Summer Swatches

After the flurry of activity to meet my end of January deadlines, it's been pleasing to have a bit of a change of knitting pace. I've been able to make a start on knitting something from someone else's pattern for a change- more on that another day- and get swatches done for summer edition submissions.
I find the concept of summer knits tricky- for me it's a bit like when you try to cook vegetarian food by finding meat 'substitutes' instead of concentrating on what is intrinsically valuable in the ingredients you are using. To me, knitting is about wool and warmth and winter, even if I knit all year round. But whatever I might think, magazines keep coming out and other people who keep knitting in the summer months don't all want to stick to stocking up on woolies for the upcoming winter. I've therefore been embracing the possibilities of cotton and bamboo.
Okay, so I've been mostly embracing cotton and bamboo. The acorn motif swatch shown is, admittedly, wool. There's a legitimate reason for this, which will become apparent if one way or another the pattern comes to fruition. The seashore colour mix yarn, however, is Patons Mirage DK, a cotton/bamboo blend, while the bright colours at the top are Patons 100% Cotton DK. Now I'm not much of a fan of knitting with cotton, as I often find it stiff and/or splitty, but I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised by knitting these swatches, as I've enjoyed working with the yarns much more than I expected.
I've also, thankfully, found myself falling in love with the designs I'm working on for my proposals. It must be something to do with their being all about being outdoors enjoying the warm weather, while at the moment outdoors is a bit less hospitable. This falling in love is fortunate, as in my limited experience of successful submissions, it seems to be a vital element for success. It's as if a lack of commitment and joy in a design somehow shows through in the sketches and swatches, in the same way someone desperate to be in a relationship is somehow very unattractive.
Sketching, scanning and putting together of proposals is on the list for this weekend, then it's out of my hands- which by then will be on to other things...

Lost and Found

Today I lost a mitten. Not just any mitten, though. These were the
Ysolda Snapdragon mittens that very nearly defeated me. Several years ago, when I began them, I found the combination of knitting in the round and cabling so fiendish that after several attempts with the chart, then the written instructions, then both at the same time, I was ready to give up. In the end I struggled on and then, a year later (!) had the mental strength to struggle through the second one.
This morning I must have dropped one after I scraped the ice off the windscreen. I had that funny 'something's wrong' niggling, but was in too much of a hurry to stop and look if I'd dropped anything, so I didn't realise until I was at work. Turned out that the niggle was right. Boo!
Thankfully I didn't have enough time to grieve the loss of my handiwork before I was back at home and found the missing Snapdragon draped over the fence. You'll have seen these sad but hopeful little tributes to good citizenship before I'm sure, but in this case lost item and owner were reunited.
All's well that ends well and all that. But this, along with a conversation about C's need for new socks the other day has got me thinking about how our relationship with handmade items must have altered over the years.
When C was talking about needing new socks, I reflected that there must have been a time when, if you weren't in the income bracket that allowed you to buy socks knitted by someone else, the mother in a family (and quite possibly anyone else who could handle needles) would have had to have been knitting socks more or less constantly to keep a family's feet warm. Either that or making other garments, or mending them. With fewer clothes per person, and with time and labour needed to replace or repair them, people must have known their clothes better and forced to value and care for them more than we do.
That said, while our age is one of 'throwaway fashion', where dubious ethics in manufacturing and cheap synthetic fabrics allow us to spin through the buy/wear/bin cycle with alarming speed, handmade has retained or perhaps regained its value. With ideas of hippies crocheting waistcoats out of hemp or grannies knitting hideous acrylic Christmas jumpers now recognised by many as outdated and inaccurate ways to view handcraft, the quality, integrity and individuality of items made by hand is now valued by a growing number of people.
Time is an increasingly precious and rare resource in this world, so the time that's taken to make something by hand is part of what gives it this value. In addition, where once skills such as knitting, sewing, darning and so on would have been as normal for someone looking after a family as being able to switch on a washing machine is now, these days they are a rarer trick and that rarity gives more value.
While we may have lost a more widespread knowledge of these handcrafts, it appears to me that increasingly we are finding (or re-finding) our appreciation of them. Hurrah!

Progress

There comes a point, maybe when you see your name in a magazine you've been able to buy in your local supermarket. Maybe when you get your first cheque through for a published pattern. Maybe when you find yourself being told to 'drop an email' to someone for yarn support, someone whose enough of a knitting 'name' that you bought a stitch dictionary edited by them the previous week. Anyway, at some point you realise that the game has changed.
Anyone who does anything creative daydreams about making it their living- digging the escape tunnel from the daily grind so that one day they can drop through the trapdoor and exist in a world with fewer alarm clocks and pairs of work trousers and more cups of tea and beautiful views from that studio you'll need, of course. Depending on who you are and what you do, these might range from out and out fantasy to hard and fast plans. It's funny though, despite my love of knitting, I'd never thought I'd ever make anything from designing- owning a yarn shop was my favourite daydream, as even in the realm of make-believe I was too aware of not having the design background I felt sure was needed for writing patterns.
I imagine I'm among quite a number of newbie designers who have Ravelry to thank for getting them to venture, or in my case, pretty much stumble, into the world of pattern writing. The chance to post your pattern for free or for sale is a lot less daunting than the prospect of sending off a proposal to a magazine, all the while imagining them howling with laughter at your rank amateurism. Of course, toe dipped, and even with the sort of mediocre response my ideas got, confidence grows, a new magazine's call for submissions caught my eye, what I assumed would be a one off turned into a series of commission and suddenly I was looking at my hobby in a whole new way.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not preparing to give up my day job, especially since it took a year of tears and struggle to get one. At this moment, I'm quite happy if I've found a way to pay for my yarn habit, not to mention the fact that it's added a whole new dimension to my relationship with knitting.
It's a relationship that keeps me on my toes of course. There's the sinking feeling and subsequent sorting out if you discover an error, or worse still have it pointed out by a knitter keen to get on with making your design. There's the self-doubt about whether you've got any ideas, or whether any of your ideas are good enough, when you look at the latest moodboards of a call for submissions. There's the waiting for a response when the deadline passes. There's the pressure to get a sample and pattern complete when you're up against a deadline (or in my case this month, four samples and patterns, which is why this space has been neglected lately).
But for all that, you'll hear absolutely no complaints from me about this new phase in my knitting life. The buzz of getting a 'yes' via email? Fantastic. Justifiably saying 'I have to knit?'That's hardly a chore. Getting gorgeous yarn sent to me for free? Wonderful- I've been up to my ears in projects for the last four months and hardly bought any yarn at all. The deep satisfaction of the journey from idea to submission to making and writing? Love it. The thrill of seeing my name in print and getting nice comments about my design on Ravelry? Yes please! Getting money I can justifiably spend on knitterly things? Well, it's no bad thing really, is it?
Progress is definitely being made in my knitting life at the moment. Thankfully, that includes progress on those projects with a deadline, but also in other ventures, all of which I hope to share news of very soon. Knit on, my friends!

If it's good enough for sheep...

Wool. If it's good enough to keep sheep warm in the fells, then it should be good enough to keep me and mine warm up there too, right? On a recent quest to find enough daylight to take reasonable photographs of projects and blow the holiday cobwebs away, we found ourselves in a favourite spot- Blea Tarn, on the Wrynose Pass near the Langdales. The wind was blowing a hoolie, as it has been on and off for what seems like weeks now, and up there it was strong enough to knock a certain small boy off his feet- luckily he found it hilarious.
We had a blustery, slightly shortened walk and managed to get a few nice shots and I also took the opportunity to test out Kate Davies' exhortations to wear wool as an alternative to the usual synthetic fleeces to keep the chill out here. Her daily walks take place in Scotland, for goodness sake, so if she maintains that woollen layers are an effective way to keep warm then I believe her.
You don't just have to listen to one of my admittedly favourite designers though. A project a few years ago proved that the clothing worn by early Everest explorers, which had a strong wool element, was in many ways as effective as the 'smart' fabrics of today. You can read more here. The rising popularity among outdoor clothing companies of merino for base layers also demonstrates the recognition that nature is pretty good at creating her own 'smart' materials.
So, on a normal walking day you might have found me wearing a handknit hat, scarf and gloves at most. This time I added a pair handknit wool socks over my normal socks, a merino base layer with a cotton long sleeve t-shirt and a handknit sleeveless vest over that (my 1st-prize-at-Great-Eccleston-Show-winning Fyne Vest to be precise!), knitted wool mittens and a wool beret. Everything else was synthetic fabrics, which probably put me at about 50/50 wool to synthetics.
Without any fleece involved, it felt a lot less bulky than normal. As I didn't exert myself very much I can't comment on the breathability, but I didn't feel the need to strip off so many layers when we retired to a cafe in Ambleside for cake afterwards. As for being warm, well, the wind blew fierce and the wind blew wild, but I was just fine, and I'm a cold bones sort.
It's made me realise that despite all the knitting I do, I don't actually have that many woolly things I can wear for this sort of thing. Whether through knitting or shopping, it's something I intend to rectify this year.

New Year Blues (and Purples)

Fear not! This isn't going to be a melancholy reflection on the passing of time or the adversities we've faced this year. Matter of fact, I'm feeling incredibly positive about all that 2012 could bring, not least with all the creative opportunities already on the horizon. This makes me especially grateful to the lovely friend who gave me this Nicky McClure Journal- and sent me a text to say yes I blooming well should write in it, however beautiful the illustrations in it are. So I took a deep breath and made my first jotting in the Make section- there are also sections entitled Plan, Wish, Dream, Build, Explore, Learn, Grow, Give and Find. I feel determined to live up to them all.



True to form, my hands haven't been idle over the Christmas break. I've been revelling in the beautiful deep blue, pink and purple tones of some Bowland DK by Eden Cottage Yarns. I can't say much more about the project as it's another design destined for publication (yay!) but I can say that it was the colour that originally inspired me, and that it continues to do so.



Finally, onto the big blue. My folks just went on a big trip to South America and because they are fabulous to their yarn-obsessed daughter, they found room in their suitcase to bring back this bundle of bright blue yarn from Uraguay. There's 250g of thick and thin, bulky weight pure wool here, which has to make it one of the best holiday presents around. I haven't worked out what I'll make with it yet- all suggestions gratefully recieved. For one reason and another I'm not really into the idea of a scarf or hat, so I'm wondering about maybe some sort of shrug or vest. Ah, shucks, an excuse to wander along the by-ways of Ravlery, what a hardship!
Wishing you all a Happy New Year- here's to a creative and prosperous times ahead.

Sparkle and Shine

Hmm. Now I recently promised that this blog would be more knit-focussed. But then, I also said (to myself) that this year I wouldn't be doing Christmas knitting as I didn't have enough time and didn't want to spend the run-up frantically trying to finish projects. Read on and you'll see that a lady (ahem!) is allowed to change her mind. Be assured though, that this non-woolly diversion is a blip and that I'll be back to all things yarny soon. Fact is, I am inordinately proud of my Christmas cake and I wanted to share it here, although also slightly worried that I may have overdone 'feeding' it with sherry for the past month- it could well have quite a kick!


While I promised myself no Christmas knitting, I did persuade myself that making tutus as suggested in Oliver + S's Little Things To Sew would be a good way to take care of the half dozen little girls we need to give Christmas presents to. It was...sort of. Suffice to say, wrestling one bundle of tulle into a tutu is bearable, wrestling six is a bit more trying. Once finished and viewed with fresh eyes after a much needed night's sleep, they do have a certain seasonal magic, and I'm hoping the recipients will have lots of whirly, dancing fun in them.


And the Christmas knitting? Well, one is still a WIP- sigh!- for a little girl whom I think is a bit too small appreciate a tutu just yet. The other, shown above, is as much an indulgence for me as for my little M. I persuaded myself to buy the velvet dress by identifying at least three occasions in the coming weeks when she can wear it, and once bought it was just crying out for the sort of little fluffy white cardigan I remember from my own childhood party outfits. It's another Tiny Tealeaves, made slightly shorter and with just one button to suit the A-line of the dress. The yarn is King Cole Galaxy DK in Saturn which was on at a reduced price at Deramores. This is an acrylic wool mix with sequins that are very pretty, if slightly irritating to knit with (I like my yarn smooth). It's very soft and has a enough of a halo to give it that luxurious look. Surprisingly, when knitted up the sequins don't feel scratchy, which is a bonus despite the fact that M won't be wearing this against her skin.
With an alarming list of Christmas baking, shopping and wrapping to do, not to mention that last-minute bit of knitting, this will probably be the last of me until the other side of the festive weekend. So until then, may your holiday be full of sparkle and shine, and all your yuletide knitting be completed on time. Happy Christmas!

Make Do and Mend for Woolsack

Photograph from Knit Now magazine

UPDATED: Jan 17th Yikes! In my hurry to get this ready for Woolsack I managed to include a number of howlers in the pdf. The link below now should take you to a (hopefully) more correct version. Sorry to anyone who's been struggling with the previous version.

You may not think that there's much about the London 2012 Games that's going to have anything to do with knitters. This may be because you haven't heard of Woolsack,which has been granted the Inspire mark and is part of the Cultural Olympiad.

The aim of the project is to encourage people- from schools and colleges, community and craft groups, smallholders and farmers, British Wool yarn producers, spinners, dyers and individuals to help to make cushions using British wool, which will then be given as welcome gifts from the people of Britain to the visiting Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

It is hoped that making the cushions will help people gain craft skills and also to learn about the production of British Wool, on which the British economy and early industry were originally founded. In this way a wide range of people can be inspired by the 2012 Games, even if not everyone is able to participate directly in sports and athletics.

The cushions are all to be 40cm square, made from British wool yarn and be suitable for stuffing with more pure British sheep's wool before being sewn up- the latter part of this process will happen at 'stuffing events' which participants can either attend or send their cushions to be completed at. Special labels will be attached, along with any personal messages from the makers. The completed cushions will then be offered to the athletes, with any that are left over being donated to charities.

It's a fascinating project that can only raise the profile of the British wool industry, so I was really happy to be asked to help out by modifying my Make Do and Mend pattern so that it will work as a Woolsack cushion. It's available as a PDF for those wishing to contribute to the project, while further details and links to other pattern1s can be found at www.woolsack.org. UPDATE: 1st May 2012. This pattern is no longer available as a free download, but will shortly be available for sale as a full version in my Ravelry Shop.

PS Just to say that the original version of the pattern was published in Knit Now and the rights remain with them at the moment. They've given permission for me to reproduce it in this form to support the Woolsack project, so please only download the pattern if that's what you want to use it for. If you're keen to make one for another purpose, back issues of the magazine are available through Practical Publishing and after the Spring deadline for Woolsack, I'll be making the original version of the pattern available through Ravelry. Thanks!