Site specific Artist using own created textiles, laser cuts and hand block printed wallpaper to engage with narratives of landscapes, social history and place.
I am really happy to offer The Stash Buster Fair Isle neck warmer KAL to everyone who buys the pattern between now and December 2023 – and it begins today.
I’d love anyone who has bought the Stash Buster Fair Isle Neck Wamer pattern to join me in this KAL – I will be doing a free zoom chat on the pattern and the KAL on Saturday 14th October at 4-5pm UK time. if you have bought a pattern – I will email you an invite – last zoom invite will go out on 10th October.
We will all be making the Neck warmer,in however which way you want to. I have already knitted it in 20 colours, but I will now knit it in 4 (or 5 or 6) so that it is an easier option to show everyone how to develop the pattern to their own tastes. The pattern offers all 16 charts for all 20 colours but it also gives you a 8 b/w charts option so that you can knit it in any of the following ways.
your own 20 colours
just 4 colours or
just 2 colours – all of it.
So, What’s the plan?
Buy the pattern and join in on Ravelry on Tracey Doxey Knitting Patterns Group on link below – but you don’t have to join the ravelry group
The Knit along will last until Friday December 8th. – I will be knitting a second neck warmer in 4 or 6 colours so that you can see how easy it is to use your own stash.
The Yarns?
I used Jamieson’s of Shetland but this is not easy for everyone to get so I want you to use your own yarn in this project because Gauge doesn’t matter. JUST USE THE SAME YARN IN ALL THE PROJECT
Prize?
I reward starting, not only finishing. All you need to do to be eligible for a prize is post your photo of your Stash buster Neck warmer knit on Instagram or on Stranded Knits facebook group and tag #traceydoxey, or @traceydoxey So that I can see it — Prize – there will be one prize for one person drawn randomly out of a hat on 8th December. The KAL winner will win – A choice of 4 of any of my knitting patterns on Ravelry. Just tag me to go into the draw. I will be keeping a tally.
There will be a free Zoom chat with Tracey Doxey about the neck warmer pattern and choice of colours and any questions. To be invited to the zoom meeting, Buy the pattern before 10th October, and I will invite you to join me on Saturday 14th October 4-5pm UK it’s free, come and ask any questions. Say your bit. Please NOTE the last opportunity to recieve a zoom invite to the KAL chat, is 10th October.
The Tracey Doxey’s Stash Busting Fair Isle neck warmer KAL zoom chat and question time will be on the date and time below.
I designed and knitted a little thing – then a big thing. I made the neck warmer, initially because my face got cold while I was biking to the swimming pool at 6:30am every day in the Winter and spring and then, as I knitted, the whole thing developed into a swatch for a jumper that I began to want to knit – this is how my mind races. So, I spent hours and hours graphing out the charts, changing the joining sections of the motifs to fit 24 stitches, placing them in order and choosing colours, then, I just set off knitting without any real plan, though, alignment and the feel of the drape is crucial for me. I wanted a Persian carpet look using traditional Fair Isle motifs. And I got it
Finally, I put a little pattern out on Ravelry It has a lot of colours BUT, really, you can knit this pattern in just two colours because the gauge doesn’t matter, so you can use your own stash and to support that, I have added all the motif charts in 2 colour ways and in Black and White so that you can knit it in your own colour choices – so give it a go.
If you want to use the same colours as I have, you need one ball of Spindrift in each of the following colours – Peat, Burnt Ochre, Sunrise, Burnt Umber, Mustard, Maroon, Daffodil, Coffee, Midnight, Sea Grass, Twilight, Granny Smith, Port Wine, Old Rose, Mantilla, Pot Pourri, Peony, Pumpkin, Camel, Clover
But, really, use your stash – don’t leave it in your cupboard – it is a waste and share your projects with me on instagram here @traceydoxey
I am also thinking of doing a knit along on Ravelry, if enough people would like to join – I will knit the second neck warmer in much simpler colour work.
In total, there are 8 charts/motifs – each in knitted in 2 different colour ways, making 16 charts in total and 16 colours used and 4 additional colours used in the small band at the beginning and end. But, as I can’t stress enough, this is a pattern but it is also a worksheet for you to choose your own colours and use your stash of yarn – it is even called Stash Buster. For complete ease, you could knit the neck warmer, entirely in 2 colours only. For example, a light background and a darker colour motif. And if you only use two colours, you could knit it in the round – that would be easy peasy.
Take a little look – it is here and it took a very long time to write and chart this pattern out, it would be great to see it knitted by a community of stranded colour work knitters. 🙂
Thank you to every participant that attended my Colour Blending master class yesterday at The Botanical Gardens in Sheffield. A day of learning, colour and meeting new people as well as a fabulous lunch made by Karen.
At the stones, it occurred to me, that, I could just keep walking, without preparing flask, or cardigan or the right shoes, or thought for returning.
Disconnected. Thinking.
Triggered annoyance from the repetition of the act of the cat and the woman’s words
Walking and walking, over drying mud and water.
In the wood.
Until I look up and there it is, the magnificent creature. Balancing on long thin legs, poised to leave.
We look at each other for a long while. It, finding its place, in the exact present moment. Ony being here and now. A sign. Finally, I connect to something other than the words in my head. Hovering between awe and rising joy, stepping forward, only to see the wide winged heron bend, crane its neck then fly above the water, through the trees, passing the sun.
All the sounds of the world are here, water flowing, trees creaking, the earth turning facing its ground to the sun, damp rising, warmth creeping, shadows stretching, the flapping of the heron’s wings as it takes flight to leave.
Pure nature, calming my annoyed soul. Hunger rising.
On exiting the wood, warmth rests on my arm and cheek. It is as if the bird never existed, but for the feeling of joy lifted my heart.
Tonight, when I was out walking and knitting, through the allotments and the wood, I wondered, ‘Have you ever wanted to know what it is like to sell up your home in a city and move to an old croft house facing the Sea in Shetland?’
Well, I did that, as a single woman in my late 50’s and wrote the story. On Patreon, I will share my story of living in Shetland from the time I went to view the old, tiny, sea-facing croft house three weeks before signing the binding Scottish missives – from opening its original plank house door, to the day of walking away and closing it again behind me, 14 months later. Because, I had to leave it.
On Patreon, I will post the book’s chapters in chronological monthly instalments, aligning them with the month of the year that we are in currently in August 2023, with the same month in 2020. The story will start from the day I went to see the house for the first time. As time passes, the story will unfold about the previous tenants of the Levenwick croft house and my research into their lives in Shetland. I spent many hours in the archives at Shetland Museum, going back through records to the 1840’s. I was especially interested in Susan, who was born in the house in 1876 and died there, 83 years later, in 1960. In every chapter, as well as writing on my life in Shetland, I write her a letter, linking past and present. Some of the chapters are linked to knitting patterns that I designed, inspired by my croft house and Susan, at that time.
Additionally, I knit, teach online colour blending workshops for Fair Isle knitting and design small Fair Isle style knitting patterns. I only use Jamieson’s of Shetland, Spindrift yarn because of its many colours, hues and tones. Two of my Patreon tiers offer a bi monthly meet up to talk about knitting projects or my old Shetland croft house or life in Shetland for a ‘Sooth Moother’
Take a peek at the tiers and come and join me. If you do join, I will email a thank you but bear in mind, the time difference from the UK to your place and I work in between. 🙂
200 colours to work with during the afternoon session
I am really excited to share with you that I am finally runing a full day Colour Blending workshop for Fair Isle knitting, here in Sheffield on Saturday 16th September 2023, 10:30 – 16:30 GMT
The Venue is the lovely Dorothy Fox Centre, Botanical Gardens, Thompson Road, S11 8RB, as pictured below.
On the day, I will provide:-
A morning of tuition on how to blend your colours in your knitting projectes. A collection of over 200 balls of Shetland yarn to choose from to knit with during the afternoon swatch knitting session. Print outs of tuition presentation from the morning colour blending lesson. A printed Sea Urchin Hat pattern to work with after the workshop, to practice your colour blending. Graph paper to practice your colours and coloured pencils. Plus print outs of the motif for you to experiment with colour to knit your swatch.
Experience Level of participants – Anyone who can knit a stitch and purl a stitch can join this session. Anyone who wants to experiment with and understand colours within motifs. This is a morning tuition workshop plus time to experiment using your new found confidence with colour by knitting a swatch such as the examples below, during the afternoon.
This is a skills based, creative, confidence-boosting, fun, experimental, workshop where you will learn the skills to enable you to successfully and confidently choose and blend your own colours for your own projects.
The workshop is based around the tree and star motive in my Sea Urchin Hat pattern., which you will receive on the day.
During the first two hours, I will teach you the principals of colour blending then show examples of different motifs. After lunch, you will be able to experiment with the 200 Shetland yarn colours available in the session to knit a small swatch in your own colour choices.
Afterwards, you will take away your colour blending skills to create your own swatches and choose your own colours for your future projects and you will be able to look at your own stash of yarn with a different eye. On the day, I will bring examples of Shetland and Fair Isle knitting and design pattern books as well as my own swatch books for you to look at.
the session will be £80. If you would like me to send you an overview and booking form, please contact me at traceydoxey@hotmail.com and I will get back to you asap.
Excited? I am.
email me at traceydoxey@hotmail.com if you would like to be sent an overview and booking form.
This, just this very moment after finishing work, is seriously my most blissful happy moment of the week. I’ve finished my admin job, biked home, picked 30 sweet pea flower stems and balanced them in Susan Halcrow’s tiny cut glass jug. Alfie sits beside me, Teep is on my knee, colours are coming together for my next set of motifs in my pullover project (that could end up being a jumper). There are two great passion flowers out in front of me and I’m surrounded by the scent of star jasmine, regular jasmine, and sweet peas. Honestly, these simple things (and a cuppa) signify Freedom. Freedom of mind, creativity and the senses. These simple things are utterly blissful.
Knitting is many things to and for me – today, it is freedom.
I’m looking at my yarn colours, choosing / feeling my way through them so that I sense what will work in the pattern changes so that they both balance as a whole and shine individually.
Today, back in the city, this Wednesday afternoon, I feel the joy of the colours of the flowers that I have grown, from their vibrancy and scent. On my tiny slabbed area, in front of my small flat, I have grown an abundant, cascading mass of sweet peas, Star Jasmine, ordinary Jasmine, passion flowers, agapanthus and many other things. It is survival of the fittest in the tiny silly border. All the plants are growing across each other, elbowing with their leaves to reach higher. The sweet peas are so pretty, in shades of purple, fuchsia, pale pink, port, red, lilac, and white. The little jug of flowers sits on the table, the cats join me on cushions that are placed either side of mine on the bench, a cuppa, my swatch book and then the yarn begins to join the table top. The yarn comes alive and colours become inspired by the sensory pleasure of just feeling free, from not having to work again until Monday.
My knitting is not about just choosing colours from a pile of yarn, or shop but the colours come by feeling them through a sensory connection and today, it is a tiny jug of sweet peas that triggered the feeling of being free.
It is hot outside. The air wraps hot curls of heat around my bare legs when I walk in the city. It is not a day to promote Winter traditional Shetland motif mittens. But these mittens are a little special. They were designed with a wonderful woman in mind – Fiona, who had the bluest of eyes.
To everyone who knew her, it was devastating when Fiona suddenly died. I wanted to knit something to remember her by and to share her name.
Last month, I published a little pattern in her memory. for the first month of sale, 50% of profits will be sent to Macmillan Cancer Support. The initial blog is here
It is the last week before I will send the charity donation to Macmillan, so I thought that, if you would like to donate and get a little pattern in return, then, here is a gentle reminder. The pattern is in the link below
If you have already knitted this pattern, please tag me in your project on instagram, then I can share the work.
with thanks to Karen Sprenger for test knitting (bottom left image) and to Ericka Eckles for swatching test colours and gauge (bottom right image), for this little pattern.
On Sunday 18th June, I sent a donation of £188.00 plus £47 gift aid, making a total of £235 to MacMillan Cancer Support in the memory of Fiona Gray of Bressay, Shetland.
A couple of weeks ago, I gathered a big bunch of rhubarb stems, to harvest their skins because I wanted to make cord, or string. Hoping for red.
I washed the rhubarb stems in a bucket of water then tried to peel the skins off. Some lengths were successful, some less so, but I saved all the strands and hung them on a string across the kitchen window. I froze the rhubarb in the hope of making crumble when the apples come. ( I might do a crumble party – with ice cream) Crumble party in the autumn anyone?
I left the skins hanging on the string until they became dry / brittle.
After my unsuccessful attempt at making a tiny basket out of lily leaves, I turned to the red rhubarb skins, soaked them briefly so that they were pliable again, and twisted them into a length of string. (string, I can do)
I love the tactile act of twisting the natural fibres and the anticipation of what it might look like when it dries.
Above is after twisting the fibres, below is the dried little bundle a few days later. It kept most of its colour
Now I have two tiny bundles of hand made string and I am on the lookout to collect more fibres. It’s addictive. The Iris leaves are definitely going to be next and I have my eye on long grasses.
One month of knitting, writing, remembering and the colour blue.
It is the 30th April – It has been one week and one day, since the sudden death of a great Shetland friend and two weeks since I received a message from her telling me that she had just received results from a CT scan and ultimately, her diagnosis. The above post on Instagram by her daughter, Susan.
Fiona was kind, loving, supportive, honest and intuitive as well as being creative. She reached out to me when I was living in Shetland and offered me the hand of friendship and the loyal ear of a friend.
Just before I left Shetland, we arranged to meet on Bressay, where she lived. I caught the seven minute inter island ferry from Lerwick to Bressay and she met me off the boat. We did beautiful ordinary things – we went to the Speldiburn café for a cuppa and a look at her many weaving, knitting and sewing projects on view there, particularly the lace. She bought cake for Peter and us. With her, I found a safe harbour in which to share my thoughts about leaving the island. To be able to share thoughts in words with others whilst living on the island, was rare for me. A couple of people were the only ones I could share in what I was feeling at the end of my stay in Levenwick. Fiona already understood without me saying anything.
After I left Shetland, to return to the city, we kept in touch and she supported me in every way, checking in on me and joining my online workshops and follow up re group sessions. We both supported charities with our ability to sell creativity – and even at the end of February, we both sent £625 each to the British Red Cross to support the earth quake disaster in Turkey / Syrian border. I sold knitting patterns and Fiona wove cloth in the colours of both countries and made the fabric into little cosmetic purses. In February, she seemed well and active. So, it was a great shock to me that Fiona messaged me on Sunday 16th April with the saddest and bravest message I have ever read in my life. I couldn’t understand the message – read it three times then asked my friend to explain it to me. It highlighted her scan results and that she wasn’t angry or frustrated. That she had lived a beautiful life with love around her in a beautiful home. I messaged her back to ask if I could call, but Fiona had family staying and was understandably tired, so we arranged a call on the Thursday, only four days later. I sent her a little gift. But things changed, by Wednesday, Fiona was in Lerwick Gilbert Bain, hospital in and out of consciousness, so I couldn’t call on Thursday and by Friday, she had stopped eating and drinking and on Saturday morning, 22nd April, 6 days after her message to me, Fiona died. Understandably, her partner and daughter were devastated by this shocking loss; they had not left her side for a week.
I was also devestated at this cruel turn.
The decline was so fast straight after a shocking out of the blue diagnosis that I was left sifting through a thousand thoughts on loss and waste and why and how? I could hardly breathe and felt winded, almost punched by extreme sadness. The strength of my feelings, I now understand coming from experiencing the kindness of a woman who cared about everyone, her family, community and even me and now she was gone. Gone. She was one of life’s unconditional givers, she was positive, engaged and engaging, creative, loving and enjoyed her life. She was too young to die – yet, in her message to me, she said that she wasn’t angry or frustrated by the CT scan findings. But I was.
I now realise that the message she sent me on 16th April, was a goodbye.
After Susan (Fiona’s daughter) messaged on the Saturday, to say that she had died, I drove the car from the city to Bretton, to a little pub called the Barrel Inn overlooking the valley and there, the hang gliders were swooping low and rising high in the thermals. It was cold and windy – just like Shetland, and there, sitting on a bench, periodically crying, below the gliders, I truly felt the presence of Fiona rising in the winds, swirling, swooping free. She was in the wind, then, she was the wind.
I haven’t knitted anything new for some time, haven’t felt like it or had the need to but I felt compelled to try to make some attempt to capture the pure blue eyes and the joy of Fiona. I am adapting a previous pattern of mine – Smola beanie, scarf and gloves – from when I lived in Shetland. I was going to knit socks but thought they would be too chunky in shoes or boots so I adapted the pattern into little mitts. The pattern has developed into symmetry.
There have been days, before and since her death, when I have heard Fiona’s words, gently correcting any negative bias I have into positive thoughts. She had a knack for doing that, like, ending some of my sentences with – Not Yet.
Here, is to a wonderful woman – Fiona – sadly and greatly missed 1,000 miles away. Just thank you for being kind. I think I will find you in the winds.
22nd April – Max Richter – Earth Day – the day Fiona died, I started knitting.
8th May – The little pattern that I have knitted is here. It took many hours to design, write, balance, make symetrical for two hands, and knit to as good as I can make them for Fiona. A wonderful test knitter (Karensprenger on instagram has test knitted these mitts, Karen is from Sheffield and both she and Erickaeckles on instagram have gone over the text and charts of the pattern for me – both of whom have taken my online colour blending workshops and both chose their own colours for this pattern and I will share them on Instagram.
Friday 19th May – I have finally finished writing, photographing and knitting the little Mitts in honour of Fiona. Here they are with the blue glass star that Fiona gave me as a leaving Shetland present. Here is the pattern
In total, I knitted 3 mitts. The first one, needed alterations on the thumb placement and cast off. Then I made a new left mitt and then a new right one. The last one is the neatest.
The pattern includes photo tutorials on how to make the little thumb and here is a quick clip of those stages.
make a little thumb
I have decided that after paypal have taken their cut and after Ravelry have charged me for each sale – I will donate 50% of the income money that this little pattern makes (about £1.50 per pattern) over the next month over May and June to Macmillan Cancer support.
tracey doxey 