On Devaluating Hand-Knitting

It's been a couple of weeks and I've taken some time off. I have more time off soon which means I'll be away from my office for the first time since .. Christmas last year. Ahem.

I have collaborated with the very lovely Old Maiden Aunt on something which will be released whilst I am away from my office. We began plotting this almost eight months ago. It is crazy how quickly time flies. The photo shoot happened earlier this week - you can see the beautiful Glasgow tenement buildings to the left. Ah, don't let the winter sunshine fool you. It was bitterly cold.

But let us talk a bit about knitting. It's a bit of a ramble from here on in.

Earlier this week, I met a talented girl who had designed and knitted a 4-ply jumper for a client. The client had asked the girl to supply the yarn as well as design/knit it. I asked how much the girl had charged?

An entire 4-ply (fingering-weight) jumper from design conception to finished item and including the yarn. £35. Let me repeat that: thirty-five pounds.

When I asked her why she'd charged that little, she shrugged and replied: "Because the client didn't want to pay anything more and even baulked at £35". I got very, very angry at this stage. I didn't get angry at the girl because she was obviously just trying to make a little money. No, I got angry at a marketplace which so devalues hand-knitting to the point where a customer baulks at paying more than £35 for a custom piece (including materials!) and manages to get away with it. Make that a marketplace in which the customer manages to get away with it again and again because I have heard the same story many times.

That is not okay.

Why is it that hand-knitting is so devalued? Skilled artisan-makers like the girl I met are paid pennies when they should be earning pounds. Is it because hand-knitting is predominantly female-centric? Is it because history has taught the marketplace that hand-knitting is something poor people do to make ends meet and poor people can be exploited? Is it because hand-knitting is perceived as being 'a hobby' that people do between their 'real' jobs? I looked at hand-knitters and I am amazed at their skills, patience and talent. Maybe I am wrong - certainly the marketplace tells me so.

I have never knitted for money -  but I do get asked an awful lot if I am willing to take on commissions. Usually the punter wants me to whip up an aran cardigan because a machine-knitted acrylic version is deemed too expensive. When did we move from "mass produced" = inferior to "mass produced" = superior? To my mind, a one-off piece created by a skilled artisan using excellent materials should always be considered more valuable. How do we change this perception?

I am not an artisan maker and while I hesitate to label what I do, I'm probably more of an artisan makar. "Makar" is an old Scottish word for "poet" or "bard" - and I think of my knitting designs as a way of telling stories with stitches. I care about how hand-knitting is perceived and treated. I know exactly how much time and skill go into designing and writing a pattern - what does that say about my time and skill that Ravelry currently holds 122,147 free patterns? How could I possibly add value to a pattern (and price it at £3) when 122,147 patterns are free?

It's a weird job I have chosen and it is a strange industry too. All I can do is hope that you'll like my collaboration with Lilith (note: it involves an essay about cholera, false teeth and William Morris). I'll be back with a gift-buying guide for the knitters in your life. Treat them well: they are super-skilled and deserve a treat.

Then I Became Myself

When my friend Lilith wrote her blog post about taking a much-needed break, I knew how hard it had been to write that blog post. I have known Lilith for many years - she is a goofy and smart person with so much talent and a big heart - and I know there are parts of her life she doesn't mention much. I am so proud of her for writing with candour and honesty. It is surprisingly hard to follow in her footsteps and write about my own life with equal candour and honesty. I don't like writing about my personal life and I often feel that writing about my working life also transgresses some boundaries. As a result, blogging can be really hard. Some time ago I asked: what would happen if you had to be yourself? I think I am about to find out now.

Many bloggers like to present their lives in a great light. I get fed up with so-called lifestyle bloggers really quickly because life is messy and dirty. I am surprised to find that I had fallen into the same trap. My life is messy and dirty at the moment. October was spectacularly awful (and September hadn't been great either). I was pulled in all directions at once (family, friends and work) and I finally unravelled last week. I am used to working a lot, but I am also used to being able to juggle various commitments and managing my time myself.

Some six years ago I was diagnosed with a chronic illness. At the time it felt like the end of the world, but I clawed my way back and carved myself a new space. I run my own business now because it allows me some flexibility in how I work. When that flexibility is removed from me, life becomes just that bit harder for me. October swallowed me up completely - one tiny aspect of my working life blew up and flat-lined me. Feeling helpless is not one of my favourite emotions, I can tell you that, and I am not just physically exhausted but also emotionally. It's not pleasant.

I have had a couple of lovely queries:

"I am knitting this shawl pattern, but I'd love if you designed matching mitts!" I'd love nothing better than design, design, design. But I also teach, tech-edit, copy-edit, translate, and do consultancy work in the yarn business. I'm trying to fit in as much designing as I can but it can be difficult to find time. I plan my design work carefully ahead of time - the last two months (especially October) have seen all my plans fly out the window. If you are waiting for me to design a pair of mitts to match a shawl, you may have to wait .. no, it is not going to happen. Sorry. Design-wise, I'm now looking at 2015 options and I have specific ideas already.

"Won't you come teach in my hometown? I love teaching and I love travelling. I am fully booked until mid-April now and I do have to plan carefully for reasons I hope are apparent.

Now the query that's closest to my heart.

"When's the next Doggerland pattern? It's been ages!" Doggerland is all me - and that is both good and bad. It's good because it is so authentically me and what I do. It's bad because I am doing every single aspect of it myself - and that means if I am pulled in another direction, Doggerland just waits. And waits.

My original time line was this: the Vedbaek shawl was due out end of September, the next pattern out mid-October, and the last(!) pattern should have been out today. Vedbaek is still unreleased and I am so incredibly stressed out about it. It is sitting at roughly 85% - I still need to chart some things, do a photo shoot, and write an essay. The other two patterns are fully designed as well but need some love and attention. I would love nothing better than share them with you. Hang in there with me.

Right now? Life is messy and dirty. My partner & some close friends forced me to book proper time off (not just one day or a working holiday) at the end of this month. I am trying to make some changes to aspects of my work/life balance.

This is me: I am tired, sad, and a bit scared. I hope that isn't entirely off-putting. It's still all wrapped up in wool.

Painting with Stitches - Ann Kingstone's Stranded Knits

I don't often accept invitations to review books but when Ann asked me at Woolfest, I just couldn't say no. Ann Kingstone is a Yorkshire-based designer who has quietly turned into one of the UK's best-loved indie designers. I adored her Born & Bred book which looked at Yorkshire's place in the UK wool industry - the Wetwang jumper is a particular favourite of mine - so I knew I would want to take a look at Ann's new book.

Stranded Knits is all about colourwork. It is also all about demystifying colourwork: the book has an in-depth techniques section at the front with clear technical drawings. I particularly appreciate that Ann has included technical explanations for both Continental and English-style knitters. The techniques section won't substitute a really good colourwork workshop but it is a great tool for anyone sitting at home trying to figure out how to get their tension even and how to carry yarns. It also details how to steek and goes into colour theory - and it does so in Ann's customary friendly manner.

But let's look at some of the patterns.

William has caught a lot of people's attention. With motifs inspired by William Morris, the jumper is knitted top-down with very clear charts showing you how to 'trap' yarns across large swathes. It is one of the most immediate designs in the book and I've seen two William jumpers in the wild myself. The jumper is knitted in Rowan Tweed which is a lovely rustic, yet soft yarn.

Field Study is one of my favourites - it is knitted using just two colours of Rowan Felted Tweed (which means you have a big numbers of colour combinations to choose from!). It is absolutely stunning with its shift in contrast - you start out by using Duck Egg (the pale teal) as the background colour and Rage (the red) as the motif colour, but you swap halfway up the body. Visually this means you decide what you want to highlight - pear-shaped ladies can choose emphasise their shoulders; curvy ladies can choose to emphasise their waist etc. Choice of colour combination will determine a lot (I am still leaning towards a red/green combo but I'm predictable that way). It is a very clever design.

The construction is also terribly, terribly clever.

Carol Feller hosted a great discussion with Ann on how the shoulder shaping occurs. An absolute master-class in designing. The gist is this: you start by working the body bottom-up, then you knit the two sleeves bottom-up, and then knit a saddle-shoulder/continguous/short-row sleeve hybrid. It sounds complicated but like everything else in Stranded Knits, it is explained very well.

Finally, you can just hone your colourwork skills by making small things.

The book includes a lovely hat/gloves set (more on this in a second), an adorable slip-over for toddlers as well as a mug warmer and a tablet cover. Whenever I run colourwork workshops, I always tell my students to start out small - get used to stranding! It also means you can play around with colour a lot more. If you are planning on knitting the Hedgerow cardigan, why not start out by tackling the adore Mary Rose mug warmer?

As previously mentioned, all the patterns in this book use Rowan yarns.

I am a real champion of Rowan (disclosure: I have worked with them on many occasions) and it is so nice to see them endorse a strong UK indie designer like Ann. Rowan often gets a bad rep for not embracing Ravelry-style patterns - I think anyone saying that has not been taking a look at what Sarah Hatton has been doing , incidentally, nor paid attention to Rowan working with Kate Davies and Josh Bennett! - and here they are collaborating with Ann on a book that really pushes the boundaries from both a construction point-of-view and a pattern-writing point-of-view. It is a real joy to behold.

Oh yes, I did mention that hat/mittens set, didn't I? I just couldn't resist casting on the Pleiades mitts despite being snowed under with other work.

I am using Rowan Felted Tweed in Camel and Rage. I am actually really enjoying knitting this. The thumb shaping is terribly clever and the way the motifs line up are very, very clever too. I only have time to work on this project occasionally, but it is working up remarkably well. The chart is easy to work from and everything is laid out clearly. Such a pleasurable quick knit - the knitterly equivalent of nibbling a deliciously biscuit between meals.

And yes, that is Yorkshire brew in the cup.

Thank you, Ann, for giving me a copy of your book. You are a treasure and so is your Stranded Knits book.

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.