Category Archives: textiles

shop update- Leona’s pouches

shop update: pouches

Hello! I hope you’re all well and life is mostly sweet… A little heads-up that I’ve just added 20 pouches to the shop, most of which are Harris tweed from a series of jackets I collected in Melbourne.

Pouches

The incredible textures and colours found in HT never cease to take my breath away, especially when I get in close- and, in this case, I had no choice as my main lens is broken so I had to use my macro lens- apologies for the even shallower depth of field than normal ; )

Pouch in rust Harris tweed

Pouch in earthy houndstooth Harris tweed

Pouch charcoal Harris tweed

Pouch in teal/ rust Harris Tweed

I’m also really excited to be using some beautiful, heavy linen produced locally in Fife to line my pouches! I’ll still use secondhand fabrics where I can but it’s not always easy to find the right ones and, this way, I get to support (in a very small way) the last major domestic producer of linen… and I can also avoid having to interface the tweeds, meaning that the only non-natural component is the zipper tape!

Enjoy xx

vintage shetland blog tour

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If you are a knitter (or are in any way interested in the history of fashion and knitwear), you really need to know about the Vintage Shetland Project, the culmination of several years of research by knitting anthropologist Susan Crawford, who, with the help and support of Carol Christiansen, textile curator at the Shetland Museum, has been researching hand-knitted garments and accessories made in Shetland in the 20^th century.

For the past four years, Susan has made the trip to Shetland twice a year to take a selection of knits from the museum’s archives through a rigorous process of analysis, with the goal of writing up and publishing them as a beautiful hardcover book on vintage Shetland knitting- what a labour of love!

Susan Crawford in the Shetland Museum archives

Susan has worked to create garments as close as possible to the shapes, textures and colours of the originals; every stitch was transcribed, each garment carefully measured and Fenella, a 2ply that knits to a vintage 3ply weight and comes in 25 shades matched to the museum garments, was developed specifically for the project. The result is a collection that feels just like what I think of as Shetland knitting but that encompasses a huge variety of different styles, time periods and construction methods, including lace, menswear, accessories and, of course, Fair Isle techniques. Susan says that she struggled to narrow down the vast number of designs on offer to twenty-five as there were so many beauties in the archives and we agreed that one look at the museum’s collection blows out of the water the idea that Shetland knitters were traditional- there is just so much variety in their output!

All of the items in the archives have been donated to the museum and are largely the products of creative knitting minds, rather than from commercial patterns. To me, this beautiful piece from Susan’s collection demonstrates that…

A favourite piece from the collection

While the motifs and shades used in this pullover from the late 1920’s or early 1930’s are traditional, the way they are used is anything but! The way the allover checkerboard pattern is broken up and inserted into geometric panels reminds me very much of the pieced satin evening dresses of the time. And yet the way the designer (who was most probably also the knitter) has continued the background colours under the lice or birds eye stitch in traditional style and used corrugated ribbing and modified drop shoulders shows that the piece is still very much of Shetland. This illustrates beautifully the innovative nature of Shetland’s knitters and their desire to move with and respond to ever-changing trends in fashion.

A favourite piece from the collection

With the research completed, patterns in the process of being written and final photography shoots happening in Shetland in July, the project is nearing completion and Susan has launched a Pubslush crowdfunder campaign to create the Vintage Shetland Project book. Needless to say, there has been overwhelming support for the project and she reached her goal in just over 24 hours, but you can still support the project, with additional funds going to support a wide range of extras- and you get the added bonus of getting your hands on a copy of The Vintage Shetland Project before Christmas and general release in 2016 (or a series of other enticing rewards)…

Congratulations on a wonderful project and a hugely successful community undertaking, Susan!

This post is part of The Vintage Shetland Project blog tour and Helene Magnusson is hosting the next instalment tomorrow. You can find out more about Susan’s journey at susancrawfordvintage.

isager winter

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When it comes to knitting, I have to admit that I’m generally in favour of the quick and dirty. That doesn’t mean that I shy away from big projects but more that I prefer to put all my attention into one (or two) projects so that I can bring them into being while I’m still in love with the ideas that went into them. From the hours spent contemplating and obsessing over the most perfect yarn to the process of swatching and then the knitting of it, I like to be consumed by that one project and to make it as quickly as possible. The project I’m featuring today was not one of those. And it’s got me thinking.

This is the Winter Pullover from Danish designer Marianne Isager. (Apologies for the slightly fuzzy shots but I was on the remote shutter with this one!)

Isager Winter

I fell deeply in love with it when the very first delivery of Isager yarns and patterns hit the shelves at my beloved Sunspun and was especially excited to work with Isager’s Spinni yarn, a laceweight single spun in one of Denmark’s last spinning mills from sturdy Danish wool. I loved the way this design worked with so many of Spinni’s natural sheep shades, with little highlights of beautiful colour, the kind of wonderful, subtle shades you only find in Scandinavia. But it definitely took me a little while to commit to it. I knit colourwork in 4ply and am as happy to knit complex stuff as the next knitter but all those little squares!! in laceweight!! and all the ends!! Still, the squares are picked up as you go to avoid seaming… and I just couldn’t get it out of my head. So I decided to only pattern the front as I really didn’t want to do that many squares and, besides, I felt it might be a bit too much for me if patterned on both front and back- I normally wear pretty low-key knits!

Isager Winter

And I have to say that it was a really lovely knit! The yarn was heaven to work with (great toothy handle and colours that I could stare at all day), it was surprisingly quick (I could get a couple of squares done over my daily train commute) and each little double stripe of colour was like a little treat for getting another square done. After discussions with my workmates (in which there was much debate about the merits of planning!), I decided to freewheel it and not chart out the colours in advance. Advance at your peril! I did pay for it in ripping and re-knitting time but I think it would have taken a lot of the joy out of it if I hadn’t had the little treat at each square… And (I can’t believe I’m saying this!) I actually enjoyed knitting it so much that the re-knitting was quite lovely!

Once the front was done, however, it became the knit that I picked up in between other projects. Not that I didn’t enjoy working the back as I really love garter stitch and the yarn was lovely to knit with. But it wasn’t engrossing in the way that the front was, engrossing enough to keep me moving with it. And, in amongst the knitting, came the move over to Scotland and the establishing of so many new things here. So I just plugged away at it bit by bit in the way I don’t usually like to do. Not quick and dirty. But I think that is what makes it special to me now. Knits hold memories in their stitches and, because I knit reasonably fast and monogamously, those memories are usually of quite a specific period. This one holds much more in it. Memories of knitting with my Sunspun crew and my sweet Mochi, during the packing up of our home and our journey over, in both our temporary home and now our own first flat here… and on Saturday, I got to wear it for the first time while teaching up at Dundee. That felt like coming full circle. And I think that perhaps this is the reason that some people embrace the long-term project.

So I’m starting to feel the benefit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to be signing up for the Beekeeper’s Quilt but I might just have a second project that I gently work away on, in the quiet moments between the passion of other more demanding projects. And that the working away will create just as strong a bond with it as to the other.

So how about you? Are you in for the long-haul projects, the short and sweet, the full passionate or a bit of all? And what do you get out of them?

Just a few comments on Winter! I was a bit nervous that the boxy, square lines might not be particularly flattering, that it might emphasise my (generous) bust too much. I’m not sure that it’s the most flattering garment around but the incredible drape that worsted-spun Spinni lends to it means that it moves in a way that other, fluffy or woollen-spun yarns wouldn’t do. And I especially love the neckline, which softens the lines nicely too.

Isager Winter

I made the smaller of the two sizes. I’m glad I did as I think the larger silhouette would swamp the body’s curves but I’m going to have to add a bit of length onto the sleeves as they ride up a bit.

It only weights about 300gm. So that’s a pretty affordable garment to knit and a super-lightweight one to wear.

And I played around with the colours as I wanted a softer palette with less contrast than the original. My shots don’t really do justice to the subtleness of the shades but I hope you get the picture.

Isager Winter

edinyarnfest

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Ah, what a weekend! Such a lovely whirlwind and I’m still recovering… I don’t have enough words (or photos) to describe it but highlights included:

1. Setting up for and getting through my first ever show (please excuse the dodgy photos!)…

Stall with the sign that my lovely friend Ella made for me before we headed overseas

Naturally-dyed yarns to show people what they can learn in my dyeing workshops

Colourwork cowls

Colourwork cowl

Because of the light and my dodgy camera skills, I didn’t manage to get any good photos of the pouches that I made for knitters tool or small projects. Here are a few that I took beforehand instead!

Tool pouches made from worn-out Harris tweed jackets

Pouches made from worn-out Harris tweed jackets

2. Meeting many, many folk of varying fibre persuasion, from newbie spinner and knitting-trip-to-Nepal-organizer to university lecturer to some of my biggest knit crushes… heavenly! But again, sorry but no photos- no time and social inhibitions! Thanks so much to all who made me feel welcome in this new home of mine- it was lovely to see the same, familiar faces over the weekend as we are getting so used to not knowing anyone in Glasgow ; )

3. Finding myself in a room of 200+ knitters and feeling like I was part of that scene in Roald Dahl’s The Witches- you know the one where the protagonist gets trapped with a huge roomful of witches who, once the doors are shut, all sigh with relief and pull off their wigs and give in to their inner witch nature? I’ve been around a lot of knitters in my time but this was something else!

4. Listening to some wonderful sheep and other knit recordings, care of Felix of Knitsonik– she’s wonderful!

6. Hearing people talk so lovingly about their products, animals, area of expertise or community. So much love in the building.

5. Having a couple of very quick wanders around the marketplace to enjoy other stallholders wares. I especially enjoyed visiting Helene Magnusson and Susan Crawford and talking to other newbies doing it for the first time…

Helene Magnusson’s beautiful colourwork mitten

Wonderful colourwork from Susan Crawford

Exquisite Steiner dolls and kits from new Edinburgh maker, Stoffoli

5. And, finally, picking out a few treasures for me! There were so many yarns that I would have loved to try, from local dyer Lilith of Old Maiden Aunt to Baaramewe’s Titus to the Finnish strong yarn Ohut Pirkkalanka… but I have my limits! Here’s my haul:

Hebridean/ Shetland from Ripples Craft

Acadia, given to me by the very lovely TFC owner Daphne to try running through the machine

Brooks Blend from my yarn crush John Arbon textiles: Polwarth, Alpaca and Zwartbles!

Brooks Blend DK from my yarn crush John Arbon textiles: Polwarth, Alpaca and Zwartbles!

And some heavenly oatmeal laceweight North Ronaldsay, from those seaweed-eating sheep!

And some heavenly oatmeal laceweight from those seaweed-eating North Ronaldsay sheep!

All in all, a brilliant, exhilarating and exhausting weekend! I can’t wait for next year. (Oh, and I’m going to be launching my little online shop next week with some cowls and pouches to follow so keep an eye out if you’re interested!