Knitting in the Tardis - why I will be watching Dr Who even more closely this year.

I am a life long Dr Who fan. I can remember watching it with my dad when I was little, and being very excited to catch a glimpse of Tom Baker at an event.

As an adult I have rewatched pretty much all the classic episodes available and followed the recent series very happily. But I don't think I will have watched any as closely as the new series.

This is because I was commissioned to knit items for the upcoming season.

I was introduced the the show's talented costume designer, Hayley Nebauer, when she asked mutual friend about knitters who could work from a sketch and measurements.

It seemed that she needed some sweaters making and it turned out they were for the Doctor himself.

The process started with Hayley sending me some top secret sketches and one of the sweaters Peter Capaldi had worn in a previous series so I could get the shaping spot on. Then we had to decide on the yarn. The sweaters (three the same) had to be black and not too heavy, so we chose Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply and I started work using 3mm needles (that's a lot of sweater on small needles. 

The challenge was that the sweaters had to have rips in. But the rips had to be stable and the same for all three jumpers, so I created a pattern with dropped st sections of different widths and lengths. Plus some short rows at the neck and cuff to create a worn look.

Since the trailers came out I've been peering at all them very closely whenever the Doctor is in black.

Like here...

and here...

So I was very pleased to see this preview interview where Capaldi is definitely wearing my work.

 

I will be looking out for how the sweater fares in next few weeks - the series starts on 15 April - as well as some other items that could show up.

Excited? Just a little 8-)

 

New pattern: Tea time sweater (and tea cosy)

I love vintage patterns and have piles of old knitting magazines from the 1940s, 50s and 60s, so I was very excited when Christine Boggis, the editor of Knitting magazine, put out a call for knits inspired by the 40s.

Even more so because for a while I had had a picture of a vintage teapot that I wanted to use as a template for a colourwork jumper and I realised this was great fit for the brief. Colourwork and stripes were popular choices for sweaters in the 1940s because rationing meant people often reused wool and only had limited supplies.

I named my design sketch Tea Time and included the story of the teapot in my submission. Soon Christine cam back to me saying she like the design and could I do a tea cosy to go with it. An unusual request bit fun and one that now makes a lot of sense having seen how the magazine styled its shoot this month.

Tea Time  comes in eight sizes and use Yarn Stories Fine Merino 4ply.