With over forty years experience as a knitter, an undergraduate degree in Fine Art (1998) and a Masters Degree in Knitting (2018), my practice combines conceptual art and craft skills to explore social narratives of place, the materials associated with women’s histories and the storytelling potential of knitting.
Between 2015-2019, my projects were inspired by traditional Shetland knitted lace and the lives of women who lived in abandoned croft houses in Shetland, a remote island off the coast of mainland Scotland. I experimented with developing traditional lace patterns to produce large-scale, intricate knitted lace panels, which I installed in windows and doorways of abandoned vernacular croft houses on the island to make site-specific photographic works as a testament to the women that had lived there long ago.
In September 2020, this project provoked profound personal and creative change. I left my home in the city of Sheffield in northern England and moved 1,000 miles to live in a 200 year old Shetland croft house by the sea. I began to research the life of one of its previous female occupants, Susan (Cissie) who had lived in the house for 83 years, from birth in 1877 till her death in 1960. From this, I developed knitted designs which were inspired by both our lives on the island, and which came about through paying attention to its distinctive landscape and rich cultural heritage. As a result of this experience, I developed innovative colour blending skills for traditional knitted textiles, which continue into my current work. While living on the island, I made a daily practice of writing and researching, which culminated in me writing a book, ’A House of Two Women.’
In October 2021, I returned to Sheffield where I now draw on my Shetland experience to create intricate knitted pieces and to teach colour blending workshops in Fair Isle knitting to an online international audience.
In 2023, when I stayed in Japan for 3 weeks, I viewed exquisite screens in Zen temples in Kyoto, and found that in a world filled with noise and speed, the Japanese concept of 間 （ま、Ma) offered me a new perspective. ‘Ma,’ represents the space, gap, or pause between objects, sounds, or moments. It is not about negative space, but a presence of emptiness that enhances harmony and aesthetics.
My next inspiration, will come during my planned time in Fujioshida, at an Artist residency at the base of Mount Fuji in December 2025. I am looking at calmness, stillness and the spaces in between.
If you’d like to follow this journey with this blog, please sign up in the box below for updates – and my knitting patterns are linked below. If you would like more information on workshops, please go to my workshops page
I continue to design small knitting patterns and I teach online colourblending workshops to enable you to make your own successful colour choices for a Fair Isle patterned vest. Currently online workshops are here.
all patterns are here on Ravelry. If you don’t have a ravelry account, email me, if you would like to buy a pattern.
If you would like to read my outcome from my residency at The Booth in Scalloway, Shetland, which seems so long ago, please see link below
tracey doxey 
Hi Tracey, I have really loved reading your story and how you have used history and places to further your projects. I am just about to look at your patterns on Ravelry and give myself that glow of excitement. Thank you so much. Pauline
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Thank you 🙂
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