The Boyfriend Jumper - Or Why Do All Male Knitting Patterns Look the Same?

In late 2009 I knitted a jumper for David. He wanted a warm, cosy jumper that he could wear all winter round and I was happy to oblige. The only problem was that men's jumpers are generally written for men of a very different body shape to David. I had never really thought about men having similar clothes shopping problems to women, but they do. David is very, very slim - and so I ended up calculating a jumper based upon a women's 36" jumper. However, David has much broader shoulder (and slimmer hips) than an average woman and so I was never really happy with the fit. I knitted the jumper out of New Lanark Aran in the Bramble shade with the yoke details in Noro Kureyon sh 124. David wanted deep, intense colours and that is what he got. Over the years David has worn the jumper a lot - essentially every single day between September and May for four years. It has become his trademark uniform for every knitting show he has attended (and he gets recognised now because of it: look, Mr Bookish in his beetroot jumper!). I have reknitted the ribbing twice - the neckline and the hemline have been particularly prone to fraying - and I have also reinforced the neckline as the yoke has grown over the years. Now the elbows need mending as they are this close to wearing out.

I think we have come to the point where I am happy to mend the elbows, but I should perhaps knit David a new jumper so he has another one he can wear day-in/day-out.

The discussion went something like this:

Me: "You know, I'm really busy with samples but I was thinking that maybe I should try to kni.."

David: "YES! I want a new jumper and I want it to be deep teal but not in a solid way but maybe with a tweedy or heathered feel and then I want red and orange details at the yoke. And then the fit should be slightly different. It is a bit too relaxed around the body and I'd want it to be more fitted too. Look, here's the sort of colour I want but actually a bit darker.."

And at that point David showed me a ball of Rowan Fine Tweed he had found in my stash. Not that he had been waiting to tell me about the jumper he had been plotting in his head. Not at all. We started looking at online yarn shops for the perfect deep teal yarn but eventually we decided upon yet another jumper in New Lanark Aran. David loves the feel of his current jumper and my stash came up with the Raven shade (limited edition shade!).

Now we just have to find a pattern for a men's jumper - and this is where I will probably have to sit down to calculate my own pattern. The choice of mens' pattern has improved immensely since I last looked in 2009 but the vast majority of jumpers are still in the "plenty of ease" category and the smallest sizes would simply drown my boyfriend. It's also startling how many men's patterns include cables - unfortunately David loathes cables. Still, I am heartened by designers like Todd Gocken and Josh Bennett who both think men deserve something a bit more modern looking. My good friend Ben Wilson has long been hinting at a men's collection with a modern silhouette - his We All Play Synth pattern isn't quite what I need for David's jumper, but it is much closer than 99.9% of men's patterns on Ravelry. There is definitely room for more patterns of that ilk. Get on with it, Ben!

A handful of modern men's jumpers (and how interesting that all bar one are designed by men!):

• Drangey - Stephen West.
• Hell's Kitchen - Josh Bennett
• Brigade - Todd Gocken
• Leviathan - Drapes & Robertson
• Svethninge - Vithard Villumsen (I once sat behind Vithard on a train in Denmark and wondered if I should introduce myself. Awkward.)

Apropos of nothing, John Lewis Oxford Street is offering men-only knitting classes - maybe that's a sign of a possible sea change? Maybe next time I have to knit David a jumper (2017!) I'll be able to do what's so easy to do with women's patterns: go to Ravelry, type in a few key words and have 500+ patterns to choose from. I hope so. Men deserve better.

Quick Freebie: Kirkja

My Kirkja shawl pattern is currently available for free on Ravelry. Offer expired, sorry! As you may be aware, local boy Andy Murray took home the Wimbledon men's title yesterday. He is the first British male to do so for 77 years (though the marvellous Virginia Wade won the women's title in 1977). Scotland has gone a bit crazy as a result - and I have lived in Glasgow so long that I feel this strange sense of pride too. It's rather odd but who am I to quibble with a sense of belonging?

Before the match I decided that if Andy Murray defied the odds, I'd offer one of my paid patterns for free. And because Andy won, you can now use the code comeonandy to get Kirkja for free until 6pm GMT tonight.

Almost 1250 people have snapped up Kirkja in the last 19 hours. Do join them! Maybe even dip into the Karie Bookish group and show off your Kirkja shawl once you've knitted it!

An aside: I like this photo a lot. I didn't use it as a pattern photo for various reasons, but I like it a great deal. It looks like me - and I cannot begin to tell you how much that means to me. Modelling my patterns is one of my least favourite activities. I feel very conscious of the way I look and how far I am from the standard 'model look'. Ravelry is a great place for showcasing different body types, but I still dislike the way I look in photos. I note all my flaws and imperfections before I look at how the knitting looks. It feels awful, just awful. So, it's a big thing for me to say that I like a photo.

That was a bit of an aside!

The rest of today will be used on sprucing up the website (have you noticed the new layout?) and on getting the next Doggerland pattern sorted. If you are one of the Kirkja downloaders, do stick around. Plenty of exciting things happening!

Snapdragons & Marigolds

Can I be honest with you? I have days where I just want to give up on this designing malarky. Numbers don't add up, charts don't work, and words fall out of patterns. I have had one of those days today when designing just sucks and I want to kill it all with fire. Tomorrow is another day, to quote Scarlett, but today is just awful.

And it's okay to have days like that, I think. The key is to just persevere and learn from them. I know from my network of fellow designers and other creatives that we all have days like this. The important thing to remember is that not every day is as frustrating as today. Most days are good and I even have the occasional great day when I'm on fire.

So I went to knit in the park when my brain gave up and everything came rushing in. I went to the park with my sample knitting and my new Chiaogoo needles (they are wonderful - I am going to slowly upgrade my needle toolbox with Chiaogoos). Snapdragons and marigolds surrounded me and the sun peeped out occasionally.

Mental health break.

And I don't think I actually give myself enough breaks.

Snapdragons and marigolds should not feel this special - they should form part of my every day life (along with checking emails, eating lunch and drawing charts).  I need to look into an actual, real break soon because I am supposed to be on holiday right now and .. I am not.

Tonight I'm going to grab Mr Bookish and we are going to go for a walk. Charts, numbers and words will have to wait until tomorrow. I have flowers to show him.

PS. I'm currently looking for a sample knitter for a very small project. Read more here and send me a Private Message on Ravelry if you are interested.

Pattern: Hoxne

Hoxne is the second pattern to be released from the Doggerland: Knits from a Lost Landscape collection. The shawl is named after a small village in Suffolk. Hoxne was inhabited as early as 320,000 years ago but the site shows signs of continual flint tool production through the ages. Flint is one of the key materials of North European prehistory - and I knew I wanted to design a shawl evocative of flint tools.

I know flint very well.

My childhood landscape was shaped by the ice age: softly rolling hills and a large moraine we called Tornved Bjerg (literally: Tornved Mountain).

Local farmers cursed the vanished glaciers for leaving so much debris behind as they worked the stone-filled fields, but I loved running across the newly tilled land and finding pieces of flint. I held the small stones in my hands as though they were gold nuggets. They were warm from the sun, yet cool to the touch. They were soft to hold, yet had sharp edges. I didn't realise until much later in my life that I had probably been picking up worked pieces of flint in a landscape full of prehistoric archaeology.

Hoxne reminds me of being that child - so inquisitive and seeing something special in everyday things. I hope I haven't lost either quality.

The shawl is knitted in Snældan 1ply - I keep referring to this yarn as Karie's Favourite Lace Yarn and that still holds true (I should write a Desert Island Yarns entry at some point). It is soft, holds so much character and it blocks out beautifully. Snældan is still spun in the way that it was spun in the 1940s and I love how it feels alive in your hands. Some yarns are processed beyond recognition but Snældan 1ply retains this magical feeling of authenticity and landscape which is so central to what I'm trying to do with Doggerland.

The Island Wool Company will be featuring Hoxne on their website - keep a look out and do browse that Snældan section. I continue to be thankful that Fiona & Daniel have chosen to make my beloved Faroese yarns available for UK knitters. It makes my life a lot easier!

Tomorrow I will be heading to Woolfest with my Glasgow knitting group. If you see me, do say hello!

Doggerland: Ronaes

So here we are. I released the Ronaes shawl pattern on Monday. It is the first of the Doggerland patterns to be published and I do so with a sigh of relief.

I'm really proud of Ronaes - it was one of those designs that just fell into place really quickly and where the finished object looked even better than I had imagined.

(I have issues with the way I look in the pattern photos: oh, all the issues that arise when you stare at your own face and body as you edit photos and patterns - but I think that's a topic for another day.)

The original Ronaes was knitted in Garthenor 1ply - a beautiful and bouncy laceweight. It's called a cobweb on Ravelry which I think is a touch misleading. It's more like a heavy 2ply or a light 3ply. Maybe if I spun yarn I'd have a better idea? Looking at all the different yarn choices made for Ronaes in the Doggerland KAL is my favourite activity at the moment.

Also this week I could finally share some really exciting news. The Island Wool Company is the UK importer of the fantastic Snældan yarns. They love the Doggerland collection so much that they asked if they could team up with me. Imagine that. How could I say no? So, apart from Ravelry, the Doggerland patterns will pop up on the Island Wool Company website. I have already ordered some Snældan 2ply in Mist, so I can knit myself another Ronaes.

And in final Ronaes news, Louise Scollay of the excellent Knit British blog took an early look at Doggerland - and especially Ronaes:

What excites me about this collection is the connection to landscape and the past, and also a sense of otherness – something I often feel keenly in my own landscape.

So here we are.

The past fortnight has been crazily busy - but I'm happy to say that I'm meeting some absolutely fantastic people as part of the general insanity. If you're reading this, you are one of them.

Thinking With My Fingers

I have been thinking about what unites all the things I do and the things I care about. It struck me that I need my hands in order to translate (or transmit) all the things in my head. I am far more eloquent when I write than when I speak. I express my ideas better when I draw or knit them than if I try to describe them. And I sit down to tap away at a keyboard when I feel I have a nebulous notion brewing away in my head. The Greek philosopher Plato once addressed the mind-body problem and how the mind and body can be connected. Plato was a great fan of 'the soul' and thought our bodies inferior. Philosophers have discussed this ever since (it's known as Dualism) - when I was younger, I'd scoff at my body and be firmly in Plato's camp. The life of the mind! Pure soul! These days I definitely cannot imagine life without my fingers acting as transmitters or translators. We all mellow as we get older, don't we?

Anyway, I began thinking about this because I am just back from a work trip to Yorkshire. I had my camera with me and I snapped a lot of photos - but mostly unexpected photos.

Who knew I'd ever take an arty photo of a horse grazing in a field as a way of expressing my innermost thoughts? But there you go: life is bright and sunny with a tinge of blue. Beautiful things are in focus, bigger things are rather blurry (but I'm pushing those to the back for the time being). And everything is good.

I want to thank everybody for the lovely stream of messages concerning Doggerland. When I first started talking about my idea for the collection, a few people told me it was a bit too “out there” so I didn’t know what to expect .. but I have received so much great feedback and so much support over the last week. I have been particularly thrilled by emails from strangers who told me about their own connection to the Doggerland area - if I can make people think about their personal/emotional connections to landscapes and knitting, I have done my job well.

This would have been an excellent time to insert a photo of sheep grazing on Yorkshire hills. Unfortunately I had to take those photos from a moving train and this is the best one. Try to spot the sheep:

I'll write more about my work trip to Yorkshire later - it was essentially a three-day knitting & yarn mini-conference at this place:

As I said, everything is good. I am meeting interesting people, I am being pushed out of my comfort zone, and I am thinking a lot with my fingers.

A few links &c:

• You can still pre-order my Doggerland collection and get 20% off. Hurry, though, as the offer only runs for a few more days.
• Stories In Stitches is a new venture from the amazing Donna Druchunas. Stories in Stitches combine so many of my favourite things: story-telling, knitting, writing and social history - not to mention that strange (but so exhilarating) sense of continuity and connection across places and ages you get when you combine all those things.
• A very interesting interview with Harry Potter star, Emma Watson. Yes, really. I was struck by her take on feeling insecure and trying to balance her own self-perception with how others perceive her.
• Finally, a great article about how the Eurovision Song Contest can be read as something other than just a way of life six-months-long week-long fun evening. It's a way of nation-building in the 21st century.