traceydoxeydesigns

Mono no aware

I have been thinking about the Japanese Concept of Mono no aware. Our English language falls short of a real translation for this concept, but it could be loosely be understood as – An awareness of impermanence, and / or the bittersweet beauty of transience.

My allotment has become a place of reflection in the sense that last week, I reflected that in my old borrowed allotment, I’m feeling a sense of belonging to something impermanent but deeply enriching. I have been loaned / am the temporary custodian of 5 fruit trees, raspberry and Blueberry beds and a bed that I am trying to grow vegetables in, in the allotment. Martin, in his early 80’s has loaned me the plot in his old allotment that his grandfather and father had before him – it has been in his family for over 100 years. Can you imagine that in a city of such vast changes?

In the allotment, I recognised a feeling similar to the feeling I felt on my daily visits to the old onsen in Fujiyoshida – realising that things are beautiful because they are old, temporary, inherited, and quietly passing through time. Not melancholy exactly. More like being emotionally moved by the fragile continuity of life, passed through people.

I felt it in the old onsen near Mount Fuji because nothing there was optimized or modernized into a “wellness experience.” It was simply alive with history.

And now I’m feeling the same in my allotment in Sheffield because it has the same emotional structure and yet the places could not be further apart

* old hands cared for it before me
* Martin and Liz carried it through decades and generations
* fruit trees planted by people long gone are still feeding someone,
* I am temporarily part of a chain larger than myself,

I do not have a name for this feeling but it is clear within me and I don’t want to let this tiny space go now because it is a wonderland of overgrown time. I think the name is Mono no aware.

Martin strimmed the long grass and placed plastic a chair under the tree for me.

I feel gratitude mixed with ache in the allotment, as I did in the Onsen in Fujiyoshida.

Some of the qualities of Mono no aware, could be: –

awareness of impermanence
emotional movement caused by transience
tenderness toward passing things
beauty heightened because something cannot last
continuity existing through change rather than despite it

The allotment matters more because:

other hands came before me
Martin will not be here forever, and nor shall I
I myself am only temporarily part of it
the fruit trees outlive individual custodians
the place carries visible time inside it

And the onsen comparison feels beautiful because of its non-pristine preservation and accumulation of human passage over decades and generations.

I have become deeply connected to these moments in places which carry the same depth. And, during time spent in Japan I encountered a feeling later recognisable to me through the concept of mono no aware — an emotional awareness of impermanence and continuity — which I now recognise again in the inherited allotment culture of Sheffield. I also felt it in the house that I bought in Shetland. Maybe I seek it, I don’t know but I do cherish it.

I am thinking of applying for a residency in Japan again, with these thoughts in mind.

knitting
allotment stewardship
inherited labour
ageing
temporary belonging
rural continuity
handwork
impermanence
greenery as living memory

Maybe this is “an application idea” and more like the beginning of a serious long-term artistic direction. I hope so.

New Project – Easy quick chunky knit vest.

Pattern here

If you have any thoughts about Mono no aware, let me know in the comments.

Final Build Your Own Fair Isle Vest/Pullover Workshop – 30th May

Learn how to build your own Fair Isle garment using my worksheet chart on Ravelry as a starting point – Link to chart here

I’ll be running my online Build Your Own Fair Isle Vest/Pullover workshop again on 30th May — and this will likely be the final time I offer this session.

This workshop is designed for knitters who want to move beyond simply following a Fair Isle pattern and begin understanding how to build their own garment layouts using my Fair Isle worksheet chart as a starting point.

Whether you dream of creating your own vest, pullover, colour combinations or motif arrangements, this workshop will give you the skills and confidence to start designing in a much more personal and creative way.

What we’ll cover during the workshop

During this 90-minute online session, I’ll guide you through how I use the Fair Isle worksheet chart to plan and develop a garment design.

We’ll explore:

alignment of motifs across a garment
how to use the 24-stitch repeat creatively
planning sizing and shaping
adapting motifs into your own layouts
understanding gauge and applying it to your project
colour placement and motif combinations
building confidence with Fair Isle chart reading and design

This is not a knitting session — it’s a creative planning and design workshop focused on helping you understand the structure behind Fair Isle garments.

Who is this workshop for?

This workshop is ideal for knitters who:

already enjoy Fair Isle knitting
want more confidence adapting motifs
would love to create more personal garment layouts
feel ready to experiment beyond fixed patterns
want to learn how garment planning works

You do not need to be an experienced designer to join.

Included after the session

All participants will receive:

PDF presentation handouts
20% off my knitting patterns

Workshop details

Date: Saturday 30th May
Time: 4pm–5:30pm
Location: Online
Cost: £30

The workshop is based around My Fair Isle Chart as a starting point – link here

Ravelry: Fair Isle chart pattern by Tracey Doxey

Link to book here.

workshop page information

As I don’t think I’ll be running this workshop again, this will be the final opportunity to join the live session.

I’d love for you to come along and design with me.

It’s finished

After what seems like an age, my 2nd Kaleidoscope Jumper is finished.

I wanted to experiment with using larger sized needles to see what would happen with the outcome of the size. Using 3:5mm needles instead of 3mm, as in the original jumper, gives me a 47 inch chest, whereas the first jumper was 44inch chest.

I also included small gussets at the armpits because the armholes were longer in this jumper than the original. I am really happy with the outcome – even if it feels far too big for me.

here is the original, if you cannot remember it 🙂

And here are a few images of the same Jumper pattern knitted by other people

If you would like to knit this versatile jumper of many colours, then the link to Ravelry is here

but if it feels like a daunting project, then start with the easy to knit hat pattern.

and the link to the hat is here

Look what participants became capable of making when they joined my Colour Swatch Journal Group

Earlier this year I put out the idea of a Colour Swatch group on Instagram. I was inundated with people wanting more information. Finally, a group of knitters joined me at the beginning of March for a monthly Colour Swatch Journal Club – lasting for 6 months.

I hoped people would become more adventurous with colour and even after 3 sessions, I am so excited by their results. What I didn’t expect was the extraordinary level of creativity, experimentation and personal interpretation that began appearing week after week.

I am so proud of my Colour Swatch Journal Group’s development. Here is a peep inside the Colour Swatch Journal Club private FaceBook Group where participants share their swatches and colour development.

I am so proud of them – I’m watching their confidence grow through Colour and swatch experimentation.

My swatch journal club is developmental learning – this group is develops month on month, over 6 months with a sessional newsletter pdf emailed on the 1^st of each month, including step by step exercises, inspiration, and charts, research and photo tutorials – which encourage understanding of value of colour, tone, contrast, colour blending and then confidence to run free with all their knowledge – it is a group who love to learn The Joy of Slow Colour Exploration There is also a private Facebook group to share their work and I meet online via zoom at the end of every month.

Each month, I send participants tiny experiments and developmental learning exercises – the outcomes of which I am sharing here today.

Developing A Small Swatch Can Change Everything in your practice.

Their notebooks and journals are filling up with unexpected colour combinations and these wonderful women are developing their own visual language. They are learning to see colour differently and their swatches are becoming little artworks. Their journals will be so exciting to see at the end – we will have a show and tell.

“Some participants became fascinated by…”

contrast
The Shetland motifs
garden colours and inspiration
colour blending
unexpected palettes
historical references
even experimenting with steeking.

This is What Happens When Knitters Start Trusting me to teach them how to use Colour in their projects.

The next series of my Colour Swatch Journal group sessional newsletters and meetings will start in September – so it will be a wonderful Autumn / Winter learning. And, instead of 6 months timescale, I am going to condense the exercises and newsletters into 4 months.

If you would like to go on the wait list to be sent the new information ( Around June time) then complete the contact form below and I will be in touch in June.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

All swatches are taken from my Sea Urchin Hat pattern / Tree and Star Hat Pattern and Kaleidoscope Junper – All found here

And the Fair Isle OXO motifs are taken from my Fair Isle Chart and Stash Buster Neck warmer .

Experimenting with Colour, technique and size.

Experimenting with techniques, yarn and colour has been part of my life for over 45 years. I used to knit stranded colour Work in the 80’s but I didn’t even know that’s what I was doing and that a place called Fair Isle even existed. I used to wear my crazy coloured mismatched jumpers with Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren cotton culottes ,white muslin wrinkled Westwood stockings and ballet shoes even then I didn’t know that I had a passion for experimenting with knitting or colour.

This passion developed into knitting the most intricate jumpers that Patricia Roberts designed in the early 80s on the finest 2:5 mm needles with fine Shetland yarn bought from her shop in Covent Garden London

Today, I am patient with my projects and keep adding to my knowledge as I go into my mid 60s. I am always curious – thinking what if I did this or that or the other. I hardly see that kind of thinking these days but it was how we all knitted in the 80’s.

My latest design is called Kaleidoscope- It is a jumper pattern named after my blue Glass bead kaleidoscope and because the seemingly tessellating Shetland motifs repeat in the design. I have repeatedly returned to this Shetland Tree in Star Motif – starting from my very first knitted yoke cardigan knitted in 2015 which I progressed on to my Shetland Sea Urchin hat and mitts – then working to deliver a Colour Blending workshop for Rowan, I used the same motif and their yarns.

Once again I became inspired by the colour of our natural world last year with a long avenue of beautiful cherry blossom trees which inspired the colours of my latest Tree and Star hat and my first kaleidoscope jumper.

I put this pattern out into the world as a gift because I had made it for myself and many people wanted it. The motif is a 42 stitch pattern repeat and the V-neck falls in the centre of a tree – if I increased the size of the jumper I had to consider the following. It is knitted in the round so to increase the size, you would have to increase stitches by adding one more motive making it a very big jumper and a different management of other parts of it. Such as, if I added one more motif – then the V-neck position would fall in a different place and the shoulders and armpits would also increase in size. This would mean a TOTALLY different pattern, more test knits and not many people buy the patterns for me to spend one year of my life knitting 2 different jumpers.

I decided, instead, to experiment to increase the size by using 3.5 mm needles to make a larger jumper. I was doing this to help people see what would happen, it was not a solution to increase size but an experiment -Something I often did in the 80’s and 90’s with other patterns, changing yarns and needle size. I wondered it I increased the needle size or even the what would the outcome be.

The outcome of using the same yarn but needle size change, is a much larger jumper. I have steeked the neck and the armpits, if I’m completely honest I don’t like the bulky selvedge but I also wanted to experiment technique. I have steeked before but this time, I just cut without securing the steek stitches until afterwards.

There is a little video here, on Instagram of me cutting the steek stitches. Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/p/DYH9D3ktZo0/

I have found that many knitters need a pattern to be exact for them and to include all of the yarn colours, the weight of yarn, the amount of balls, the exact position of everything and that no one really wants to experiment at all anymore. I get it, yarn is expensive – but there is also a freedom in using what you have and experimenting which, interestingly, I have done all of my knitting life

So, my last knitted piece is a complete experiment in needle increase size, colour combinations, steeking stitches techniques, and just enjoying the sheer joy of making this project running free and dictating to me how I make my changes and adaptions.

Yesterday I cut the V Neck Steek stitches and it brought a new lease of life to me and my own practice. I stayed in the whole day finishing off the inside stitches and starting to knit the V-neck. I have developed an idea for making the sleeve edges larger so that they fit neatly into and increased size armpit.

This is where learning and design begins. How do I make this project work?

I’ve looked at it so long that I partially wanted it just finished. I also partially still don’t know what’s gonna happen with its outcome – but I planned out the V neck stitches and the sleeve increases and gussets on the back of a houmous packet – so I reckon, ALL IS WELL

If you would like to join me in my May online Colour Blending workshop, the link is here

Link to Online workshops here

And, of course here are all of the patterns mentioned above.

ravelry

New allotment beginnings.

After the rains of yesterday and after the ground has cooled down during the morning releasing that wonderful heavy scent of petrichor, in the afternoon a faint mist rising as a result of all the elements of rain, soil, warmth, and I am in my own elements.

I have been loaned three beds in one of the oldest established allotments in the city which has been managed by Martin’s family for over 100 years. He is 3^rd generation. Can you imagine that? In the city of Sheffield, what these allotments have seen and hear. I am delighted with my small allocation which houses, at the edge, 3 old cooking apple trees, 1 eaters, 1 plum and 1 pear tree. I began by digging out the one and only bed that I think I can plant – the middle bed being full of raspberries which are my favourites and rhubarb which I can ignore and the last bed is full of blueberries which actually sadly look a little bit worse wear. Beyond my three little beds are three more on a lower tier and then three more and a greenhouse where I am the proud overseer of six tomato plants and a shed full of accumulation. Honestly, this simple small plot has given me hope – I am in my element.

After while when I rest with my flask of tea, the humidity of the weather and the vast greenery of the area rest upon the bare skin of my arms. The plants are still covered in the rain drops from yesterday’s 24 hours of constant mizzle. I begin to have a few hopes for the blueberries and I cannot wait for the soft fruits to grow. I will bring my knitting down here. the other allotment folks will get to know me and I will get to know them. I will be seen as a small part of a very large Community and I welcome that.

Here is to a healthy summer.

I have forked and dug and raked the single bed for planting and added onions, spring onions, broccoli and cabbages. I don’t even really eat cabbages but the Deer and her baby will like them.

I return to this tiny plot every day. Each day is different always the birds are singing always it is lush and green but on the fifth day there appears a calm in me whilst I knit beside my baby cabbages starting life under the net, next to the apple trees where a gentle breeze is blowing blossom petals across the beds. I have knitted in some places in my life but I think that this is the most stable, close to home, open to nature, light, and growth.

I have just opened a May Colour Blending workshop on 31st – there are only 2 places left, if you would like to join. Take a look at the content of the session here.

Online knitting workshops – tracey doxey

Beltane

On thursday evening, I set my alarm for 3:45am on Friday morning so that I could get to the meeting place at 4:45. Surprisingly, there was no need for the alarm because I woke at 3:30 and wondered if I’d missed it – IT being Beltane Gathering, high on a hill overlooking the city.

The sound of bells could be heard in the pre dawn light, lanterns were being lit and people gathered to walk in a line through the wood to the platform. I was in my hightened state of pure joy where elements meet – the unknown, a gathering, darkness, lanterns, masks for Beltane – moving from Spring into the first day of Summer – or May Day

It was my first time, not quite a novice but not a pro having not made a mask nor lantern due to other committments. But, I did make a rose flower crown from out of date roses. The hum and chatter of everyone walking in the semi darkness came alive at the top, with Morris dancing, singing, music and people dancing. It felt like another world

Until the song to welcome in the summer was sung then everyone danced and slowly went back to their ‘normal’ lives – the sun having risen, each person carrying their own beautiful rare internal feeling of being part of something so special and joyful that everyone was happy.

I left with a great feeling of hope.

There is a little film on instagram – here https://www.instagram.com/p/DXzKoGFtp6Z/

Walk on the wild side.

Yesterday, I decided to nip out to Stanage Edge for a walk to the Millstones. I post about this location a few times a year. The last time I went was 8^th Feb when I was Fog chasing.

Yesterday, 2^nd April, was a beautiful crisp cold day in the city and when the sun started to rise, I new I needed to take my knitting, beat the tourist cars in the car park and revisit the stones.

Apparently, throughout the Peak District, there are more than a thousand abandoned millstones, covered with lichen and moss, weather-worn and often hidden to all that pass by. I remember going to a quarry near the base of Stanage and the place was full of them – all hand made, all abandoned dating back to the 18^th and 19^th Centuries and were once used to grind grain into flour for use in the mills in the area. I don’t know of any mills except Baily’s grain Mill in Matlock that now houses some very elegant flats. All of this history lying around on the ground that we all take for granted as being part of something that we don’t really have the curiosity enough to check out.

The stones are huge – about 1.8m in diameter and lie where they were left. I will start to research them and bring to life some local history – for me, for you, if you are interested.

But for now, these are my favourites and I have many happy memories going back over 40 years, just at these very millstones and old stone trough that face towards Hathersage and Hope Valley. I take my knitting, a flask, and time.

This summer, I think I will go on small millstone tours in the Peak District which borders Sheffield – starting just 6 miles from my flat and is a place I grew up in but I haven’t seen as many of the stones as I would like. This is the year will be my year of the round stones.

Oh, yes, as an Easter offer, I would like to thank everyone and have offered 10% off all of my knitting patterns, which doesn’t seem much on a £4 pattern but when Ravelry and Paypal take their cut, it is, indeed a small gift – Even the Kaleidoscope Jumper, the alternative sleeve pattern and Fair Isle long hat and the Chunky knit Vest are included in the offer for the first time. Happy Easter break. Maybe go look for your stones.

Thank you for your support over the last year and if you are interested in checking out my patterns – there is a 10% discount until Midnight UK time, tomorrow night – 4th April

Link to Ravelry patterns is here Ravelry: Designs by Tracey Doxey

Different ways to knit the Chunky knit vest

See the many ways in which people have used their own stash to knit the Chunky Knit vest Pattern. Ravelry: Chunky Knit Vest pattern by Tracey Doxey

Some of the times that I have visited these stones over the last year

Easy Aran weight Pullover

I would like to say a big thank you, if you have recently purchased the Easy Aran Pullover pattern.

I designed and made this jumper when I was living in Shetland. It is a very easy version of the Dear Susan pattern that is in 10 sizes. The Easy Aran is in just one relaxed size.

Quite a few people have recently bought my Easy Aran Pullover pattern and I have seen some very lovely versions on personal colour choices of the knitters. they can be seen in projects on Ravelry.

I designed this jumper with people who wanted an easier option to make a traditional Shetland motif yoke sweater and the result was a very lovely go to jumper.

The pattern also has a 10 page story with it, about my life in Shetland and a woman called Susan Halcrow, who owned the house that I bought from 1876 to 1960

Living in Shetland seems a long time ago now but I do know that my time there shaped my thinking and design ideas for my patterns.

Here is the Easy Aran Pullover https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/easy-aran-pullover-2 Let me know if it is something that you would like to have a go at. Happy knitting. Tracey

Above is a beautiful example of the Easy Aran Pullover, knitted by charhutchw on Ravelry. The image shows how much you can make it your own.

outdoor knitting.

If you have been following me for a while, you will know that my favourite place to knit outdoors is beside the abandoned old millstones at the bottom of Stanage Edge. I have been going for years. After 7 weeks of solid heavy rain, this morning, there was a hint of a tiny blue sky so I headed out for Burbage Edge to walk to Stanage. This is what it was like

I must admit, the extremity of it all was magical. So many people were out on the moors walking, running, mountain biking – it is a gritty, strong city here.

I don’t think it was total mist and rain, I think the clouds had dropped to cover the entire moor and rock edge.

at my favourite place, I sat beneath the shelter of the overhanging rocks to knit, drink tea and look at the moving wetness. Everyone seemed moved by it.

Afterwards, my knitting was wet with cloud and mist. It smelled of Lanolin and the Peak District. How lucky are we in this country to live near such peaceful places when the world is in deeply sadening pain – and we feel it.

Kaleidoscope jumper on the hand made stone trough beside very old abandoned millstones.