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 almost finished knitting my new design. It has a lot of gorgeous features. – Grafted shoulders, a beautiful mitred V neck band and I have just grafted the first sleeve into the body of the armhole.
I normally knit my sleeves by picking up stitches around the arm hole then knitting down to the cuff, but the reason that I grafted the tree knitted sleeve into the arm hole, is because I knitted it in the round from the cuff up and then worked the finished sleeve into the armpit. The reason for this is because I did a swatch of the tree motifs and to get them standing the right way, (trunk at the cuff end of the knit) if I was knitting armpit down to cuff, I had to start knitting the tree from its top. This is quite an easy thing to do. But, I realised from the swatch that if I knitted the trees from the top to the trunk, starting at the arm hole down, the stitches would be upside down and that really annoyed me. Here is a swatch of what the stitches would look like if I had knitted them from the armpit. Can you see that the stitches are sitting upside down in the tree motif? And to the eye, it would look a mistake when the whole sleeve was knitted and it would really annoy me.
So, I have knitted the sleeve, in the round from the cuff up to the top and it was an absolute pleasure. Detailed images will be in the pattern of the joining seam and how it looked when finished and I will release videos on how I grafted the sleeve into the arm pit.
The question is now that I am undecided whether to do a 2nd tree sleeve, which would look harmonious and cute, or shall I knit a sleeve with the tree and star motifs from the body? Or would you prefer both options in the knitting pattern so that you can choose to knit either one design or both?
So, I am having a little ‘win the pattern post on Istagram’ Anyone who comments on my post which one they prefer will get a chance of winning the pattern when it is released.
My instagram is @traceydoxey and you can let me know your preference on the post for a chance to win.
If you would like to knit this pattern but feel a little daunted, you can start very simply with the Tree and Star hat pattern which is in the link here
I am really excited about this pattern, so much care and attention has gone into it. There will be pages of charts to help you get your motifs, V neck and armpit decreases in the right places and options – for you to choose yourself to make the design more your own.
Let me know your thoughts on the pattern and if you are hoping to knit it. here is the instagram page to join in giving your idea of what the 2nd sleeve will be
Last week, I painted the walls in my sitting room. It has been difficult to get the exact right colour because of the light in the room – Finally, I landed on a Little Greene paint by the name of Bassoon. It is perfect, deep in tone but light in colour – it’s the colour of wet sand – good wet sand.
The colour has completely elevated the room and opened my eyes in a different way as well as bringing joy to the space that I haven’t felt in a long time (if ever)
Tiggy watched over my labour and didn’t budge an inch – he hasn’t faired well in this heat, so I have been a little worried about him
This morning, I am not in work until after lunch time, so I have taken time to spend with my new design, updating the pattern, rewriting the sleeve and staring at my beautiful yellow wall. I am really enjoying my new design. It will have at least 8 pages of charts to help you as an aid with decreases and shaping. There will also be 2 alternative sleeves so that you can personalise it in some way to suit your own tastes. So, on my workdesk at home this morning, are swatches of sleeves and how they will knit up and fit in, updates in my design book and I have started planning a meet up saturday morning here in my ground floor flat in Sheffield for knitters to come together, talk, learn, share and I will also be on hand to offer advice, share patterns and yarn. If that is something that you are interested in – then get in touch via the contact page.
here’s the latest pages in my design / swatch book
It would be lovely to do this full time – so if you would like to support me, please buy my patterns here, join me in my online workshops or you can buy me a kofi in this link 🙂 and I will name you when I buy the drink
Big love from Tracey – constantly learning, constantly knitting, constantly trying to make exciting work. If you enjoy my work, give me a comment 🙂
Behind the scenes, this little easy to knit jumper is coming along just fine.
Grafted Shoulders – done.
Mitred V neck this weekend and then sleeves incoming.
If you like this little jumper and would like to try it, you can practice the motif by knitting its matching hat. This jumper will be called Kaleidoscope and it is kinda obvious why. The patterns dance like the patterns at the bottom of my old kaleidoscope
If you would like to knit the hat, it is called Tree and star and the link is here
And if you would like to grab one of the last two spaces on my online colour blending workshop on 26th July 3-5pm UK time, then the link is here, just fill in the form and I will send you the details. 🙂 After the workshop, you will be able to confidently and successfully choose your own colours in any Stranded colour work or Fair Isle pattern.
What do you think so far to this new little jumper? It is a very easy addictive pattern to knit.
I set the alarm for 3am so that I could drive to Arbor Low stone circle to watch the sun rise, but I could not move at 3am, so, I lay there trying to return to sleep but the cat came in and walked up and down me, talking, wanting breakfast – then the magpies started squawking which made me get up. So, around 5am, I got up, packed my knitting and a flask and I drove six miles from home to Burbage Edge, parked the car and walked over to Stanage, one of my favourite ever places to return all my senses to the present.
The sun had already risen high to my left casting a great sun-line across Burbage Edge. It was already warm and faintly breezy. I was the only person on Stanage Edge but many camper vans were parked along the ridge overlooking the valley – what a beautiful night they must have all had.
Stanage Edge is marvelous, in fact, so marvelous that it has been used in many films because of its timeless, unchanged, Peak District Beauty. I stood on the rock edge where Keira Knightly stood in Pride and Prejucice, which can be seen here. I just didn’t have a long dress or a long coat or a panning drone camera but you have the same feeling of absolute freedom. At the trig, I looked over towards Hathersage, the valley completely unchanged for years and years.
I scrambled over the edge to the Millstones and old stone trough, a place I go many times a year to have a cuppa and knit. I never tire of it.
What I wanted to wish you, is a very Happy Summer solstice day and thank you for your support, whether you’ve attended workshops, bought a knitting pattern or and other way that people have supported me.
And I wanted to say, that on Stanage ridge, I thought that, however young or old or in between people are, if you are able to, then, get out into this wonderful world of ours and stand on edges and look out over the vista – or, just walk in a park close by 🙂
Happy Solstice.
Oh, and yesterday, I went down to the Plunge Pool at Rivelin, which is 2 miles from my home. City life aint bad – here is Sheffield city wild swimming.
For some time now, when I wake around sunrise, I look at my wall.
This is my wall this morning, as the sun was rising higher, around 6am. I have an old hand sewn cut work lace panel in the window. It doesn’t fit properly, it is pinned into place and it looks a little scruffy, but on the whole, the overall effect is that it casts a shadow across my wall every early morning. Without thinking, I turn to look at the wall, or my cat and I feel at peace. Something I realise, I did not feel many mornings when I lived in my beautiful croft house in Shetland.
the thing is, I no longer live in my dream house but I feel calm and peaceful and can live with autonomy in this city. I can also leap, when the time is right.
Here are some of my first sights in the mornings
And, if I look the other way, this is often my first sight. The one of Alfie was taken at 6am the morning before the day he died, and there he was just purring and looking at me.
Tiggy hears me wake and throws his upside down head at me wanting to be loved. And this is peace, and love.
I saw a Japanese word this morning :- UKIYU – it means, Floating World – describing the fleeting beauty of life and the art of living in the moment.
I find that just looking at the shadow of the cut work fabric, falling across my wall is such fleeting beauty that I have looked at it over many viewings totalling many hours. It is peace.
Thank you for your continued support. Happy summer, Tracey 🙂
After a weekend away for my lovely long standing friend, Nina’s birthday party in Whitley Bay, I finally, definitely picked the name for my new jumper design.
Here it is, introducing Kaleidoscope. The jumper patterns move around like the inside of my old blue marble Kaleidoscope.
I knitted on the beach and under an ice cream parlour, thinking of the name. I loved 3 suggestions from Instagram – 1st, New Frontiers, suggested by @beingshonabrown, and I loved Mearl (Shetland name for Red Seaweed) suggested by @kimartsus and I also loved Forest Star suggested by @wool.halla
But after spending some time outdoors and playing with my old Kaleidoscope, this name seemed most fitting and I am happy. What do you think?
here’s to knitting Autumn jumpers in summer, all over the place to knit life into it.
Follow for more updates of the lovely jumper. Let me know what you think of the name.
And, if you would like to knit this jumper when the pattern is out in Autumn, but would like to prepare, then the hat pattern is a perfect starter
I’ve been working on this beautiful jumper for a while – planning, swatching, checking gauge, adapting, knitting, writing the pattern, setting up test knitters, test knitter yarn box to post office, knitting and more knitting, adapting the neck, measuring and knitting more.
I am at a place where I shared it yesterday because a perfect name for it evades me.
It is all in the details of colour blending, pattern, concept and design.
I am hoping that this jumper pattern will be loved as much as I am loving knitting it. I cannot wait to wear in in the Autumn, maybe with a kilt, certainly with denim.
If you can think of a name that you think is fitting, leave a comment.
If you want to knit this jumper and would like to prepare for its pattern, then I am jumping from my Tree and Star hat pattern, which is here
If you would like to join my next online colour blending workshop so that you can successfully develop your skills to blend your own colours in another pattern and accomplish your own desires 🙂 then here is the link to my next online workshop on 26th July. I only have 3 places left.
If you have attended one of my online colour blending workshops or, if you have knitted my Sea Urchin hat pattern or the Tree and Star hat pattern, I am looking out for another interested person who could do a test knit for me.
This wool is going to a good friend of mine, Mary, who had done a fabulous test knit for me previously (the Fair Isle Hat pattern)
But, if you are interested, please get in touch with me through the contact form below (do not leave a comment as I cannot respond to a comment – please fill in the contact form provided) and please say if you have attended a previous workshop or if you have knitted the hat pattern. On this occasion, I can only work with people who have done the online workshop or knitted my patterns before. I am excited by this new idea and look forward to hearing from you.
Today, is the 26th May, a UK bank holiday. I left home at 6:50am to walk the three miles to Sheffield station and buy the tickets to catch a train to Leeds then on to Saltaire for the annual BH Arts trail open up of the houses and I wanted to see the work in Salts mill by Ann Hamilton.
In Leeds, on platform 4b, I waited for the Skipton train to be unlocked, when a young woman asked me if it was the train to Keithly. I showed her that beside the train is a platform sign which shows all the stations that the train will stop at because I didn’t know if she was familiar with how our trains run as she was from China or Japan. We entered the train together – she said that she was going to Keithly for the Haworth train to go see the Bronte house. We got on immediately with an open, relaxed flowing conversation. I asked her if she lived in Leeds but she said she was on teacher training – she asked where I thought that she was from by looking at her face, which she circled with her forefinger. It wasn’t her face that I was entirely reading. Her English pronunciation was absolutely perfect without any hint of any accent and my experience of Chinese English teachers from living three years in China, is that their pronunciation is recognisable. In China, I was never called Tracey – but Tlacey. When she said she was from China, I couldn’t help saying that I used to live in China, in Suzhou – and honestly, we are talking of a dot of a Chinese city famous for its classical gardens, with a population of 8.5 million in the huge China with so many cities that I couldn’t believe that we both had a connection to the same place thousands of miles away for a brief collision of place and timing on platform 4b in Leeds. She said that she was going back to Suzhou in 3 days so I couldn’t help but mention the special people in my Suzhou life. I told her of my Chinese Jie Jie – (Older sister) who was my landlady and her husband Shu Shu and my Buddhist friend Cai Gen Lin –these three people changed my life deeply when I lived in the old hutong lanes in Pingjiang and I still love them very much to this day, but have not seen them since 2013. I lived in Suzhou from 2008 – 2010 as an English teacher and felt very grateful for the job because I learned so much about daily life from my adult students. In excitement, on the train, I found in my purse, a business card of Jie Jie’s property rental business that I have carried since 2008 and only last week, I was wondering how I could get in touch with them as none of them speak English nor have email. My new train platform friend is called Zhang Yu, I remembered her name after she only said it once and I began to speak with her in Mandarin, something I haven’t done for years. I was catapulted back to a time and place so loved that I could hear it and feel it. We parted after only 10 minutes on the same train. I gave her my email and she gave me a silk bookmark from Suzhou. I have tried to email her this evening but it bounced back. I am hoping that she will keep in touch and if she has time, will seek out my Jie Jie and hand her the card that I have carried for 17 years. On the back, I wrote, Jie Jie, Wo ai ni. Which means, Sister, I love you.
On the top floor of the magnificent, gargantuan Salts Mill in Saltaire, is the multi-faceted Bradford supported exhibition by Ann Hamilton which responds to the space, its heritage and the future. Three different spaced out horns rotate slowly in the huge roof space unhurriedly moving towards my face, playing repetitive singing then whistling. The mechanism to turn each horn is visible on the floor. I’m here early and have the huge space to myself – I don’t know what it is all about yet but I cannot turn away, intoxicated by the layering of sound. At the end of the room, great swathes of locally-woven blue fabric hangs in great lengths held down by rocks, like a loom. In another room, huge images of faces on woollen cloth hang like banners whilst a woman in a, kind of manager’s-box reads letters written by hundreds of unknown and unnamed people as part of the exhibition to their ‘Dear Future’ this is the part of the exhibition that most interested me before I came to see it. The woman reads letters while singing can still be heard from the horns in the vast room next door. News broad sheet papers hang on rails behind each large printed doll (which are blown up images of Feve’s – tiny ceramic dolls / a small trinket or charm which used to be baked and hidden inside French cakes for luck) I have walked around the gallery and collected every news print sheet, some I have duplicated, some I may have missed – there are many sheets. I’m in love with this space. It’s a space that needs a commanding artwork within its huge vaulted roof space. Every time I come, I am in love with the immediate old wooden, oiled smell and openness and light in this huge mill which once wove wool. I’m also in love with this work which I am not quite understanding but want to, so much so, that I sit on a bench near the woman reader, to eat my sandwich and to just listen and give it all time. It is so multi layered that it really needs more than one sitting. Normally, I look at art and leave quickly. Here, I am engaged, writing with enthusiasm and speed, trying capture what this work is making me feel. And here it is.
I feel alive. A first careless rapture of something so completely new to me, that I am besotted.
I feel engaged fully. I’m not off in a rush, not thinking of some other place but I am here, in this roof space in Salts Mill thinking of my own ‘Dear Future’ Something that I have been thinking of for some time but not had a thread of where to exactly, precisely put my energy to reach a goal / aim because I am, for the first time in decades, not sure. My future aim is staying just out of reach – not unattainable but latent as if I am once again standing at a crossroads. My choice is not yet clear enough to run headlong towards it or even to quietly walk or even stumble towards it – my time future is precious as I am getting older. I am hoping that I can make the right choice. The reader in the box, reads on while pulling strings to ring a bell above the large artworks, she’s opening letters from unknown people who have written to their Dear Futures, mostly thinking of the future world,
But what is my Dear Future self? A dream or hope is forming involving heading back towards the east and meeting Zhang Yu on the platform in Leeds, seems to be a sign that heading back towards the old lanes in Suzhou and onwards to the base of a mountain in Japan is maybe the path I should take.
You know, when a piece of paper has been folded and unfolded and refolded again and again, then stuffed into a bag to get out in a cafe or on the moor or on a bench, to follow for reference – correct / edit, then folded again and, you know how the paper flops and becomes thin around the folds until it finally tears?
that’s what I love – use and working outdoors with a loved project
