Beautiful art/game/yarn...

Well, it's been a while since I dropped by here, and the lack of blogging hasn't been due to lack of stuff happening (the opposite: lack of time to block. In fact I should probably be writing the Billet's Hart allotment newsletter at the moment instead of doing this).

We've just got back from holiday in Australia, seeing various friends there and in Hong Kong on the way (and making some new ones:

)

 

 

Whilst there, not one but four of my favourite recent patterns got published, three in Knit Now  and one for Artesano yarns. So there's quite a lot to cover, and this will be a bit of a spidery blog post telling you about them, because it's not obvious how I string them all together...

 

Two of the Knit Now patterns are part of a special Arts & Crafts supplement and I don't mind telling you I was quite desperate to get a pattern accepted for this issue. My Pre-Raphaelite passion may not be quite as intense as it was when I was a teenager but it still burns, and I'd had in mind for some time a pattern passed on the shawl used in Arthur Hughes' painting April Love.

 

This one was really just a straight steal from the picture, the challenge being to replicate the very floaty loveliness of the shawl in knitting yarn. Rowan came to the rescue, with Baby Silk Merino and Kidsilk Haze, and the result is my simple April Stole.

Second Arts and Craft design was a bit more complex. Started with this painting by John William Waterhouse:

 

Then took a pinch of catwalk....

 



That's from Anna Sui's Spring 2014 Ready to Wear. I had my colours - blue and gold - and my look - flowing and lush - but what garment would it add up to? Here's where I went back again to my teenage years and not to my Dante Gabriel Rossetti posters but... the school panto. My friend Sara played Dandini, Prince Charming's valet, in the Ysgol David Hughes production of Cinderella and I had an image of her, dressed in Principal Boy style, dancing to Don't Stop Me Now by Queen as her character prepared for the ball. That memory gave me the final bit of inspiration for a dashing take on the Pre-Raphaelite look, a long-line gilet in Louisa Harding Grace Harmonies with the gold provided by a ribbon detail, and named Dandini after Sara's character.

 

So, the obvious jump from the Arts and Crafts movement would be... the World Cup. Erm... I had an idea for a hat that was basically half a football, sized for kids and adults, using the classic construction of joined hexagons and pentagons. It sounded simple but actually, it's quite a hard thing to knit accurately. You can't really use stranded colourwork, unless you're far more of a genius knitter than I am, because the strands across the back between sections are so long; I didn't want to use straight intarsia either, because I wanted the effect of diagonal lines at the edge of each piece. (And I am not ashamed to admit I suffer from wonky-edge-stitch-instaria syndrome). It also didn't help when defining edges pieces of the same colour. I went to one of my favourite technqiues, the single stitch cable or cross stitch, which could be used either to join a new colour or to create an edge without joining a colour. The pattern looks quite complicated, partly because it's almost impossible to sensibly chart, but I really have done all the hard work for you, because once you start knitting it's quite obvious where the joins should come.

 

 

Now, I always say I don't design for children (not having any of my own to hand) but Football Crazy is really all about taking me back to my own football-loving childhood, so perhaps there is something in common between my 3 patterns for issue 34, and that's things that obsessed me at school!

 

 

As a coda to all of this, I've got to show you my new design for Artesano, Buscot, not because it's got anything to do with my childhood, but because I simply love it...

 





It's part of a new collection to support Artesano's new Linen Silk DK yarn and rarely have I knitted with a yarn  that is such a pleasure to turn into stocking stitch and cables. Even opening the parcel full of shining, rich, skeins of yarn was a sensory experience. Artesano have chosen to make the pattern free, so I'm hoping lots of people will get as much joy from knitting it as I did!



Sporting chance...

It's occasionally interesting, if sometimes a little scary, to wonder what our younger selves would make of our lives now. One thing I know my 17-year old self would have a hard time accepting is that my only published work is knitting patterns, because when I was 17, I was absolutely sure I was going to be a famous and published novelist, ideally in my 20s. This did not happen. I was forever writing books when I was at school, usually progressing no further than the first few chapters, because although I was generally very good at creating characters, situations, dialogue, etc, I used to find myself at a bit of a loss to come up with anything for all of these fascinating people to do.

I've found myself thinking a lot about one of these efforts recently, one of the few which reached the end, albeit I realised it was far too short to be considered a proper novel. I called it "Sport For All", after some sort of initiative that was going on at the time aimed, I assume, at getting feeble bookish types like me involved in sport. The plot was this. The time is around 1990. My hero was in his early 20s and working for a publishing company on the outskirts of a town in the Home Counties (a thinly-disguised Reading). He was at an educational publishers, where he'd taken a job, rather than go to university, in order to carry on with his real passion, keeping goal for the local non-league football club. He was also gay, not out to his parents, teammates or work colleagues, only his younger sister and a small group of friends. We first meet him during a football match, the early rounds of the FA Cup, which his team has done well to qualify for. He plays well that day, and his team are only just beaten by their (then) fourth-division opposition, from a town a few miles away. He is congratulated by their young star striker who scored the only goal.

In the meantime, his publishers are working on a new series of books about sport for schools and ask him to edit the football one, and to find a professional player who will feature in the book. He instantly thinks of the player from the fourth-division team, who is clearly destined for greatness and agrees to take part in the project. They meet and, in the course of putting the book together, realise they are attracted to each other and start a tentative relationship, very much away from their teammates and colleagues.

Just as things are going well and the book is nearly finished, a 'big club up north' buy the striker. My goalkeeping hero tells him their relationship has to end as it would scupper his chances of making it big if the truth about his sexuality comes out, and so they go their separate ways.

A few years later, the 'keeper is working as sports reporter for a gay magazine (basically Gay Times, which I think was just about it in 1990) and living in London, when he hears rumours from colleagues that a big star is about to be outed by the tabloids. It's his old lover from Reading, now a top player. He can only watch from a distance as the footballer's life falls apart.

After I wrote the first, short, draft, I realised it needed considerable beefing up if it was ever going to make it as a novel, so I began the process of re-writing. Hence the above précis is far more detailed at the start. What I remember is feeling something of a sense of urgency.  I felt sure that if I took 5 or 10 years to write the book, it would lose a lot of its significance, as gay footballers would by then be commonplace. (Then I went to university and discovered clubbing and cider, and I'm afraid that was that for the book).

If you had told my 17-year old self that, by the beginning of 2014, there would still not be a current professional league footballer in England who was out, I would have been astounded. Especially if you had added that by then it would be perfectly unremarkable for cabinet ministers, newsreaders and company CEOs to be honest about their sexuality.

(Whether I would have been more astounded by that than the fact that I have not yet won the Booker is a moot point).

Now you may be wondering what all of this has to do with the usual subject of this blog; viz. knitting. Sexuality and sport have been linked all over the news just lately, in some very good ways, with positive reactions (let's exclude the Twitter trolls) to those sports people who have spoken out, but also negatively, in the issues about Russian laws and attitudes that have been highlighted by the Winter Olympics. A group of knitting designers have got together to do their bit to try & make this a positive by donating some or all of their pattern sales to LGBT organisations around the world during the Winter Olympics and I'm very pleased to be with them. There's more details and a full list of all the patterns included in the project at BristolIvy's blog - please check it out, there's so many fab patterns there is bound to be something you want to knit!

As a lot of my patterns already include a charity donation I will be donating all profits from Talboys Wrap and Montserrat to the Albert Kennedy Trust, which supports LGBT young people in the UK. Because while we may be rightly concerned about attitudes in Russia, the fact that, were I so minded, I could still write some version of "Sport for All" in 2014, shows that things are still a long way from perfect here.

Ashes to sashes...

It has come up occasionally on this blog, but only occasionally, that one of my other loves, apart from yarn & knitting & making stuff, is cricket. I can often be found, in what passes for summer in London, sitting in the pavilion at Lord's clutching my sock knitting and a glass of wine. waiting to see what comment the Members will make today (my favourite was an elderly Scottish gentleman who hadn't seen anyone knitting in the round since his mum used to send him socks when he was in the Navy in the war).

I'm a Londoner now, and therefore a member at my local club, Middlesex (who play their county games mostly at Lord's), but Yorkshire by birth (as has definitely been mentioned on this blog before now!). This winter has not been a pleasant one for the England cricket fan, awaking every morning to hear what new depths the team had plumbed on the tour of Australia. (The good news is we have retained an Ashes - well done Charlotte Edwards and the England women's cricket team.) Last year, however, things were different, with England on largely winning form (albeit, and I don't just say this with hindsight, the signs of the imminent collapse were there). I went to both the New Zealand and Australia tests at Lord's & was otherwise glued to the Tests on TV. Now I adore my cricket, but even I will admit there are times when one's attention can drift, which is one of the factors that makes it the ideal sport for the knitter. During the New Zealand series, my attention drifted to the new pavilion at Yorkshire's splendid ground, Headingley.

And in particular its triangular roof. The colours happened to chime rather well with the designs I was doing for Artesano Yarns at the time in their British Blue Faced Blend yarn, and so my thoughts naturally turned to: could I knit the roof?

So, I took some techniques from Shetland shawl shaping and worked out a way to make interlocking, seamless, garter stitch triangles and neatened it off with a bright edging. Serendipitously, Knit Now have put together an issue full of fascinating geometric patterns & angular knitting (I especially love the Biennial Jumper but I am a sucker for a diagonal). And here it is, Headingley Scarf:

 



In lovely Artesano Blue Faced Blend.

Lofty thoughts

It's been a busy Christmas as you can probably tell from the fact that this blog has been un-updated for so long! But there have been lots of exciting crafty developments in train, I've been pattern testing like mad & working on all sorts of samples, mostly for patterns due out over the next few months.

I am typing this from my rather brilliant new workspace, in our spanking new loft conversion! There's a proper desk to sit at, under the eaves, a new carpet (OBVIOUSLY in British Wool!!!), a Bluetooth speaker (currently playing "Victory for the Comic Muse" by the Divine Comedy) and, finally, space for a sewing machine which was my excellent Christmas present from my husband. I haven't had much chance to play with it yet but have all sorts of plans! The loft still smells a bit woolly from the carpet.

New on the pattern from since the last post were two more patterns for Artesano - firstly this lovely wrap, Dionysus:

and a beret called Demeter:

They're both in a yarn called Nebula which is a pleasure to work with - I love the way it has little slubs of different, sometimes totally unexpected, colours. The colourway for the wrap I was particularly taken with!

I also did a test knit on my two asparagus scarves - Asparagus Lace Scarf and Sparrow Grass.

So they're both now available with proper charts & there's a discount if you buy both together. Now lots of nice people have knitted great projects from my patterns I've also got a board on Pinterest with some of my favourite knitters' projects!

here's an example of a tester's Asparagus Lace:

Who says a martini can't solve problems?

The idea for the Martini Cowl began as an exercise in problem solving. What if you don't know how much yarn you've got, especially if it's a bit of handspun or a charity shop buy which you're never going to be able to match? It might be beautiful but unless you actually measure the yardage, will you ever have the courage to start on a pattern which you might not be able to finish?

So I came up with a solution - a cowl where, once you've decided what needles to use and how many stitches to cast on, you can pretty much just keep going until you run out of yarn.

I needed both to experiment with what yarns worked and demonstrate how different versions of the pattern might look, so I started with a version in a sock/fingering weight yarn which I'd bought at Unravel, Shearer Girl Lustrous Sock in Antique Rose:

This made for a light, smokeringy type thing, which I've been wearing pretty much constantly since I finished it.

To show the versatility of the pattern, I then knitted it in Aran weight:

This was it works as an infinity scarf which can be twisted twice around the neck:

(The photos are part of the Clare Suffolk photo sesh).

The Martini name comes from the old ad - any time, any place, anywhere - this is any yarn, any length, any size!

So, the pattern is a great knitter's problem solver. What to do with spare bits of stash, and how to knit up quick Christmas presents with it.

What I hadn't appreciated from the beginning was that it might be helping to solve more serious problems. I decided to donate the pattern to p/hop, a knitters' project which raises money for Medicins sans Frontieres (MSF)- that's "Doctors without Borders". Every knitter who downloads the pattern is asked to make a donation to the charity. The same week the pattern came out, the typhoon hit the Philippines and MSF were on the front line in providing medical help to thousands of people facing disaster. So this pattern really is a win, win, win - use up your stash, make a gift for yourself or a friend, and maybe make a huge difference to someone in desperate straits.

Follow the links above to find out more about p/hop & MSF and to download the pattern or just make a donation.

Putting the Treat into Retreat

I've just got back from spending the weekend at the first Rocking Kitchen (this is the amalgamation of http://www.rockandpurl.com/ and http://joeliskitchen.com/ - actually not two websites but two fine people, Ruth and Joeli, respectively current and former tech editors at Knit Now magazine) designers' retreat, in Brighouse in West Yorkshire.

Now I will be honest here, I was thrilled and actually rather privileged to be invited, but somewhat apprehensive about the weekend. Firstly, I'm not someone who ever imagined herself going on something which calls itself a retreat (I had images of some kind of combination of yoga, vitamin water and primal scream therapy). Secondly, I'm well known for generally avoiding anything which involves spending time in large groups of women - I had both a stag and a hen do (and there was at least one man on the hen night). Thirdly, I had only actually met one of the people who was going to be there (and she I knew would have to leave early). Fourthly, the whole set up sounded rather like the plot of an episode of Midsomer Murders. I was carefully scanning the attendance list to make sure Joyce Barnaby had not found her way onto it.

On the plus side, going to Yorkshire is always a pleasure and never a chore, I knew everyone else would be knitters (and therefore a) predisposed to be decent types and b) there would always be something to talk about), and Joyce's named failed to show up in the Rav discussion group. Then as the day drew near, rumours began to circulate that Ruth, Joeli and Knit Now's Kate had been compiling retreat goodie bags of epic proportions, and also that we were to be joined by a special mystery celebrity guest. (Her identity being less of a mystery (but still special) after Woolly Wormhead herself posted in the group to say it was her). This was on top of them organising accommodation, catering, logistics etc for everyone.

I drove up from London with another retreatee (http://www.porpoisefur.com/ also not actually a website but a person), which was a good move as it meant we both felt like we knew someone by the time we arrived. In fact I think we felt like we had been through a deeply traumatic bounding experience together, this being the spectacular Friday night traffic jam which meant the last 6 miles took over an hour to cover. On arrival, there was the somewhat disconcerting experience of learning the actual names of people one only knew by Twitter/Rav handles, though I admit I still kept calling Woolly Wormhead Woolly. The goodie bags were being compiled in a Secret Room but we were shown around the rest of the enormous Victorian pile where we were staying and, after a few glasses of wine, it became easier to remember people's real names, helped by the fact that many were wearing their own sock patterns, and actually rather relaxing to be in company where a discussion about, for instance, the pilling propensity or otherwise of fibre was regarded not only as not weird but even engaging. It was also good to chat to Kate from Knit Now about the awesomeness of Artesano yarns and the rubbishness of Luton, both topics dear to my heart.

Any question about how the weekend was to be spent was answered when the bounty was revealed. Clearly we could happily spend the next two days poking yarn. There was enough to insulate a small housing estate. As well as a take home stash of sufficient size I have had to hide it from my husband, there was a huge pile of yarn for us to try out and swatch (and needles from Chiagoo and Hiya Hiya for us to try it out with).

When the swatching, poking, and squishing got too much, Woolly Wormhead turned out to have brought all the hats in the world and was happy for us to try them on and give us each basically a personal hat styling session (we did all participate in giving each other advice on this) as to what style suited us (during the course of which it was agreed that Runway and Camden rather helpfully suit everyone). Then we swatched a bit more. People span. And do you know what, it turned out we all got on rather well.

I did manage to leave the house at one point for a walk, and we discovered that there was a miniature railway opposite. It is just as well my husband didn't know this beforehand as I think he would have banned me from going in absolute certainty that I would be murdered in a cosy Sunday night TV drama.

Yarn highlights:

Yarns I had been wanting to try for ages: Island Wool Snaelden; Blacker Yarns Falkland Island Wool.

Yarns I'd never heard of and am glad I got to try: Kettle Yarn Co; Cascade Yarns Souk.

Yarn I am really looking forward to working out something fab to do with: West Yorkshire Spinners BFL; Dirty Water Dye Works Paula; Space Cadet mini skeins; Manos del Uruguay Serena; Milla Mia Naturally Soft Merino; Lorna's Laces Sportmate.

Yarns I already have a plan for: Manos del Uruguay Wool Classica; Araucania Maipo.

On our final morning there was a thick frost - I'd forgotten what Yorkshire weather can do - but the nightmare traffic jam had cleared and I headed back to London, this time with three of us and a car bursting at the seams with yarn. It would have made an interesting "shed load" on  the M1.

I just had time, prior to hiding everything from my husband, to review what I had, and get the cat to model some: 

 

Here Bluey is modelling Malabrigo Laceweight.

I'll be blogging again to let you know what exciting designs I come up with, and also very soon to tell you more about my Martini Cowl which has just been released for p/hop to raise much needed funds for Medicins sans Frontieres.

Yarn company designs - classic & by me.

Like most UK knitters, I made sure to watch The Golden Age of Knitting last Wednesday on BBC4. Which was great, but so inadequate- basically the whole history of knitting, including machine knitting, in the 20th century, in one hour. It made me think how much the way you get hold of your knitting patterns has change.

I don't actually remember being taught to knit - though I do remember not being able to cast on and having to get someone else to cast on my teddys' oddment scarves (I could always cast off) - which I guess must mean I learned in the 70s - but most of my active childhood knitting memories are of the 80s. Then, the only real source of patterns was yarn companies - Sirdar, Wendy, Patons etc - or "womens" magazines  - Women's Own or my granny's People's Friend (I still have her pink plastic free People's Friend crochet hooks). In fact I'm pretty sure the Women's Own must have been granny's as well. We had an eclectic collection of patterns culled from both grannies, and from the LYS in Long Eaton where I used to dive in the bargain bins for cheap wool. I was, and I think remain, the only knitting granddaughter, which is why I ended up with all of them - and still have many of them.

So we had some very 80s yarn company patterns:

 

A typical example, in glorious 80s chenille (although chenille is now back, back, BACK, as Smash Hits would say, sticking with the 80s theme).

 

We also had some older yarn company patterns:

 





This is I think a particularly splendid example, from good old Sirdar, the company who basically taught me to knit - I was knitting Sirdar long before I got into Ravelry, knitting magazines or even Rowan. It's obviously my Luton Gran (i.e. paternal)'s pattern as it has the stamp from her LYS in Luton - Angelique, in Riddy Lane - I would imagine long gone. This is quite a good way of dating patterns as my family moved a lot - so I can date a pattern to within a few years according to whether it's stamped Bristol, Bradford or Long Eaton.

However some of my favourites in the collection are the magazine patterns, which they always used to give a bit of "lifestyle" styling, and would produce little themed pattern books, like this:

This one is quite classy as it seems to have been in combination with the Wool marketing board - but these were the days when non-natural fibres were in, so you also got leaflets advertising the joys of, for instance, Bri-Nylon:

 



I've actually always been rather fond of this one! The Wool book is very much of its time, so you get this...

This is the "young and gay" design, so here is "poised and elegant", if you're interested:

I could actually sit around doing this all day (I have LOTS more), but I have samples to finish so I can't. What this is sort of leading me onto is how thrilling it is to be designing for a yarn company - even if I can't say my patterns quite reach the giddy heights of this collection. The Artesano Blue Faced Blend pattern book is out now and has 3 of my accessories and I've been asked to design for them again in a new yarn (That's the sample I'm working on now and it is not giving anything away to tell you the yarn is so gorgeous I am going to have trouble parting with this sample).

This is the Marryat Hat which I've designed for the book - very pleased that Jenny from Artesano is knitting a version of this to send out to someone serving in Afghanistan - apparantly the rib design is ideal under-helmet wear! The pattern is currently free to try on Ravelry & Jenny is going to send any hats anyone else wants to knit for the Forces out to Afghanistan - get in touch with her (ArtesanoYarnsLtd on Rav or @artesanojen on Twitter) if you would like to help out.

The theme for the book was classic British family designs so I when naming my patterns I went for authors of classic British childrens' classics. Frederick Marryat wrote Children of the New Forest and various other books, often with a naval theme - e.g. Mr Midshipman Easy - based on his own experiences in the Navy - the precursor of C.S. Forester, Patrick O'Brien etc. The Forces connection is quite appropriate for Jenny's hats!

I also have Nesbit mitts:

Named after Edith Nesbit,  best known as the author of the Railway Children but who wrote loads of terrific books of which The Pheonix & the Carpet is probably my favourite.

My final choice was John Masefield, who was Poet Laureate, writing virtually the only poem anyone was called on to learn by heart when I was at school ("Quinquereme from Ninevah..." etc), and also one of the most fabulous children's fantasy books The Box of Delights.

It was great to be able to celebrate these authors with the names and hopefully any children who get these patterns knitted for them will go out and have adventures in them!