Almost There: Making Doggerland pt 3

It is odd. By all accounts I should resent working on Doggerland, but I am still in love with the collection. The yarns are beautiful, I still think the idea behind it is intriguing, and I enjoy pulling it all together. And it is being pulled together.

Patterns are out being looked over by technical editors (the people who make sure every t is crossed and every i is dotted). I am busy with pattern layouts and making sure everything looks coherent and right.

Perfectionism appears to be my worst enemy, actually. Some of you have called me out for that and I want to thank each and everyone for doing so. I have been battling with perfectionism most of my adult life, and although knitting design does not give me ulcers (unlike academia), I am still very hard on myself. I am learning to let go.

The photo above is a great example of my perfectionism. It is an out-take from one of the photo shoots (it doesn't show enough pattern detail to be a great pattern photo). I was really panicky about the photo shoots and looking back, I don't know why. Sure, I don't have a professional photographer at my disposal and the equipment used isn't worth tens of thousands of pounds - but the photos are great nonetheless.

It has been a long time coming to this point and I have learned a lot about myself and my work processes over the last year(!).

• You are only as good as your network.

I have been lucky insofar my professional network has been incredibly supportive. I'd particularly like to mention Fiona from The Island Wool Company, Ella Austin, and Elly Doyle who have all listened to me with patience and offered brilliant advice when needed.

• Don't be hard on yourself. Be kind.

That one is pretty self-explanatory! Doggerland has been a project so close to my heart and I think I let it get too personal at times.

• Know when to stop.

And this brings me to what is going to happen next.

Doggerland will be going on pre-order Monday, May 27 at 12noon GMT until June 10 when the first pattern will land.  Following on from June 10, patterns will land in your inbox every few weeks. You can buy the patterns individually too, of course, but the collection is the cheaper option (particularly if you opt for pre-ordering it).  At the moment you can expect 8 patterns - all accessories - but I may add one or two (or three) to that count.

So, there you have it. I hope you'll find it's been worth the wait. Thank you to everyone over the past year who has been sending me supportive messages, asking me about the patterns and generally been good eggs.

I am going to go take a big breath of fresh air now.

Kirkja in May

Yesterday was such a lovely day. It was finally warm enough to walk around without a jacket, the rain stopped, and the bluebells were out in full force. Dave told me to put on some lipstick and head out for an impromptu photo shoot. I recently had the rights to my Kirkja shawl returned to me, so I grabbed it off the shelf. I love its rich, warm yellow hue and it looked so beautiful in the hazy sunshine.

You may know that my paternal grandmother was Faroese. I have had some great conversations with Fiona from The Island Wool Company about the wealth of inspiration I gain from North Atlantic knitting traditions. Kirkja is an example of my magpie tendency: rather than sticking to traditional shapes and patterns, I wanted the shawl to reflect the Faroese love of geometric patterning and simple shapes. So, it's an updated, funkier version of a traditional Faroese shawl: no garter stitch, no shoulder shaping but some neat straight angles.

You can now buy Kirkja straight from Ravelry (right here) - it was designed for one hank of luxury handdyed sock yarn (my shawl is knitted in Old Maiden Aunt Superwash Merino 4ply in "Buttermint") and 4mm needles, so it's the ideal stash diving project! Kristen has knitted a beautiful Kirkja in a neutral-green hue, so if you're not one for bright colours, check out her ace version.

(In related news, stay tuned for actual & real, proper Doggerland news by the end of this week.)

Casa Bookish has seen quite a few friends pass through Glasgow over the last few weeks which has meant I've had to spread my workload really carefully and keep social media interactions to a minimum. Unfortunately it also meant that I didn't have time to write my customary Eurovision blog entry this year - but I have received a deluge of lovely messages after Denmark's win (my personal favourite finished fourth, though). Thank you!

Now back to working on more lovely things. It is always so nice when I am getting close to the point where I can start to write about them!

Funny Old Life: An Knitterly Interlude

Taking a tiny break from writing about Doggerland. Of sorts. Here are some other things that have been happening.. + BBC4 continues to have unlimited access to my brain. They have just started an archaeology season, for heaven's sake. If you have access to BBC iPlayer, I recommend watching The Peat Bog Mystery. It first aired in 1954(!) and it is an excellent insight into how archaeology was communicated to the masses. No gloves when handling artefacts! Lady archaeologists get to talk about cooking! Sir Mortimer Wheeler is especially fascinating (just check out his wikipedia page). Also, the artefacts themselves are fabulous and you get to see some of the highlights of the National Museum of Denmark including an awkward assessment of the Gundestrup Cauldron ("Nazi eagles"!).

+ I was very amused by this news story: the author of Fifty Shades of Gray went to a Romance Book convention/trade show under an assumed name, unveiled her real identity interrupting a panel discussion before telling them to "stop talking about my book!". Good times.

+ I have been playing with the new Rowan sock yarn, Rowan Fine Art sock. It's their first sock yarn, it's 'handpainted' (well, sponged) in South Africa and has a really interesting base: merino, polyamide, silk and mohair. Hmm. It looked very pretty in the skein:

I wound the yarn last night for a quick swatch. It is quite variegated compared to the semi-solid sock yarns I have been using over the last couple of years, but the variegation works pretty well. For shawl design purposes, I think you'd look at slipped stitches, textures, and well-defined big-chunks lace.

The base is interesting - it has a fairly tight twist compared to other commercial sock yarns but not quite the high twist you get from, say, Wollmeise. The silk makes for nice drape + sheen. Such a contrast to the rustic yarns I've worked with over the last few weeks.

+ I found a photo from my old primary school the other day. This was taken a few years before my time, but I loved it as soon as I saw it. Look at all the handknits! And do I spot handknitted socks on the young gent on the left? My friend Kaisa told me the photo looked like  a cross between Grange Hill (British kids' show) and The Killing. She may have a point.

+ Finally, the fine people of the Netherlands have a new king. Seeing I am not a royalist, that shouldn't really register on my radar. What did register was Garnstudio's patterns they released to coincide with the coronation. Fun little fact: my first knitting project in many, many, many years was a little stripy cotton jumper for the little Queenie when she was first born. Isn't it strange how life works out?

It is a funny old life.

When the Design Process is a Difficult Mistress: Making Doggerland Pt 2

The Doggerland design process. Last time I wrote about all the preparation I undertook before starting the actual hands-on work. I had compiled a moodboard, worked out the colour palette, researched the history/archaeology background and found out that I really had to simplify my design vocabulary before getting anywhere close to the ideas in my head. What happened next? What happened next is exactly what happened between the last post I wrote (posted on April 15) and this one (posted May 2). Other Work happened. I have a portfolio career and it's one that I really enjoy - but it also means that I cannot devote all my time to just one project. Bills need to be paid, projects need to meet deadlines, and clients need to be met. I have a good work ethic, so I managed to carve out time between other projects but it was really frustrating to sit on four finished designs and not being able to release them before I finished the next four designs!

I was also surprised by all the new skills I had to acquire. I had to learn how to use two new software programmes, I had to create pattern templates, I had to write a style sheet (which means I use uniform abbreviations and terms across all patterns) and I had to think of schematics. For an indie designer like me, that was a lot of non-knitting stuff to consider and it took time to get to grips with these things. I could not afford to hire someone to do all these things for me, sadly, so it was learning on the job!

But I got back to knitting eventually.

I mention 'sitting on four finished designs' - I guess I could have started releasing patterns by that stage but I would have felt really uncomfortable if the flow of pattern releases was then interrupted by, say, three deadline projects. I don't think it is particularly fair to knitters when it happens - it would speak poorly of time management on my part to have a start-stop-start flow to the Doggerland patterns. I'd rather have the vast majority of patterns finished by the time I start publishing them. It is fairer to you (and fairer to my peace of mind).

So, where am I at now? I am sitting on 6½ finished designs with most photography done. I took out a couple of patterns a few weeks ago because they felt like filler to me and I'd rather have eight strong designs than have a larger collection. The next few weeks will see me winding down the amount of work I do (i.e. I'll be working a normal working week rather than the insane 60+ hrs/wk I have been pulling the last few months). I once mentioned a Late March release date - I am now thinking it will be June. It is a bitter pill to swallow.

So, what lessons have I learned? What mistakes did I make? Why the beep does it take me this long? Stay tuned.

When the Design Process is a Difficult Mistress: Making Doggerland

It has been just under a year since I first wrote about this great idea I had for a collection of knitting patterns. Doggerland has been a long time coming, in other words. As I started pulling everything together and prep the patterns for general release, I thought I'd share the design process. Hopefully it'll be of some interest to budding designers - I certainly would have loved a series of blog posts on this topic when I first began! When I first got the idea of designing a series of patterns inspired by Doggerland (the landscape now submerged by the North Sea between Scandinavia and the UK), I first began by compiling a moodboard. I began with free association: moss, lichen, flint  and stone. Once I had a good selection of images, I began sorting through them until I could see a definite theme emerging. The colour palette was very easy to spot, but I had to keep chipping away at my pinned images until I was left with strong textures and an organic feel.

See those words? Colour palette. Strong textures. Organic feel. Those became my keywords. I knew those words encapsulated Doggerland. I had to aim for those words every time I worked on the collection.

Next, I did research. I knew I had to learn more about archaeology, the Stone Age (specifically the Mesolithic period when Doggerland began to vanish), and geology. I wanted to learn about what sort of art these people made, what sort of motifs they used, and how they interacted with the landscape. I visited the library, I spoke with archaeologists and material culture specialists, and I I read a lot of academic articles in English, Danish, and German (my German was not equipped for academic papers on marine archaeology, it is fair to say!). I enjoyed this part of the process - possibly I enjoyed it a bit too much because I let it drag on and on. I also forgot what part I was playing: I wasn't a specialist and I didn't need to be. I was the designer.

Oh. Art. Motifs. Landscape. More important words.

Around mid-summer 2012 I began acquiring the yarns I wanted to use. I wanted organic yarns from the present day North Sea regions - I tentatively call them site-specific yarns although that is a loaded term in art circles - because I wanted the yarns to be grounded in a very specific landscape. You will see a lot of Snældan yarns popping up as well as yarn from Garthenor, New Lanark, and Hjeltholt. I was very conscious of the colour palette and as a result I chose mainly neutral/undyed colours (with one notable exception).

Then I began sketching and swatching. This is where I hit a wall. Everything I did turned out to be too complex, too intricate and simply too much. I needed to find a simpler design vocabulary, to pare things down, and to edit my ideas. This took a surprisingly long time. I had my first workable design finished by mid-Autumn 2012, though I had a lot of sketches and swatches to show for all my work. These have not been discarded, but may be reworked into other designs (never throw out ideas!).

I had done most of the legwork - the conceptualising, the visualisation, the research, the sketching, the swatching and even some knitting - but the hard work had just begun.

Next: Moving from ideas into actual objects - and what I could have done differently..

Catching Up

If the knitting world ever decides to have a competition for "LYS with Best View", Gourock's Once A Sheep has to be a top contender.

I made my way out there last week - just before winter really hit Scotland again - and I couldn't believe my eyes. If I lived in Gourock, I'd be camped out at OAS knitting and staring at those mountains all day long.

(I just had to check on Google maps those were mountains because I am still just an ickle Dane from pancake-flat Denmark who thinks Scottish hills are mountains .. but nope, them there are mountains)

OAS has a lovely range of yarns and fibres - they seem to be carving out their own niche with a particularly strong selection of spinning wheels (and related equipment) and hand looms. If you went to the recent EYF, you will have seen Karen and her helpers demonstrate spinning and weaving. They also have a nice selection of needle-felting supplies which is a rare sight in Scotland.

I meant to travel further afield this past week but the combination of foul weather and catching up on sleep following that amazing (and exhausting) day at Edinburgh yarn Festival meant that I had to stay at home and focus on clearing my to-do list. Which included writing a few patterns and doing a lot of knitting.

This is one of the patterns from the Doggerland collection. It is knitted in Snældan 1-ply (also known as Karie's favourite lace yarn ever) in the "Basalt" colourway. It has a different construction method to the rest of my shawl patterns and I really love how the yarn drapes in this photo. Better photos to come, of course.

And better photos to come of the Gillean hat, another Doggerland pattern.

At Edinburgh Yarn Festival I taught colourwork using this hat pattern so there are some people out there with a preview of Gillean! It is a good colourwork project if you are unsure about stranding. You are just working with two colours and the crown shaping is very clever (even if I have to say so myself).

Again, this hat uses Snældan yarn - this time in 3-ply which is roughly equivalent to DK. The two main colours are undyed and the trim just adds a pop. I really love working with this yarn - it is a bit sticky (perfect for colourwork) and very bouncy.

Finally, I did a podcast with Louise of the Caithness Craft Collective Podcast. We recorded at Edinburgh Yarn Fest which is why 1) you can hear loads of people in the background and 2) I am slightly hyper. It was lovely to meet Louise - it felt like meeting an old friend - and she made the whole recording/interviewing process a lot easier than I had anticipated.