Swatches and Squishiness

How has your week been?

A lot of mine has been about swatches and bundles of yarn – so that’s pretty good.

Swatches are an enormous part of a designer’s life. When you answer a magazine’s call for submissions for example, you need to swatch your stitch patterns in the right type of yarn.

Each design submitted will include a sketch, pictures of the swatch or swatches, a description and suggestions for the yarn and colours to make the item in – all brought together on a single page.

Recently I’ve submitted ideas to number of calls which has resulted in a pile of new swatches.

Over the past two or three weeks, I’ve had commissions come in from those ideas and agreed the actual yarns and colours to be used.

This means I’ve needed to sort out all the swatches for the commissioned designs and collect them up with the sketch and notes for each one while lovely swishy parcels arrive.

Now, I need to reswatch in the lovely yarns pictured before I start creating the patterns and samples. I need to know exactly how the final yarn choice behaves before I start the calculations for how many stitches I need etc.

But it is good to stop and admire all the fab yarn I’ll be working with. There are some old favourites in among the yarns pictured as well as some brand new items that I’m excited to work with. Some are so new they aren’t on the market yet – but they will be by the time the designs appear in magazines. It is a great privilege to be able to work with these.

I will share some in progress pics when I can but for now you are going to have to guess what I might be making from these swatches and yarns.

Getting Zandra Rhodes a cuppa

Over the past couple of weeks I was volunteering at the Faversham Literary Festival.

This is an amazing local event featuring dozens of big name authors. But it only works thanks to dozens of volunteers like me who bustle about checking tickets, showing people to seats, running bookstalls and bars, and looking after authors and interviewers backstage.

On Saturday I found myself looking after the iconic Zandra Rhodes who was there to talk about her book… Iconic.

It was a joy to meet this unique textile and fashion designer. And to hear her talk about her design process especially when some of the things she mentioned were so familiar. For example realising you need to rethink a garment because the fabric pattern only looks good if the wearer keeps their arms stuck out at all times.

In this pic you can see Zandra and my attempt to stuff a lot of knitwear under my orange volunteer gilet (this venue was a historic church with some very cold parts).

Off Kilter: A no pressure knit-along

At this time of year, I like to a have a relaxing knit in a beautiful yarn as one of my projects. For me this is to pick up to distract me when fireworks are going off outside. The noise of fireworks sends me a bit off kilter and the knitting something lovely brings me back again.

This year I’ve decided to dive into my tub of 4-ply #singleskeinsofloveliness and knit myself another Off Kilter shawl.

Then I thought: why don’t I invite other people to join me in a super-relaxed knit along.

Off Kilter is a free pattern I made available during the covid lockdowns as something to cheer people up. I think there are many reasons why people might want a lovely but straightforward project and one that they can join other people in making.

It may be you have been looking for a pattern for a skein of 4-ply you have treated yourself to, it could be you love comparing progress with others, or you might want an introduction to shawl knitting. Or like me you want a sport of distracting selfish knitting.

If you can knit, purl, decrease and make a yarnover you’ll be fine with this pattern – and even if you’re not completely sure, I’ll be on hand in my Facebook group to help with advice, lives and videos as needed. There’ll even be some info about making a DK version.

Taking part is really simple – download the pattern for free here, pick out 100g of 4-ply that makes you happy and join the Facebook group (where you can share your yarn choice).

I’m naming cast on day as Friday 29 October – but remember this is a super-relaxed knit along, so if you start a few days before or save it for mid November, that’s up to you.

I love helping people with their knits and seeing how they use my patterns so make my autumn and join in.

New Pattern: Hemingford lace sleeve sweater

Have you noticed that I like detail? I don't tend to make plain items but that doesn't mean all over pattern.

The Hemingford sweater has a plain stocking stitch body with loose lacy sleeves which add a little glamour.

It is knitted in Cascade Yarns Heritage 4-ply which is one of my go-to fine sweater yarns and the pattern can be found in The Knitter issue 167 out now. The sample is in a very on trend Coral shade but the yarn comes in a wide range of colours so I am looking forward to seeing what people choose.

More woodland (and architectural) inspirations

Some goodies came in the post and my brain is full of new shawl ideas - just need to finish 4 or 5 other things.

 

 

I bought these two skeins via the Virtual Wool Monty last weekend - despite not having a show to teach at I couldn't help some shopping.

 

I've been playing with some ideas about mixing more solid and variegated yarns together and these two skeins from RiverKnits really hit the spot.

 

When I went for my walk in the woods I started thinking about the red tile roofs and brick chimneys of various buildings that peep through the trees, so another woodland inspired shawl may be on the way.

 

If you fancy knitting a shawl today, check out my Ravelry shop - there is 10% off all shawl pattern until 25 June 2020 with code GOWIB.

 

 

Footnote: Chatting to Becci from River Knits online I have learned that the red brick along the canals was the inspiration for one of these colourways. Great minds and all that....

Inspiration from Gainsborough to McQueen

 

The theme for the new issue of Knitting magazine (no 192) is British Yarn and British Landscape. Because of the way my mind works this cardigan developed from seemingly disparate sources. The construction of the two part fronts to create a waistcoat effect is an idea I have been playing with since looking at the clever ways AlexanderMcQueen played with traditional tailoring.

The landscape theme made me think of the famous Gainsborough picture of a couple surveying their land. So the "Mrs Andrews" cardigan has a textured "waistcoat section joined the the over jacket with the join embellished by small buttons to recall C18th style.

 

Mr and Mrs Andrews

I hope that you agree that it is both unusual and wearable - there are back darts to help shaping.

The yarns are 100% wool DK and Wool/Silk DK from New Lanark so there are plenty of possible colour combinations plus it is very affordable.

Happy knitting

Looking back at my 2018 design journey

2018 was a very busy year for me in many ways but one of them was as a knitwear designer.

How busy didn’t really strike me until I started looking back at the patterns published last year with a view to consider which magazine patterns I might relaunch on my own sites in due course. I doubled by design output last year and worked with four big magazines, Knitting, The Knitter, Simply Knitting and Knit Now.

It was also the year when I was able to walk into WH Smith and see three of my designs in a row on the covers of three of these magazines.

I am always very chuffed when my work makes the cover of anything so this was rather overwhelming. I wrote something about this at the time.

So when I started looking back though the 2018 designs I thought I would pull them together in a series of collages.

Sweaters, cardigans and a dress

These were all created to a design brief for a particular magazine issue with a theme. Sometimes a theme just shouts at me and garment sketches flow from my pencil at speed. other times it is more difficult. But looking at these I think my interest in construction, shaping and stitch patterns come through. The one thing I tend not to do is plain stocking stitch in one colour. That doesn't mean difficult knits - but it does mean there will be something to keep your interest and add a little variety.

Shawls, wraps and scarves

These allow me to let loose with lace, cables and texture as well as providing the opportunity to play with construction as with the two signature "radial" semi-circular shawls and the green wraps in rows and three which are worked on the bias from corner to corner. 

I also love the drama you can create with colour and large pieces of lace, so even when people tell me shawls are less popular, I won't be walking away from them.

Socks

For most of my knitting life (well, my life, there isn't much of a time difference) I didn't knit socks and had no interest in them. Then I set myself a new year challenge of doing something new and made a pair. Definitely a life changing moment, as five years on I regularly design and make them. I have taught sock knitting and as I type am thinking of getting a pair out of the drawer because by toes are cold in a high street pair.

My preference I will go for a cuff down sock with a heel flap. But I will do a short row heel or and after-thought one (as in the colourwork socks) if the design would work better.

So what will 2019 bring? This January I have already finished four samples and have the yarn for several more to hand. I am planning a number of pattern relaunches and have a special big project in the works. I am also going to try to post more and revive this blog.

 

Of shawls and serendipity

It's no secret that I have  a bit of a hand-dyed yarn habit. I am drawn to rich and deep colours and unusual combinations but to control myself I try to focus on choosing yarns where I can see an outcome for the skein.

For a while now I have been admiring, and occasionally buying. the work of Helen Reed of The Wool Kitchen. I like the yarn bases she uses and her strong colourful dyeing style.

I particularly like skeins such as these in the Cosmic Girl colourway with a saturated main colour with flashes of contrast. And for a while I had been contemplating a "radial shawl" using this or a similar colourway. A radial shawl is a style I have adapted for myself with wedges of short row shaping and a wide lace edge section creating a semicircle. They work with yarns with long colour changes and I thought that the short runs of contrast colours in these skeins would also create an interesting effect.

Then Christine Boggis, the editor of The Knitter, told me she was planning an issue based on hand-dyed yarns. I immediately started a list of my favourite dyers and pulling out notes about ideas I'd had for different yarns. Top of the list was a shawl in Helen's yarn.

While I was pulling my ideas together, Christine was in touch again to ask if I knew of The Wool Kitchen and would I be interested in working with Helen. 

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

It was delightful to work with Helen to get her advice on what colourways work in what bases and then to come up with the Electric Storm shawl complete with lightening flashes of neon on a deep blue ground. This is a shawl that brought me a lot of pleasure to create and I think it really shows off Helen's colour sense and her dyeing style. And I'm really looking forward to seeing other people's versions.

This is unlikely to be the last time I work with Helen's yarns. I have some more sitting here and why writing this post I had to pop over to her Etsy shop which means I have been tempted by some new colourways.

  Photographs by Laurel Guilfoyle for Knitting, GMC Publications

Is this my ultimate knitting book?

As a knitting designer, tech editor, writer, pattern writer, teacher and all round knitting nerd, I have an ever growing collection of reference books from the iconic The Principles Of Knitting by June Hemmon Hyatt and a 1960s Odhams Knitting Encylopaedia (a lucky charity shop find), to a well over a dozen stitch dictionaries. There are books on pattern writing and garment construction, books on fibres and yarn production, books on different styles of socks, on hat shaping, etc, etc.

I love learning about my craft and I use these books regularly: to find the best techniques; looking to see if an idea you have, already has an established technique; refreshing my memory about something; or just getting a new perspective or some inspiration,

So I was delighted to be asked if I wanted to review Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book – a perfect book for me to write about both here and on the UK Hand Knitting blog which I regularly write.

This is an impressive and comprehensive tome with more than 350 pages of information and 1,600 photographs and illustrations. I have pictured it here with me to give an idea of scale – warning, it weights a lot.

This is an update of Vogue Knitting’s original encyclopaedia published in 1989. Given the changes in knitting fashions, the developments in yarn, needles and techniques that we have seen in recent years, the company decided it was time for a full revision and have added 70 pages to the original.

I did occasionally find the US terminology can be a bit distracting – I always do – but it didn’t stop this being an incredibly useful resource for any knitter who wants to check a technique, understand more about yarn or see how a sock, sweater of shawl is constructed.

There are chapters explaining about  types of yarns and needles and caring for your knits, through basic techniques to more complex knitting types and details of how many knitted items are constructed and even a guide to basic designing.

All the techniques sections have clear, easy to understand pictures and illustrations. I did find one or two technical sections (especially in colourwork) that might have benefited from a bit more explanation but these are in the minority.

And I will never be stuck for a cast on or cast off ever again. There are instructions for dozens of each included. I do know a cast off that isn’t included but have only done about half the cast ons.

I will certainly find this book useful but I can’t describe it as my ultimate knitting resource because I am sure to find yet more reference books in the future. That said I plan to master all the cast ons that were new to be in the coming months.

However I think this is a book that has a wider audience than obsessive, professional knitting geeks like me. If you just want to have one knitting reference book to help you with new techniques, to inspire, challenge and support you with your yarn craft, this is an excellent choice. And you could join me in my cast on challenge.

Plus if you have had an idea for your own knitting design for a sweater, hat or socks there is a section to guide you through the basics of making this a reality step by step.

This is definitely a reference book for all types of keen knitter – as well as offering a mini bicep work out.

Taking a new route to making a scarf (and a new pattern)

One interesting aspect of knitting is that looking at something sideways can give you  a new way to create something.

This is the case with the Wayward Paths scarf – a flat fringed scarf that is actually knitted in the round and cut – yes cut.

This means the width of the stitch pattern repeats down the long side of the scarf – that is the rows go right along the scarf. This means you can use stitch patterns in a different way.

I got the idea from my friend Juliet Bernard who used this method to create the stunning Jardin Majorelle colourwork wrap for The Knitter.

I was intrigued by the method but am more of a texture and lace person so started wondering how else it could be used. I happened to have received two sample balls of Debbie Bliss Iris, a chunky wool/cashmere roving yarn, that were crying out to be a soft, comforting scarf. So I decided to experiment.

I chose a garter stitch chevron pattern and worked a section of stocking stitch at the beginning and end of each round. Then I worked until I had used much of my yarn. When I cast off I had a basic cowl with a zigzag lace pattern round the majority of the loop with a shorter section of plain stocking stitch stripes.

The stocking stitch section or “steek” is where the fringes come from. All you do is cut straight up the centre of the steek and unravel the stocking stitch section to create the fringe.

You can see from this picture that when you pin out a piece of stocking stitch there are “ladders” between the column of stitches and in the case of the Wayward Path scarf you cut up the centre ladder of the steek section (here I have used an unneeded swatch).

Once the stitches are cut, unravelling makes a lovely fringe – your knitting won’t unravel but I knot the strands in pairs to feel secure.

I am involved with UK Hand Knitting which this year is encouraging people to share knitting and crochet skills. Because of this, at the moment the Wayward Path pattern is free because a steek fringe using chunky yarn is a fairly non-threatening way to take scissors to your knitting for the first time.

The pattern contains some suggestions for other yarns but any nice chunky will work – so why not step off your regular end to end scarf path and give it a go.