A Love Story in Stitches: the Orkney Cardigan.

Apparently spring has sprung but here in Glasgow, winter refuses to let go. It has been overcast, drizzly and circa 8C all this week which is why it's taken almost a week for us to photograph the Orkney cardigan (or, as I like to call it, my opus magnum). First, a brief follow-up on my previous blog post wherein I discussed the whole "can I call this Fair Isle if I am not from Shetland" conundrum after a startling encounter with a lady whilst I was finishing up Orkney. Not only has Louise Scollay written an interesting take on the discussion (and she lives in Shetland, you know), but I also had the chance to discuss it with Carol Christensen and Roslyn Chapman at a recent event. Roslyn is writing a PhD on the idea of Shetland Lace Knitting and is tackling many of the same issues concerning "origin" and "tradition". Both Carol and Roslyn agreed that the notion of Traditional Fair Isle appear to be a commercial construct rather than a historical tradition - we also talked briefly about the many things currently squirrelled away at the Shetland Museum which do not really fit the traditional idea of Shetland knitting and so rarely see the light of day..

.. so in short, this is a Fair Isle cardigan I am sporting.

Pattern: Orkney from Rowan Magazine 52 by Marie Wallin.

Size: L (see notes)

Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed DK. Many colours (see notes)

Needles: 3.25mm and 3.75 mm (again, see notes)

Verdict: Oh hell yes.

Notes: It is interesting to see the difference between this cardigan and the Bute cardigan from the same magazine. They are knitted in the same yarn but are designed by two different people. Orkney runs small where Bute runs big - thankfully I had read people's pattern notes on Ravelry before setting out on this adventure, but it also taught me to read "the fine print" and check tension vs schematics before beginning. Assumptions are a knitter's worst friends. So, I went up two needle sizes and a size up from my usual one. Orkney still came out neat (the arms are particularly tight) but I do not mind that so much. I won't have room to wear much underneath my cardigan but I don't think I need much anyway; the cardigan is so beautiful and warm.

Having knitted Bute flat, I decided to steek the heck out of this one. I cast on an additional seven stitches for front and arm scythes. It worked well, though I had to secure the stitches with a sewing machine rather than rely solely on a crochet steek (I have thoughts on crochet steeking that I need to write about). I added a buttonband and used 1950s bakelite (plastic?) buttons. I had bought some real beauties from Textile Garden but decided I did not need the buttons to compete with the cardigan. Sometimes less is more. I also added length to both the body and the sleeves. The sleeves always needed additional length (I have monkey arms) but I am so short-waisted that I was surprised by how many extra rows I had to incorporate to reach the body length I wanted (I had measured my favourite cardigan before setting out, so knew how many inches I needed). I was right on gauge, so that was a surprise.

Oh, and I completely changed the colours.

The original was quite bright when you saw it in real life and I wanted more muted colours. I started out by recharting the entire pattern using Excel. It was fairly labour intensive but it gave me an understanding of the distribution of colours and patterns. I also realised that the same sequence of patterns are used on the sleeves but knitted in different colours. If you are planning on substituting colours for Orkney, I think this is an indispensable step for understanding how the colours work and why. Tiny decisions will have a huge impact.

Having reached an understanding of which colours were used more than others, I put my Felted Tweed stash on the spare bed (reality check time!) and started sorting colours. I decided that I wanted Ancient (a blueish khaki green) to be a feature on the body with Phantom (a soft brown - one of my favourite Felted tweed colours) and Avocado (er, avocado green) for the corrugated ribs. On the sleeves I substituted Rage (a magnificent red) for whenever I had used Ancient on the body. It worked well. I also used Celadon, Ginger, Rage, Duck Egg, Gilt, Cinnamon and Camel. I used less than ball of these colours (and Avocado) but used approx 1.5 balls of Ancient, Phantom and Rage.

Would I knit this again? Oh yes. I'll go up to size XL for the sleeves but I think this is a real cracker of a pattern. I like the fit a lot better than Bute, the colours work with my entire wardrobe, and I feel good when I am wearing it. I probably won't reknit this for a few years (so many knitting patterns, so little time) but I'd love to do a brown/blue/green version of this. I have also fallen deeply in love with Felted Tweed (if I hadn't already..).

Let me just repeat what I said at the top

Verdict: Oh hell yes.

Sad Announcement re. Teaching Obligations Spring 2014

Just a little heads-up that I have unfortunately been forced to cancel most of my teaching obligations this Spring.

I continue to have major problems with my left knee following an accident in January. Quite simply, I find it very difficult and painful to walk at the moment.

The only time I will be teaching this spring will be Sunday, March 16 at Be Inspired Fibres in Edinburgh where I’ll be running a class on Beginning Crochet for Knitters.

I hope to have bounced back in time for a full autumnal programme (look out for a full schedule at a new, exciting Scottish workshop space) and I’ll also be running my classes at Unwind, Brighton in July - but everything else is cancelled.

Apologies for disappointing those of you who have been asking me about class schedules etc. I would love nothing better than to run my customary full run of classes, but it's just not possible.

On an Adventure with Knitters

This past weekend I packed my bags and went on an adventure. We went through Glen Croe..

.. which is part of the Loch Lomond & Trossach National Park. We passed Rest and Be Thankful, the most famous peak in the Arrochar Alps before locating a small pottery studio (complete with Badger the Border Collie) on the banks of Loch Long.

We eventually made it to our cottage on the shores of Loch Fyne. This is the actual view from the living room window. Not a bad view for a dreich February day.

And this was the view from the kitchen. Scottish Blackface sheep keeping a watchful eye on us. They were slightly less fond of the chickens roaming the fields. I liked the chickens. They reminded me of my childhood when my gran kept chickens. Also: fresh eggs from the landlady!

We didn't get a chance to sample any Loch Fyne seafood - but I did accidentally kill a mollusc when I tried to throw it back into the sea at low tide. The colours were amazing: rich browns, deep greens, and the most beautiful indigo blues. So many ideas in my head.

And I finished knitting my Bute - whilst being near Bute. Mattress stitching fair isle that incorporates purl stitch is not my favourite activity. It doesn't look as neat as I'd like but I don't think that's possible with this pattern. I also did a temporary stitching-together of the body and .. it is not the most flattering knit in the world. I may need to look into some post-knitting waist-shaping. I do love the colours and the yarn. It's been a great knit. I just think I need to think about the shape of my garments more than I have done in the past.

After a long, relaxing weekend in the most beautiful lochside cottage you can imagine, it was time to head home. A landslide had closed the Glen Croe road and so we were looking at either a 70-miles detour north via Oban or hop on a ferry from Dunoon. This Dane still marvels at how the Scottish landscape thwarts attempts to tame it: the road across the Arrochar Alps is really the only way to access the entire Argyll & Bute peninsula by car and the road is plagued by constant landslides. We opted for the ferry which gave us a few comedy moments..

.. but I had a lovely time with some of the best people I know. I can certainly recommend a knitting retreat as a good way of restoring cheerfulness and well-being (my leg is slowly getting better and the main issues are now fatigue & stamina.).

It will not be the last time we do this.

Onwards & Upwards

I am awash in a sea of teal. It being a "thing" for a "thing" I cannot spill too many details - except that I am currently 4380 sts away from finishing the thing (which equals about 3 hours of concentrated work - it's not a quick knit, alas). The "thing" has kept me company for the past few weeks of enforced rest and I shall be sorry to send it away.

Actually, the "thing" was much admired today by three new-to-knitting nurses. I spent some time at Glasgow's Western Infirmary getting my leg checked by an orthopaedic specialist and took my knitting with me in case I had to wait around. The verdict? My leg is still very bruised and if I am still struggling two weeks from now, I am to see the specialist immediately. Right now, though, there is no evidence of a torn ligament (hooray! silly A&E) but the tissue surrounding the ligament is definitely badly bruised. I am to rest my leg as much as possible but also begin to do exercises including prolonged periods of walking and gentle stretching.

I am hugely relieved by the news.

However, I do find walking very fatiguing and overwhelming. As a result I am having to postpone a few engagements over the next couple of weeks. I hate disappointing people but I'm really not at my best right now. I am very sorry.

Thank you to everybody who has been in contact over the last few weeks. Your messages, texts and emails have been enormously cheering.

Onwards and upwards.

Out of Joint

About two weeks ago I was working for a client in a yarn store when I suffered an accident. Some big shelves fell on the back of my knee and I was left with a very impressive bruise. As the bruise faded away, I expected to be back to normal but unfortunately my knee is still bad.

I went to the A&E last week and they concluded that while I didn't have a fracture, the overarching conclusion is that I have torn or badly bruised my lateral collateral ligament. The LCL stabilises the outside of the knee and also grips the fibula (the outside bone of the lower half of the leg). I have an appointment with an orthopaedic clinic next week and hopefully that will lead to physiotherapy.

For me, enforced rest is always difficult. I like being active and I get easily bored if I'm restricted in my movements. I have kept myself going by writing patterns and doing some sample knitting, but as the days have passed I just feel increasingly worried about how long this is going to take and what that means for my working life. While it has been great to dig into some editing gigs, I have been forced to cancel quite a lot of jobs. March is going to be an exceptionally lean month, in other words. Being self-employed means a huge amount of freedom but it is also a precarious way of making a living.

Yesterday I celebrated my birthday and it was a curiously low-key day. I received some lovely presents (among others: my bestie gave me an ace book on Doggerland and my parents gave me a fantastic-sounding novel about 18th C Danish colonisation of Greenland) but most of the day was spent resting in bed. We caught a taxi down to the best burger joint in town but although I enjoyed being outside Casa Bookish, I ended up in considerable pain (and waking up in the middle of the night begging for painkillers is not the best way to end my birthday).

So it is a hermit's life for me right now.

(If you need anything tech-edited, copy-edited or actually written, now is a fantastic time to get in touch (just fill in the form). If you were considering buying one of my patterns, now would be an equally great time to do so! If you want to recommend any knee exercises, leave a comment!)

Doggerland: the Vedbaek Shawl

The Vedbaek shawl is the latest pattern from my Doggerland collection. Vedbaek is also one of my favourite things I have ever designed. When I began designing the Vedbaek shawl, I started by reading a lot about the Mesolithic finds of Bøgebakken, a site within the small seaside town of Vedbæk, Denmark. Between 1987 and 1990 more than 79.000 Mesolithic artefacts were found in a small contained area.The finds spoke more of a community than any other Mesolithic site I had read about up to that point.

And so I wanted to design something that spoke of people whose lives were inextricably tied to the sea and the rhythms of nature. People whose lives had a rhythm tied to seasons and a specific landscape. I also sought to design something that had a meditative rhythm to its own construction - something that would give comfort both while it was being made and afterwards.

Vedbaek is a story of continuity. It is also a story of making sense of life and carving out a space within everyday life.

One of the most poignant stories uncovered by the archaeologists was the one of the mother and child found sharing one of the graves on site. The mother was young - maybe no more than eighteen years old - and had died in childbirth. Her new-born baby had been placed right next to her. The mother had been adorned with snail shells and animal teeth; the baby was resting on a swan's wing.

That image of a swan's wing offering comfort captured me. It is a powerful image. We will never know what a swan's wing meant to Mesolithic man, but we can imagine words like flight, preciousness, grace, and (as anybody will know if they have disturbed a nesting swan) protectiveness.

The Vedbaek shawl is the end result of that design process. It has long, deep ridges that end in elongated points. I thought of spears used to capture fish and I thought of flint arrowheads secured to long, thin reeds. I also wanted to capture that wonderful, affecting image of the swan's wing. I wanted to make something with the weightlessness, grace, and beauty as the single swan's wing cradling something lost, something precious.

I knitted Vedbaek in Snældan 2ply (which is actually a 4ply) and I used almost 2 skeins of it. The yarn is lofty and soft (particularly when blocked) and the shawl is big, yet lightweight. Absolutely perfect.

It has been a long time reaching this point of finally release Vedbaek. I feel it is a bit ironic that my own life fell short of its own internal rhythms and comforts to the point where I could not release a pattern which is intrinsically about framework, rituals, rhythms, and solace. But we all muddle through somehow, don't we? Life takes its own quirky detours and I did have a beautiful shawl to wrap around my shoulders when life got cold.

I like telling stories through stitches.Vedbaek holds so many of them - both deliberately and accidentally.