Serious Yarn Play - Like a Fox

A Secret of Knitting Design

4/19/2018

I'm going to tell you a secret to my design work. It's probably the most important part of my process, and yet, it may seem insignificant. An essential part of my designing is not designing; it's doing nothing. I very easily become obsessed with doing the next project, finding the right stitch pattern & yarn, then getting the pattern worked out. I feel a constant pressure, because for every project I start to work on, I have the inspiration for 10 more. I work at another job as well as doing the online store, and teaching classes, so the time I have for knitting up my designs & writing patterns is very limited. It's really hard for me to take what precious design time I have, and choose to do nothing with it, but if I don't my work suffers. There is a magic to the creativity & inspiration that help me imagine what yarn could become as it travels through my hands and needles. Putting down my needles, packing up my yarn, and resting my mind & spirit gives breath to that ineffable world from which these designs evolve. In the letting go of self inflicted deadlines, and rigid ideas of how projects should work out; I find a softness and playfulness and joy again. This delightfulness can then be infused into my creations bringing them, and myself, more life. The work I do after doing "nothing" is easier, and truer to my vision. Solutions to problems come faster, so finishing patterns happens quicker with fewer mistakes.
It seems totally counter-intuitive, but experience has taught me that doing nothing actually allows me to accomplish more, better work than spending every available moment struggling through my designs. Try it for yourself. The next time a project is frustrating or exhausting you, put it away and rest, even if it is the only knitting time you have for the day. Refresh, then notice the increased quality of your work, and the renewed ability you have to problem solve as you knit your way through a pattern. "Knitting" or "Designing" time can mean putting your needles down, putting your feet up, and staring into the fire as you sip tea & daydream.

Falling in Love With Brioche

4/14/2018

OK, ok I've avoided brioche for as long as I can. I don't know if it's the complexity of the stitching, or the fact that it is extremely popular right now, and I've always avoided things that are trendy. Whatever the reason I have spent a lot of my time running away from any project that involves brioche. Recently, I've had reason to revisit brioche knitting, and I have to say the results have been delightful! I'm still frustrated by the extra time and yarn involved to make anything with this technique, but I'm very pleased to have it in my repertoire. I have developed an appreciation and affection for this handsome stitch work, and I'm certain it will continue to find a place in my designs.

Startitis vs 100 Days of Finishing WIPs

4/9/2018

My knitting friends will tell you I have a huge problem with Startitis. I design and cast on projects at a furious pace. Problem is I'm forever dropping one project in favour of another shiny new one. This means for every finished project, I have 3 more cast on. Sometimes I have reevaluate the situation, and curb my cravings for new projects.

I saw the hashtag #100daysoffinishingwips last week, and I decided to jump on board. So far I finished a sweater that needed the ends sewn in and buttons, and I got a hat knit for my nephew. Then, although I did cast the next project on, this second cowl was a correction of a design that was in progress, so it wasn't really starting a new project...right?

Then the yarn arrived for a blanket I'm designing for a contest. Suddenly, I'm facing a dilemma. The blanket needs to be finished by mid May, so I needed to cast on immediately. Yesterday that is exactly what I did.

And thus 100 days of finishing WIPs was quickly cut to 5 days.

Now I'm wondering why I felt the need to put myself in that straight jacket. I often feel guilty about my non-linear progression towards my projects' completions, but life is not linear, logical, and controlled. Priorities shift as circumstances evolve. I choose ride the shifting winds of creativity, and change directions as I fly.

So as of today, to hell with rigid adherence to a hashtag overlord! I through off the shackles of linear tyranny, and dance gleefully through the blossoming fields of WIPs. FREEDOM!

Pit Bull Knitting

3/19/2018

I don't know why, but certain projects that are troublesome get thrown into time out limbo while others I can't let go. This project, the Western Brook Cowl in Hedgehog Fibres Sock, I am doggedly determined to finish. After a day of disappointing knitting on Saturday, I started from scratch on Sunday. Success!!! And I'm very happy that, for whatever reason, I was stubborn with this project.

Coming Unravelled

3/18/2018

After I got involved in the Fibre Arts...

Believe it or not, this is all I have to show for about 12 hours of knitting. My story of pain started with a seductive colourway that lured me into buying yet another sock yarn. I rarely knit socks, but hand dyers seem to always put their greatest efforts into the colour work of fingering weight yarn. Thus I have HAD to buy single skeins of sock yarn, because I could not resist the delicious colours. That is how I came to possess the gloriously orange and bespeckled Hedgehog Fibres, Guppy, Sock yarn. So Saturday morning at Hanks with Andrea Gal-Leising I decided to make a Western Brook Cowl. Sock yarn is often used by me to make cowls to show off the colour as opposed to hiding it in a shoe or large winter boot (Canadian sock knitter problems). The lovely Andrea found the right size needle, and I was good to go, but I wanted to try an icord cast on instead of a regular one. Having researched it the night before, I started to cast on with this beautiful, and incredibly time consuming technique for the 190 stitch cast on. Ouch! To add to my pain I discovered that this yarn was a light fingering weight, thus much tinier than the last yarn I'd used for this cowl. I began to be concerned that the cowl would be too small at 190sts, but continued on despite my misgivings. As I struggled to learn the cast on technique, I had to pull back rows here and there, and since this yarn is superwash it split frequently when it is frogged. As a result of this difficult cast on process, I started at 9am, and - with minimal breaks for coffee & food - I did not finish it until 2:50pm (I know the exact time, because I was supposed to leave at 3pm to go to a party. I was still in my PJ's as I finished the 190th cast on stitch. PANICKING!) I arrived at the St.Paddy's day bash with knitting in tow, as the hostess is also a knitting buddy of mine, so I would be able to continue my project at there. There is lace and cable work in the Western Brook Cowl pattern. I should have known better. I should have put this project down, and started a hat like Andrea...but, oh no, I thought I was up to the challenge of starting a cable/lace pattern in a room with 4 energetic kids, 2 rambunctious dogs, and my highly entertaining friends, AndreBa & AndreLa. Amidst the chaos I successfully completed 2 rounds. You, my experienced knitter friends, however, see the oncoming disaster, don't you? Rnd 3 was my undoing, but not until after I had completed the entire round. As I dove into rnd 4 the horror dawned on me that I had made a major error on round 3. To early in the project to have inserted a life line, a studied the third round carefully to see if there was a simple fix I could use in the fourth round to fudge it back into working order, but no such luck (even with the luck of the Irish all about me.) Tinking the third rnd seemed the best solution, but with a sock yarn that was verging on lace weight, with superwash splitting, my middle aged eyesight, and a room full of people actually having fun; it was doomed to failure at the outset. Still I wasted more time trying. Then I attempted to frog it it back to the cast on in a last ditch effort to at least rescue a day's worth of knitting. It was as I ripped back the first 2 rounds that I started to see the cowl may be too small as I'd feared lo those many hours ago when I first started it. So with a broken spirit, I tore the entire project out, and dejectedly started a sock with the "sock yarn". It was 9pm when I put the project down, and what you see in the photo is all that I have to show for a 12 hour day. But that is not the end of this tale, as this yarn, despite our quarreling, calls out to be a Western Brook Cowl, not a boot suffocated sock. So, today, with a slightly larger needle, I will begin the icord cast on again. This post is a rebuttal of all the articles stating the knitting is good for your mental health. Knitting may be good for my soul, but I often wonder if it isn't the cause or perhaps the proof of my mental instability.

An Extraordinary Heirloom - hand knit by one Australian WW I prisoner of war for another

2/10/2018

Susan Stephens of Sydney Australia recently posted a photo of herself wearing a sweater she had knit as an homage to a very special family heirloom. In the photo she is holding up her Grandfather's jumper (sweater) that inspired the design. Here is the extraordinary story of her Grandfather's WWI jumper written by Susan.

A jumper with a proud history

One hundred years ago my grandfather Hedley Stephens sailed to Europe to defend his country. He had never left his homeland before, and would have had absolutely no idea of what he would be facing in what we now know as The Great War. After a training exercise in Egypt, he was moved to France. During a battle in late May 1916, he was caught in No Mans Land. He was horribly injured and disorientated and crawled to what he thought was the Australian trenches, when he realised the men were speaking German.

So he was captured and spent the next two and a half years as a Prisoner of War. While he was in a camp in Dulmen, Germany, a fellow Australian Prisoner of War knitted him a jumper. It was knitted from scraps of wool from worn out clothing using wires as needles. The jumper was knitted from the top down in a circular method, with cables front and back - the cables are different in the front to the back. As a knitter of many years I admire the quality and skills of the work.

The jumper was one of grandfathers most prized possessions. It is still in relatively good condition, it has suffered from a few moth holes and has shrunk from washing over the years, but still gives me much joy to look at and hold. One can only imagine the life and environment of the maker of the jumper - and how it would have given much needed warmth to my grandfather.

I know of another jumper in the War Memorial in Canberra that bears an uncanny resemblance to my Grandfathers, and I think it is likely to have been knitted by the same person. I don't know whether there are any others in existence, or how common it would have been for men to knit in those days.

Some years ago, I laid grandfathers jumper on the lounge next to me and I picked up my knitting needles and I knitted a jumper with a very similar cable design but in a size that fits a 21st century woman rather than a WWI Prisoner of War. It is one of my proudest knitting achievements and one I would like to have shown my grandfather.

Grandfather did come home from the war, and always praised the care that he was given by the German medical team. He married and had 8 children, but through his life he suffered from the injuries he sustained from that day in No Mans Land. He brought home a few items from war - his medals, a camera, a cigarette lighter, a pair of binoculars - but I think that his favourite item was his beloved jumper. I feel proud that I can continue on with this tradition.

Susan Stephens

And so it begins

7/27/2017

I fell in love with Fleece Artist's National Parks yarn the first time I saw it, and so I got the go-ahead to start a design for each colourway. I'm chomping at the bit to get them done, as ideas spring wildly up inspired by the extraordinary colour designs of Jana Dempsey at Fleece Artist, and by the beauty and grandeur of the parks they represent. I only hope I can do both justice with my designs.

Riding Mountain Park ~ Second Design.

7/26/2017

Design number two, using the Riding Mountain Park colourway, is underway. After a little hiccup in the design, I think I'm now on the right track. The pattern is called the Audy Tuque, and was inspired by the powerful bison that roam within the Manitoba park.

Fleece Artist National Parks Designs ~ One Down

7/26/2017

The first design from Fleece Artist's National Park Merino Slim Collection is off the needles, and heading to testing. Inspired by the rocky walls, and the many waterfalls in the Fjords; this cowl was the first pattern that popped into my imagination. It's called the Western Brook Pond Cowl, and you can see in the photo below, cliff walls reflected in the cables with the flowing glacier waters appearing as a simple lace. I've been to Gros Morne, and I will return very soon. And when I do, they may never get me to leave again.