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..

Paper Diary Days

I have bought a paper diary to keep track of my life. I usually keep track of things digitally, but I felt the urge to have everything written in ink on paper. It makes my life feel more tangible, more tactile. Right now my life is pretty much that of the mind: I write a lot plus I keep sketching and swatching for new designs. My brain is very fertile right now - but it does not make for great conversation (or indeed blogging).

I have been somewhat obsessed by indigo recently - that great, troublesome colour that is neither blue nor purple but somewhere in-between. Old Maiden Aunt does a great colour - midnight - and I have a skein of it in a dyelot that comes very close to indigo. I also have a skein of Assynt Lochs, a beautiful sportweight merino from Ripples Crafts. I look at the two hanks and I wonder if this is the beginning of a new colour obsession or whether indigo just reflects this odd in-between time which feels so intangible that I need a physical diary.

No Mood Indigo, though. It is all good. Decisions have been made and new directions are being mapped.

My Doggerland collection is coming on in leaps and bounds. It has been unwieldy beast, but I am getting there. It is all those tiny non-knitting aspects that have eaten up time. I have been fighting with the layout quite a bit and it has been a steep learning curve. I have been so used to writing long text documents that I find it a New & Interesting Experience to incorporate charts and photos. Of course I have published patterns before, but this is on a very different scale and of a very different complexity. Photo shoots have also been giving me problems as the weather has kept us on our toes. Still, I have been able tick off plenty of things on my to-do list and things are no longer moving at a glacial pace (pun intended).

People keep me sane. People keep giving me work. I like people. My paper diary once more comes to my rescue as I can flick through weeks with my fingers and the trailing pages tell me no, yes, maybe, no. And people understand.

And with peace of mind comes a creeping sense of bodily awareness. I live in my head so much that I neglect my body. My beautiful red bike was finally fixed this week. I revelled in taking it to my local bike repair shop which is owned by a kick-ass lady. Apart from fixing bikes (and selling refurbished vintage ones), she also sells vintage knitting patterns and 1970s vinyl records. No artisan beer or fair-trade coffee, but I bet you it is coming. I love my neighbourhood. I must remember to enjoy it more this summer.

Knitting. I must get back to it. It will be so good to finally show you all the things I have been working on. Not long to go now.

Thoughts of Alex and Lucy

I have been debating for days whether or not to write anything about Lucy Meadows.  I have been so filled with sadness and outrage and helplessness - and I wondered why so few of my friends seem to talk about this. A woman taking her own life. A woman whose transition from a male body to a female body was made public property (and publicly mocked) by British press. I worried that I did not have the right to feel sad, outraged or helpless about this because I rest within my biological gender. But I am a human being and it is my right to speak out against hate and ridicule - even if I sometimes have to be reminded about my right to do so. And I think of my former flatmate Alex and I also owe it to her to write about my sadness, outrage and helplessness.

Alex and I shared a flat back in the late 1990s. She had left her native country for Scandinavia partly because of a love affair and partly because she felt misunderstood. We shared a big flat with several others and we rarely spoke. That is, until one night.

I had come home late and Alex was out in the kitchen crying. Yet another boyfriend had broken her heart. Alex always fell quick and hard for macho men who promised to protect her - she was a tiny slip of a thing - and who vowed they loved her for her. Quickly, though, they always started to want to change her. They would buy her clothes and makeup and high heeled shoes and Alex would sit in the kitchen crying.

She told me that night that she was a biological woman who identified as a gay man within a female body and that she preferred to dress as a boy because female clothing made her uncomfortable. She didn't want to transition - she just wanted to be loved for who she was. Her real name wasn't Alex* but she wanted a gender-neutral name unlike her actual name. (And I refer to Alex as she because that was what she wanted me to call her.)

Oh Alex. Wonderful Alex. Shy, funny and skittish.

I was maybe 21 years old and naive for my age, but I grew up a bit that night. Alex was so full of pain and contradictions. We sat there until dawn and she just talked and talked. Our late nights became a habit. I left that flat a year later and I often wonder what became of her. She was vulnerable with very few friends outside the constant cavalcade of awful boyfriends.

Today I wonder if she ever decided to transition because her identity seemed very fragmented and contradictory - with a strong emphasis upon 'boy' - but I also recognise that there are never any easy answers. Identity is fragmented and contradictory and what may seem like an obvious thing to me may not have been an obvious solution to someone as complex as Alex.

So, I read about Lucy Meadows and I remember my late nights in the kitchen with Alex. And I want to shout and cry.

LOVE. Never hate.

* Alex wasn't even what she called herself but Alex will be her name here.

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.