Tuesday 2 February 2016

Wist, lads, it's the waaarm...

When you're submitting designs to a publication, most will start with a "mood board" - pictures of colours, people, images that set the sort of theme they'd like the designs to fit with. Sometimes it's a bit vague and "woolly", e.g. "modern vintage pastels" or something; other times it's very specific. Sometimes you gaze in consternation at said mood board, wondering how on earth anyone could ever translate this concept into a knitting pattern. For these ones, I find the best way is to file the board at the back of your subconscious, as many times the perfect concept will turn up when you're not looking at it - I've got a design due out in a couple of months that arose in exactly that way, so watch this space for the story of that one.

Sometimes, though, a mood board or theme speaks so directly to you that the pattern will leap, fully-formed, like Athene from her father's skull , and that's what happened to me for the scarf I have in this month's Knit Now, Lambton Scarf.



The theme for this issue's Collection is Myths and Legends of the British Isles and I was immediately transported back to sitting on the floor by the big mirror in my parents' bedroom, as my father and I sang the old Northeastern folk song The Lambton Worm. The story of the worm - worm in this context being more of a term for dragon, although this worm is a particularly long and wriggly one - exercised a powerful effect on my imagination as a child. It's partly down to the language the song used - sung always in the broadest Northeastern accent, it was great fun so exhort listeners to "wist" and "hide yer gobs" (which basically means shut up and pay attention), plus the gory thrill of the worm "swallying little bairns alive when they lay doon to sleep". Bairn is a northeastern/Scottish word for child and as my mum's family are all from the North East I was used to being called a bairn by my granny, so the fear felt deliciously immediate! (If you're trying to recreate the accent, go for somewhere between Lauren Laverne and Jimmy Nail.)

Now I'm not saying that I just sat down and cast on - but the essence of the scarf - the "tongue" shape echoing medieval cloisonné jewellery (the tale is set in the Crusaders' era), the worm's beady yarn-overed eye, and the twisty cables representing the worm's tail (long enough to "lap ten times round Penshaw Hill") were all pretty much there.

So this is a pattern I'm especially fond of, and as a bonus I absolutely loved the Yarn Stories Fine Merino 4-ply I got to make the sample with - it has a really gorgeous sheen which works perfectly with the medieval jewel look.


3 comments:

  1. This is so interesting! I love hearing where other designers get their inspiration from and I have never heard of the Lambton Worm before ... off I go to listen to the song. :D

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  2. I found your article fascinating. Just discovering my heritage and enjoyed your story about the dragon.

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  3. I found your article fascinating. Just discovering my heritage and enjoyed your story about the dragon.

    ReplyDelete