Say Hello to the Scollay Cardigan

2014 turns out to be the year where I break free from all the ..but surely I can't .. whispers at the back of my head. I am fully self-employed, I have been part of all sorts of incredible craft events with properly big knitting names, and now I've released my first garment pattern. Designing garments always felt daunting because they have to fit across sizes, there are all sorts of things to keep track off, and (crucially) they have to fit people other than me. So, say hello to Scollay.

Scollay is published in the latest Knit Now magazine (issue 41, in shops this week). I have a long-standing working relationship with the editor, so I knew I could trust the editorial team to be on-board with my first garment and lend me moral support. And I really think we got it right.

The inspiration behind the cardigan is two-fold.

Firstly, I knew I wanted an everyday cardigan which would work as a layering piece. I am mildly obsessed with "the everyday wardrobe" where you have some some amazing essential pieces you go back to again and again. I wanted to design a cardigan I knew I could just put on - I think we all have those garments that only work with a certain shirt and I wanted to avoid that.

Secondly, I was hugely inspired by the work of Louise Scollay who runs the Knit British website and podcast. Louise champions the idea of using local yarns and is very vocal about how supporting local yarns is both affordable and sustainable.  I knew I wanted to use  a local yarn for my cardigan - and then the name of the pattern became obvious: Scollay. I have an interview with her coming up on this blog where I'll be asking her just how it feels to have a pattern named after you!

The Scollay cardigan is knitted in New Lanark DK which is spun just down the road from me. New Lanark is a UNESCO Heritage site which spins its own yarn using the Falls of Clyde to power its mill. It is not a coincidence that I chose to work with this yarn - I have visited New Lanark many times and the site holds special significance to me. Scollay's seamless construction cuts down on the amount of yarn you need and New Lanark is astonishing affordable at just £3.50 per ball. £3.50 for a piece of British industrial heritage, Scottish progressive social  history and a yarn imbued with landscape, history, meaning, locality, and soul?

Oh come on.

A few suggestions for modifications. The cardigan is knitted bottom-up with the sleeves and body joined before you work the yoke. This sort of construction allows for relatively easy mods:

• the cardigan hits me well below the hips (as you can tell) but I am really short-waisted. If you want a slightly shorter cardigan, take out an inch before and after the waist shaping.
• you can adjust the length of the sleeves by taking out a couple of inches before you join the sleeves to the body.
• it is designed to have a smidgen of positive ease because I wanted a cardigan that would work for layering. The model in the magazine looks super-cool in her relaxed fit cardi. However, I am wearing the cardigan with an inch of negative ease.
• I do love the New Lanark yarn with a fiery passion, but it has a lot of character which I understand is not for all people (though it works perfectly for me). If you are looking for a substitute, you need to look for a double-knitting yarn with good stitch definition and memory. The construction means the yoke bears the weight of the garment, so make sure you find a substitute with sturdiness - cottons and silk-blends won't work in the long run.

It is such a thrill to finally be able to blog about the cardigan. I designed it in the spring and knitted it during the hottest Scottish summer in memory (I am modelling it on a hot July day in these photos ) - so it's been a hard secret to keep. But it is released this week and I finally feel like I am a proper grown-up designer. Heh.

Now We're Getting Somewhere

I was looking through an old photo folder when I came across this swatch I did for what would eventually become the Proserpine shawl. The swatch was knitted in an unreleased Old Maiden Aunt shade and I love how the camera picks up unexpected shades in the soft khaki green. Patterns have an interesting path they take from initial swatch to finished object. Proserpine was always going to be knitted in a rich, jewel-like shade, but for a short period of time it only existed partially in my head and partially in this soft green shade. Colours play such a part in how we see designs - once I knitted Proserpine in Caerthan's rich teal, it became a different, separate thing to what it was at this early stage. Part of me still wonders what it would look like in the OMA colourway. If I had but world enough and time..

.. if I had but world enough and time, I would knit many things.

(Loch Fyne earlier this year; so many ideas)

Maybe this is a good time to tell you that I have tentatively begun doing research into Something New. It is much too early to say more about it as I want to run this very differently than Doggerland. In fact, the research is at such an early stage that I'm yet to pull together a colour palette or formulate a design vocabulary (and all those other things that make my partner laugh when I start talking about them - "are you sure you didn't go to art school?"). But the idea is there, it has been there for some time and it keeps nudging me. All this is good.

However, first I will be focusing on other things. It is Wovember, after all, and I have a lot of travel time over the next few weeks. I am hoping to get a few knitted gifts done (strong emphasis on hope) and I have some delicious Blacker Yarn earmarked for that. I'm finishing up a few articles too and there is something very special in a knitting magazine later this month.

Just a brief, final note. I have been out for the count with a dreadful migraine for the first five days or so of this month. I took three days off (as I couldn't see out of my left eye!) and I'm now trying to get through all messages, mails, edits, revisions, and so forth as quickly as I possibly can - please be patient with me!

On the Threshold: Doggerland

Tomorrow I am releasing the last Doggerland pattern (more on the actual pattern when it's released!) and it is a bit emotional. I first started working on Doggerland in 2011. The first few sketches were rough outlines of motifs, but soon I began sketching all sorts of things: shells, driftwood, coastal outlines.. then I started reading about Mesolithic archaeology, I met with archaeologists, I delved into Land Art & psychogeography, and then set myself some parameters:

+ The Doggerland moodboard

+ A limited palette of colours:  I ended up using mainly undyed yarns and the only dyed hue is the vibrant green you see in the last shawl (and in the Gillean hat & wristwarmer set). I chose the green because it reminded me of seaweed - it'd be a colour that Mesolithic people would have seen. I did wonder about using wool rather than flax, as domesticated sheep for wool-production would still be a few millennia out.

+ A limited palette of stitches: I wanted to strip back what I understood about lace knitting, colourwork, and textures. I looked to Mesolithic artefacts like worked flint, carved bone, and late-Mesolithic pottery shards for inspiration. I was really interested in how Mesolithic people used geometric shapes and lines in their work. Garter stitch ended up forming the backbone in the collection and i also strove to use a pared-down lace vocabulary (which was one of the hardest challenges I set myself).

I ended up designing and writing nearly 25 patterns for the collection - most of which I also knitted. Obviously most of these designs never made it into the collection for one reason or another - and it meant an enormous amount of work on my part. Still, I wanted a coherent collection with a very distinct formsprog (mode of expression - though I like the Danish phrase better: "shape language" which contain the making and moulding aspect of creating your own creative idiom).

I got there in the end.

It was not all plain sailing. I became increasingly critical of the work I was producing. I also found myself being dragged in various directions because Doggerland was all me - and I still had other work commitments. I was working on some very non-Doggerland commissions as the same time and it was very, very hard to keep the various design vocabularies apart. I think I succeeded, but only through gritted teeth and a lot of determination.

Throughout my life I have continued ploughed  my own paths and Doggerland was yet another one of those endeavours. I could have made things easier for myself by hiring people or doing it through a publisher, but I wanted total creative control. So, from 2011 to 2014 and we are on the threshold. I am nearly there. I feel very, very odd about this.

Stay tuned tomorrow x

Adventures on Arran

To my great delight and surprise, my partner whisked me away on a trip to the Isle of Arran this weekend. The Isle of Arran is about two hours away from Glasgow by train and ferry, but I had never been.

I twigged I had arrived among kindred spirits when we noticed small sheep statues along the coast.

The easiest way to get around Arran is by bus - we asked to get dropped off at Sannox about 8 miles north of the ferry terminal. Sannox stems from the Viking place name "Sand Vik" (Sandy Bay) - always a pleasure to see places my Viking ancestors have been!

We headed towards Glen Sannox - the walkers' guide labelled this "an easy ramble with stunning scenery". The first part of the path was easy (and we stopped to eat brambles - Arran clearly has a micro-climate quite unlike the mainland).

The path into Glen Sannox became less friendly (and more boggy) after we crossed the stream. We walked towards Coire na Ciche (The Devil's Punchbowl) with the slopes of Goatfell on our left and the peaks of Cir Mhor and Caisteal Abhail in front of us. I was worried about how my injured left knee would hold up (especially as the path was not as gentle as we had imagined) - but although I was in pain, I did not have to resort to the heavy-duty pain killers and my knee only caused me to stumble occasionally.

We couldn't resist a selfie (though I look odd!). I wore my trusty Snorri jumper and i have a bit of a story to tell about the hat I'm wearing - but that's for another day.

No filter! When the sun came out, the colours were breathtaking. The clouds rolling over Cir Mhor (the peak in perpetual cloud) kept getting darker, though, and the already brisky wind got stronger. It was a beautiful, rich landscape. Wildlife was all around us too - we saw so many red deer that we got jaded (though I am sure they were not "wild" animals, just "managed"), various birds, the ever-present sheep and I even caught the eye of a little adder. But it was clear that we needed to head back before the clouds caught up with us.

It was just after midday, but it felt later. We retraced our steps, had the last of our packed lunch and then caught the bus (the bus - there are no other busses on Arran) making an almost full-circle of the island before going home.

What a lovely, special day. I don't get to go on adventure with my partner as much as I'd like but our trip to Arran was just perfect: stunning scenery, the best company in the world, apples in the backpack and I even cast on something very special whilst there. Magic.

Panic On The Streets of Glasgow: Over.

If you tried to visit this site recently you will have noticed that a) you couldn't connect and b) now that you can connect, some of the content is missing. The company that currently hosts this site had big issues with a server and finally recovered most of the site after nearly 24 hours. Most. I lost a couple of photos and about a month's worth of blog posts. It could have been much worse. I once lost four years of blogging thanks to my Danish web host going bust.

So, I'll be backing up data this Saturday morning and then knitting will commence. Phew.

Knits For Little Scamps - A Review Of Sorts

I love visiting Copenhagen. I lived there during my twenties - my formative years in many ways - and so many of my good friends live there. Paradoxically I didn't know Signe Strømgaard when I actually lived in Copenhagen, yet whenever I visit we make sure we get to hang out. Signe is an incredible woman: funny, warm, down-to-earth and smart. I am so proud to call her my friend. And Signe is a fantastic knitting designer.

Her work has appeared in Knitty, Twist Collective and Petite Purls. Signe has also worked extensively with Danish yarn company Filcolana (you can find many of their patterns freely available on Ravelry). Signe's background in graphic design shows in her knitting designs: there is a modern, graphic quality to most of her work. Combined with Signe's ever-present sense of humour, it was perhaps inevitable that her first book would be one filled with modern, colourful children's patterns for kids aged 2 to 10. If you like Scandinavian children's clothes, I think you'll love Knits For Little Scamps.

I'm not even going to pretend to do a review because a) it'd be one long post of THIS IS AMAZING and b) I am totally biased but this is a great collection of modern kids' patterns. Cue picture spam of my favourites.

(Love this shows the design on both boys & girls, in a huge range of colour, and on a variety of ages. BOOM - design statement! )

(Love the simplicity and the bold stripes. And the jumper + trousers = YES. I'd wear this.)

(You cannot tell from the smallish photo, but that's an interesting cable detail)

(This girl takes no prisoners. Also, that hat is so cool that teenagers will secretly sulk that it's for their baby sister or brother)

(I totally love this cardigan. I want it for myself. Again, I love the styling. She looks kick-ass)

(Aksel gives good face. Incidentally this is knitted in one of my favourite Danish yarns - Håndværksgarn by Hjelholt)

(Work that pose! Again, totally wearable with clean lines)

(This is just Signe's design sensibilities in a nutshell)

Knits For Little Scamps is published as a hardback book in Danish - but is available in English on Ravelry as two e-books (KfLS 1 and KfLS 2 - the toy pattern in included in both ebooks).

Congratulations, Signe. You are awesome and I am so proud of you x

(all photos © Signe Strømgaard, 2014)