-stop and then grappling with excel and various layouts, the pattern for the Seventh Wave Cowl was born.  It's a free pattern available for download from the Love Knitting website as part of their Coastal Adventures Anthology and their Indie June promotion. There's a link to it also from Ravelry.  It's suitable for beginning lace knitters and for more experienced ones, it's an easy repeat to memorize so this may be the first lace pattern you can knit while watching telly (at least it was for me).

The Liverpud kindly agreed to take some photos and we headed to Formby trying to get that coastal vibe with the sea and the dunes as background. Unfortunately, it was so, so windy that it was really difficult to get a decent shot.

This was the best of the lot but I wasn't completely happy with it. 

And so to Plan B.  As we were walking around our neighbourhood, I spied the wall of a new restaurant recently painted a duck egg's blue.  As the deadline was looming, I decided that the wall, plus a striped top would have to suffice to create a sense of the seaside.  Am I anywhere close? Maybe I should have been holding an ice cream cone too.

I learned an awful lot from this process and while I won't be quitting the day job any time soon, I have been bitten by the designer bug and would like to try something new in the future.  Problem is, there are SO many patterns by other designers that I'm itching to knit first.  Still, nothing ventured. . .
Watch this space.   (And thanks so much to the lovely knitters who have sent me supportive messages on Instagram and ravelry  - I think it will be very strange, but very marvellous to see this knitted up by someone else).

The knitting journey continues. . .