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A journey to Shetland and back

I am sitting in the calm, welcome sunshine resting on the small patch of grass outside my flat in Sheffield, which I have surrounded with strong sunflower plants that I grew from seeds, a sea of forget me nots, beautiful jasmines in early bud, potatoes growing in bags, peonies in bud and the hydrangea taking over. I am at my laptop setting up my June post for ‘My Shetland life’, on Patreon – the month of June in Shetland.

I remember when I first moved to that beautiful croft house in Shetland and the wonders of existence that I felt every day, until I had to leave 14 months later. I wrote a book in monthly chapters of my life that year on the island, I also wrote to the woman who had lived in the house from 1976 to 1960.

If you have ever wanted to live on an island, or move to a remote place, either as a couple or a single woman – then, you may be interested in the story I have to tell. I have released each month as a chapter, that aligns with the month that we are currently in so that it will give insight into where you live and what Shetland is like. I release the chapters on the 1st of each month. I am sitting in the city calmness, rereading my June chapter before I set it up ready for release and I wanted to share an extract with you.

If you would like to read my Shetland story, it is here – there are many free reads at the beginning of the posts – on arrival. below are two extracts, one from May and the other from June – I hope you are transported to island life.

https://www.patreon.com/Tracey_Doxey

Extract from May

It is the first day of the fifth month. I’m excited to take a seat on the small seven-seater plane to Fair Isle. The trip is easier for me than someone not living on the island but even so, it’s not a straightforward flight, which makes it all the more unique.  I’m used to the flight path from one island to another, but the close proximity of the tiny plane flying low above the land and sea coupled with the craziness of flying in something so small never ceases to amaze me.  In the small building at Tingwall airstrip, I watch the flight safety video on a small tv balanced on a table, take a seat amid the two rows of six orange plastic chairs to wait.  One of the guys who loads the plane plays his guitar in a room behind me – I hand my bags to the official man, whom I know by name, at the weighing scales to measure the weight of baggage going south (never on the return flight though), and smile.

Outside, where the plane rests on the tarmac, I wait to be seated inside, related to body weight and distribution of balance.  We don’t want all of the bodies on one side, tipping the plane, do we. Bags are stowed in the back of the tapering metal tail, behind a net.  I’m seated above the wheel and love it.  My view down is obstructed by the tiny comical looking triangular metal blue leg with two fat small rubber wheels. It’s like the spindly leg of a blue metal bird.

Extract from June 

At 1am, the horizon line between sea and sky is still visible. In the gloaming, the sky to the North is a pink stripe of clouds where the sunlight lingers between setting and rising, neither dusk nor twilight.  Suspended half-light where everything is still visible. A magical dreamlike world twists in the atmosphere. The energy of the island atmosphere charges our weak bodies. The magnetism in the environment of this northerly world is palpable. It makes me spin.  It draws me outside like a moth drawn to the light bulb.

Together, the two merging lights and the calmness of the evenings full of bird calls are recognisable as only Shetland.   

Time is like a breath.  It feels as if our island world held its breath so long during Winter and spring, that now, there is an opportunity for a gentle exhale.  

On the 12th, I do the rarest investment of time and money, I leave the island for Edinburgh for four days, and I take a small plane from Sumburgh.  On the tram into the city, I see healthy green trees for the first time in 10 months. Before my friend arrives, I drop in at the City Arts Centre and find the oil painting,  La Musica Veneziana, by Charles Hodge Mackie. So beautiful is a dome of light in this painting that I sit opposite it for some time, thinking of Chinese style lanterns dancing in the breeze above the gondola at night. The grand buildings framing half of the painting draw the eye to a life I have never known. Gondolas float on the water at the forefront. But it is the dome of light that holds my attention. It may be the lights of a building, I couldn’t say and I didn’t need to know. it’s such a captivating work that it needs time. It was painted in 1909 and I thought of Susan, living in Shetland in 1909 at the age of 33 and that if I could pick any single work of art from here to show her, it would be this painting. So that she could see something of another floating sea world so different to that of her own.

What light we lose in the winter, we gain in the summer. The Simmer Dim rolls in upon us bringing days in waves and folds of calm, still light so long and rich that they stretch my mind. The bank sides on the drive home from Lerwick, are covered in long swathes and carpets of dancing white dog daisies.  I’m shopping at Tesco at 10pm thinking it is day time and on the way home,  at St Ninian’s at 11pm, the gloaming light astonishes me – I am home at 11:20pm feeling restless, so, I nip to Levenwick beach at midnight   There are two magical lights in the calendar of the Shetland year.
One, is the cracking open of the world between sea and sky in the deep winter where the sun light spears then leaks along the horizon just before the sun rise and now, this crazy time of Simmerdim, where I am out at 1:30am looking at the sky to the North where a pink line of clouds lie suspended where the sun light lingers in a place that I don’t know about. Suspended light…

I am wondering if I actually do tick things off a subliminal list – the sun sets after midnight, ducks flying overhead quacking, a beautiful boat bobbing in the bay.  I don’t feel that this is ticking things off, this is just watching, listening, waiting, experiencing. My face glows in the setting sun light while I knit on the beach. My legs shiver with cold.  I feel it all. Nothing is missed.  I knit the sea, air, and light into this jumper of mine and I am grateful to take the risk to live here.  If I squint at the setting sun, it becomes a pointed star shooting deepest red, orange rays across the sea. The red fire ball sinks into the sea but there is no boiling water as if a hot iron dipping at the iron smiths. Suddenly a few folks arrive at the beach to witness the spectacle   I wait for the green flash but there is none, the sun sank into the sea at exactly 10:30pm having bored its light into my retinas.

https://www.patreon.com/Tracey_Doxey

The Dear Susan jumper that I finished in May, is also here

Fair Isle Vest / pullover Worksheet

I am hoping to go to Japan on an Artist residency and have created a Fair Isle vest worksheet in order for any pattern sales form this £5.75 pattern can go towards my savings for travel expenses (I may only get as far as Manchester 🙂 ) but it is an earnest start.

So, I have been busy today – 2 posts in one day – never before has this happened.

What is this post about – it is about a Fair Isle vest WORKSHEET that I have just submitted to Ravelry

Every motif that I have knitted and every colour that I have used in my original vest turned pullover and every chart that I used when I added the Fair Isle sleeve is included in this Worksheet.

I first started this knitted piece whilst on holiday in Italy, last June.  At that time, I had no plan or idea what it would look like or what it would become because I was ‘just knitting in the round’ starting with lilac and blue and green. I was using the motifs that I had developed in my Stash Buster neck warmer pattern, to play with design, colour and texture to make a Fair Isle Vest using only the OXO patterns from Fair Isle with a bright twist on colour.  

Knitting, I have realised, is a compulsion for me.  Sometimes, I try to leave it, to do other interesting things but it is not long before I am drawn back to it. Knitting is something I have to do every day – for relaxation, design, creative development or learning, for experimenting with colour but I do not knit with the aim to monetise my designs or findings.  Maybe the work develops into a pattern but it is not my first aim to design patterns – knitting is my lifestyle. If I aimed to make money from the beginning – two things would happen – pure playful creativity would go out of the window and two, patterns do not earn me an income.  A £4 pattern is cut to about £2.90 after Ravelry and Paypal have taken their cuts.  Considering the hundreds of hours that goes into a pattern, making £2.90 isn’t really the driving reason to make it.  If I only make patterns with the end user in mind, then a creative design concept just becomes a product.  It has taken years to understand how I work – A Fine Art Degree, A Masters in Knitting, travelling to and from Shetland for years, living in a croft house by the sea in Levenwick, but mostly, it is my love of colour that has developed my practice and out of this was born my online colour blending workshops so that I can teach other people how to develop their own skills in how to blend colours within their Fair Isle and stranded knitting projects.  If I can make a pattern, or share a story or idea, I do – so that others can also learn from the colours.  

My reason for finally producing a Fair Isle Vest Worksheet ,  is because I have been asked so many times for a pattern and because I have decided that the earnings from this chart will go towards my savings for an Artist textile residency that I hope to do in Japan.

I have some faithful social media followers that have been with me for years – all through my Shetland move and back to the city, all through the workshops and every pattern – we have become friends and I respect them greatly.  Janet, Lyn, Cheryl, Yve, Shona, Berti, to name a few. 

So, what have I produced here, what am I putting out into the world?

So many people have asked me for my Fair Isle Vest pattern – I have pointed them in the direction of the Stash Buster Neck warmer where there are many motifs so that they can create a jumper, like I have but they don’t want that – they want a vest pattern. But I cannot produce a vest or pullover pattern in every size that would make everyone happy.  To alter the stich count and where the motifs lie for everyone would take months.   My life doesn’t have that time and I am not a pattern editor – I have done it previously with the help of a friend from America where we spent months number crunching the Dear Susan pattern to deliver it for multiple sizes.  It is not an easy job and takes forever to check everything.   I am but one individual person – spending 3 full months designing a full pattern, at this time of my life is not what I can do.

So, I have made a series of 2 fabulous, full colour A4 charts (body chart and sleeve chart) with all the colours listed alongside, that I used in my own knitting project  – to give you the tools to make your own road map for your own vest or pullover, or scarf, or hat.

The complete charts included in this work sheet, are not a jumper pattern, nor a vest pattern.  What I have produced is a worksheet including the entire range of motif bands, built into a body and a sleeve chart with a clear centre stitch line.  One sleeve is Fair Isle patterns – the other is Aran, following the plaits of how I sometimes braid in my hair. 

These 2 large charts include 23 motifs and colours are a treasure trove of endless possibilities for you to be creative and make your own vest or pullover by incorporating them into your own favourite vest or jumper pattern.  Use any colours that you have, use any wool that you have, use 2 colours, or like me, use over 90 colours.  I am giving you a recipe for you to enjoy and work with in whatever way you want.  I am giving you 23 fully lined up Fair Isle charts to knit in any colour you choose to make your own design.  
Recently, I have been reminded of how Kaffe Fassett, in the 80’s made beautiful patterns in books and wrote, ‘ choose 9 balls of varied light colours and 9 balls of dark colours’ and people ran with that, me included.  Sometimes, he would write – use double knitting yarn, sometimes he listed the yarn and the exact colours.

If you run with these charts, you can use your favourite double knitting yarn and the jumper will be how you like it to look and feel with your favourite yarn, incorporating some or all of these Fair Isle motifs. 

My jumper is knitted in Jamieson’s of Shetland spindrift using over 90 colours – some small lengths, some longer – these colours I have had left over from previous projects.   As the colours are not often repeated, not great lengths are required.   But you can do this differently.  Use your stash or buy just 4 colours or even 2.   The choices and permutations are endless but this relies on you.  It relies on being excited to try this, to work out your centre front (which in my case, mirrored my centre back) and making sure that your motif bands align.  It is about enjoying colour, swatching to experiment for colour combinations. It is a fun package and I would love you to have a go. 

It has taken me nearly one year to design and make this jumper – it has taken 3 days to map out the motif bands and make the chart used in the body and in the sleeve and another 2 days to pull it all together. 

If you have done so, I want to Thank you for buying my pattern for the charts – you are supporting me with saving towards my artist textile residency.

here is where the worksheet is at – let me know your thoughts on this one year project.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fair-isle-chart-2

Shetland, moss and Tove Jansson

My neighbour lent me a book. Because it was only on loan, it made me read it properly and within a time frame suitable for a kindly loan.   The book is ‘Notes from an Island’ – Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietila.  It is hard back, it is beautiful, it is illustrated both with washy paintings and words. 

I have been in love with Tove Jansson ever since I read The Summer Book, which remains one of my most favourite ever reads.   I have used her line on ‘moss’ with my apprenticeship students at the Uni when they built a pillow of moss and transported it to a wasteland on the edge of Sheffield.  Their little film of moving the moss pillow book was gorgeous and reminded me of Tove – which, in turn, reminded me of the moss gardens in Kyoto – so revered and respected.   You see, life does this, from one book to another, from a line in a book to a presentation from young women at Uni, to the Zen temples of Kyoto and it is when this juncture, almost collision of past moments happen, that I feel alive.

Here is Tove’s line on Moss – ‘Only farmers and summer guests walk on the moss. What they don’t know – and it cannot be repeated too often – is that moss is terribly frail. Step on it once and it rises the next time it rains. The second time, it doesn’t rise back up. And the third time you step on moss, it dies’

Kyoto

What I am trying to reflect on here, is that ‘Notes from an Island’ reminded me of my own brief island life on Shetland.  And what the loan of the book did for me, is to read every word properly and enjoy how those words sink in. 

I was interested to read that Tove and Tuulikki (Tooti) gave small island treasures away to other people on other small islands so that they could create their own island museums, and they wrote long lists for leaving the island.  It reminded of when I was leaving and how I did the same. I sold stuff and gave away so many things – including my grandmothers Wilson Peck, Sheffield made, cabinet gramophone and the old 78’s to the Old folks home in Lerwick, where it was restored so that the people staying their could play 78’s and it would jog their own memories – I went to visit it in situ, just before leaving the Island, and they put on a Shetland jig 78 for me and I cried at the joy of where that gramophone was now homed.  I see so many similarities in the life of Tove Jansson of that small island.  The sea, the ever present sea and the changing sky.   I noted that in the 200 year old house that I bought, that some things had never changed – the doors, the floors, the window framing the view and the sounds.  Sounds of the winds howling, sounds of the birds, the deadening sound of fog – carried in the same was as 200 years ago.

I gave the woman who bought my house the most beautiful old Saltware jug with pewter lid belonging to Susan Halcrow, who had lived in the house from 1876 to 1960. Below is the last hour in the croft house, all packed up but the jug left in the kitchen where it had once belonged to Susan. I hoped that the new owner would love it as much as I had and that it would carry Susan into the house still but when I saw that she was selling Smola, and that she had ripped down the front wall to park her car and then ripped down the barn and byre, my heart broke.  I had handed over a gem and it was altered beyond recognition.  I felt that the jug had meant nothing and I should have treasured it myself.

In this reading of the borrowed book, I remembered how beautiful it was to live in Shetland, and how I was a different person when leaving – actually, a shell of myself.  How I had moved through such joy and excitement to needing to leave was a quick shift. If you are interested in reading such a life on an island, or if you are a woman thinking of living on an island in isolation as I did, or, if you are interested in Shetland itself, then I have posted my Shetland life on Patreon in monthly posts which align with the month that we are in.  I have just posted the May chapter.  If you join now, you will also get all the previous months to read too.  I loved my house in Shetland, I loved how freeing it was at the beginning and now, I can look back with love and respect of an island that shapes its people

Here is my story on Patreon. The first posts are absolutely free, but you will have to dig – they are at the beginning.

https://www.patreon.com/Tracey_Doxey

I look forward to you joining me. There is also a bi monhtly social meet up, if you have questions on Island life for a ‘Sooth Moother’

Stormy weather. time for mitts again.

I don’t know where you live but here, in Sheffield, it has rained and rained and rained and recently, we’ve had winds over 40mh for prolonged periods of time.  The weather is becoming like me experience of Shetland, except when we have 40mph winds, they have 60 or higher.

Today, I wore mitts on my bike to my yoga class at 6am – there wasn’t a frost but the cars were covered in a cold damp film. There was a small break, where the sky shone rose colours and a ball sun rose lulling us into a false sense of security that maybe spring will spring.  The rains are back this afternoon.

On Friday, I teach my online knitting workshop for Rowan connect and I am preparing – rewriting my newly devised workshop plan, setting up prompts and examples of work, swatch books to look at and use to explain  how I blend colours in my knitting. I knitted the Sea Urchin hat in Rowan yarns as well as a little mitt – then I made a little film of how to make its thumb. It took about 3 hours to make the little 3 minute video –

All of my mitts patterns have a photo tutorial how to make thumbs.  They are fun, easy little patterns, quick to knit and easy to use any stash that you have – they are great for presents and great to wear on the bike on the way to the gym. They are here, if you want to look

If you have booked onto the Rowan workshops, I will see you on Friday 😊

Keep dry 🙂 Happy knitting

https://www.ravelry.com/designers/tracey-doxey

Trust your unconditional imagination

Trust your uncondtional imagination – I heard this said, by a musician. How many of us spend the time, the real time, to see our imagination?

This morning, I write, quickly, without inhibition, my unconditional imagination – not dream, nor hope but mature, possibly achievalble yet far reaching thoughts.

What I imagine is living in an old small Japanese house in Kyoto, much like the quadrangle houses in the hutongs of old Suzhou in China, where I once lived.   I would find the perfect small place, – where I would live a small, simple life for one year.

I would learn to speak the language of the local people – every day, a little more – enough to get by.  I’d get up when it was time to rise – maybe 4am at the sound of the bell ringing at the temple, or 6am when Nishiki market is rising and I would have a purpose to understand the passing of the seasons of one year, in all of its seasonal and serendipitous times. 

 

I know where the Persimmon grows over the water but I have missed its blossom and leaves – only arriving last Winter to see  a few plump fruits left hanging on the bare spindly branches, for the birds, or for the water but I want a year of the Persimmon trees of Kyoto.  I have not seen the blossoms.  I’d like to view them, feel them, sense and respect the history of them.


I want to learn how to wear Kimono properly – I have been shown but I want to be able to wear it in my small house. I want to rake the tiny garden, hear the rain travel down the rain chain from the roof, admire the growth of moss upon the rocks resting in the raked gravel of the sea.    I want to regularly visit my favourite gardens – Dai Sen In, which made me almost cry at is beauty, Tofukuji, where I sat with the winter sun, a beautiful granny of a bride and watched the great oceans raked into the gravel with wonder at an act carried out in the same patterns for generations, or my first ever visited garden at Kenninji temple in Gion, where the guard was so used to me sitting on the long veranda facing South, in the winter sun knitting, that he began to smile.

I’d like to write the story of the seamstress, who works in the window of Old Gion.  Hope that she would begin to trust me that I am not with her to take from her but to respect and admire her skills of many decades.  I had begun to sit with the man who has befriended the heron on the river bank, I’d like to be a regular companion beside the changing year of the river, so that the birds would also begin to know me too. I’d take the time, hours and hours.

These are the things I already know exist but this is the tip.  I want find, keep finding, keep learning, keep growing as well as give and share, as I once did when I lived in China.

I’d like to just feel the unique wonder of the cultural differences until it was  no longer new to me because then, I would have emersed myself fully – grown the bonsai, joined the ladies chattering outside the theatre in their finest clothes, viewed the moss for so long that I could almost hear it grow, sat on the old wooden stools up to the make shift table in Nishiki market to eat sushi on a regular basis that they would know what I liked and I would know them as friends not as fine sushi and fish sellers,  where I would greet people in the local greeting and mean it, wholeheartedly.  I’d like to see the blossom move from south to north, I’d like to find an Onsen and revisit, I’d like to see Mount Fuji from the window of a passing train, in rain, in sun in mist.

I’d like to live a simple life with complex thoughts and feelings, to appreciate deeply from my heart –  Kyoto for one year and face what may happen – good and bad because these things don’t come easily, don’t come quickly – they take time.

This is my unconditional imagination.

April Alchemy

Hello hello April 1st, hello bank holiday, hello drizzle and mizzle hello time – just taking time.

I haven’t written an update on this blog for a while, so today, is the day 😊

I’ve been busy preparing for my online workshop with Rowan connect, knitting sample swatches, getting the colours right and making a new pattern using RFT.  My workshop is the first on the first day of 3 at the next Rowan Connect Weekend. https://www.rowanconnect.live/event/april24/summary

If you didn’t know, there are also some great complimentary sessions on the Rowan Connect weekend, when you have registered – one is with Kaffe Fassett, whom I did a workshop with in 1987 at the Hotel Russel in Russel Square in London – it’s called a different name now but every time I pass, I still remember that  weekend 37 years ago.  I remember the year because I was pregnant with my daughter. 

Today, I have just release April’s posts on Patreon.   If you have ever thought of moving from you life to live in Shetland, to a house facing the sea, then this post is for you.  Each post is a chapter from a book that I wrote whilst living there.  If you want to know what the parallels might be, then April’s post will show you the glories of the extreme weathers in Shetland.

April’s knitting post on Patreon is an update on the alchemy of knitting colour. It also has references back to Kaffe Fassett’s knitting patterns from the 80’s.

I am now thinking of releasing a chart for the Pullover that I have been knitting because so many people keep asking for the pattern.  I won’t be producing a pattern because the hundreds of hours it takes to knit, test knit in different sizes, up and down scale the pattern to fit everyone, it too much – but I am thinking of releasing a full chart of all the patterns so that anyone can knit it using their own pullover or jumper pattern – easy peasy.

And yesterday, I released a little video on Instagram. It’s got a very Sheffield based theme using the beautiful voice of Jarvis from Pulp as a backdrop, and I am wearing a few of my hats that I designed -oh and a jumper and mits. It made me really happy to make the little film, though, there were two takes because we are only allowed 90seconds of music.  (Good to have a frame to work within though)  I might do another and keep it to Sheffield based music. Maybe Richard Hawley next, or Heaven 17 or The Human League – all favourites of mine. 

Anyway, below is a link to the little film 😊 it is on Instagram

www.instagram.com/reel/C5JSt4sIumu/

I have also been on a couple of workshops myself – one for water colour painting and another to make an Easter flower ring – it is pictured below (after one week on the wall)

Happy Easter Monday 

xx

Below is the first little film that I made for Instagram, pre adding music – I had to cut this one but it was totally spontaneous and I really enjoyed making it. You can also see the beautiful Peggy Angus hand printed wallpaper which Emma printed for me.

Videos without sound are less interesting, but I think you get the idea 🙂 think of Jarvis, singing Common People and you’re there 🙂

Have you ever wondered what it is like to live in Shetland?

Well, I did it. I bought a croft house by the sea and I wrote a book. I had an agent but she couldn’t get the book picked up by a publisher.

I have been releasing the book in chapters that align to the month that we are currently in. April’s will be released in Patreon on 1st April.

In April’s post, I share how the blizzards come across the island, how the Gibbous moon hangs over the roof of the croft house, how ships shelter and the bay and how I sieved soil to grow vegetables. There is always a letter to Susan Halcrow, the woman who lived in the house I bought from 1876 to 1960, at the end of each chapter.

Here is the beginning of April’s post …

It is the first day of April.  At daybreak, the new day is gentle, unlike the last few weeks. At 5:30am, there is a noticeable absence of the winds.  The big, fat three quarter moon is hanging low, towards the South of the village. It has drawn back the tides leaving metres of knee-deep seaweed stranded on the beaches. At this early hour, the moon is setting to the South West. Its large, clear presence greets me and for the first time in years, I reach for my old camera to watch the magnificence of the waning gibbous moon kissing the atmosphere above the croft houses in South Punds.  Through the magnifying lens, I can clearly see a speckled crust with craters like chicken pox marks.   Directly Infront of the open porch door, the calm light reveals a fishing boat within my sight line as if under the stillness of a glass bell jar…

If you join Patreon now, you also receive all the previous posts – 8 Shetland posts in total taking you through every month – I look forward to seeing you join me 🙂

take a look at https://patreon.com/tracey_doxey

New Sea Urchin Pattern in Rowan Felted Tweed + Rowan Connect workshop

I’m really excited to have redesigned my Sea Urchin Hat in Rowan Felted Tweed and to be doing an online colour blending workshop for Rowan Connect in April.

In preparation for the workshop, I have been working with Kerry, from Rowan, regarding yarn colours to work with in in the workshop and to reknit the Sea Urchin hat pattern using Rowan Felted Tweed.

It didn’t take me long to finish the new hat and I was really pleased with how the colours worked together. Along the way, I had to adjust the pattern for an entirely different yarn to the one I originally used.  I knitted a corrugated rib for this pattern to show off the texture.

Here you can see the two hats alongside each other – one in Rowan Felted Tweed (RFT) and the other in Jamieson’s of Shetland (JoS).

RFT, is thicker yarn than I originally used – it’s composition is 50% Wool, 25% Alpaca, 25% Viscose and comes in 50g balls. It knits up as double knit, it’s soft and not scratchy. Jamieson’s Spindrift is 100% Shetland wool and knits up as 4ply and can be scratchy.  As well as the feel and size, the two hats turn out very differently in shape. The Rowan Felted Tweed hat is, of course, bigger thant he original.

When I first knitted the Sea Urchin hat pattern ten years ago, I used vintage tapestry yarns and the hat was just a quick project for me.  I knitted it in a number of different colour ways before going to Shetland for the first time in 2015, and finding Jamieson’s spindrift.  I still have those first hats from 2014 – they’ve been part of my design process going back 10 years.  The new hat, knitted in RFT is of similar design to my first ones. Below are images of the ones I made in Tapestry yarn.

The yarn used in any project dictates the size and shape of the finished hat. Over time,  I’ve blocked each hat in to a shape that resembled a slouching hat or a kind of beret and latterly, with Jamieson’s yarn, it was a neat beanie.

Seeing the early photos of this hat, I see a different shape entirely to the one that they morphed into over time, taking on the shape of my head through being soaked in gale force rains, being stuffed in pockets and in bags and left for months in a drawer.  When I was living in Brindister, West Burrafirth, Shetland, I wore the Tapestry yarn hat every day whilst walking around the voe on those winter days- especially in the piercing winds.

It was then that I was first inspired by the Sea urchin shells that I found in West Burrafirth, where I began to find many discarded Sea Urchin shells of various sizes and colours, left by seagulls. They were abandoned on banks and on flat, wet, mossy plateaus used as seagull breakfast tables.  All had been smashed to get to their breakfast but I was on the lookout for a complete one.  My very first complete found sea urchin shell was an exciting surprise, like finding a four-leafed clover when I was a kid.  I turned it around and around looking at its pattern. I collected any shell that was whole, even if it was broken into until I couldn’t hold them in my hands – so I used my hat to carry the porcelain like sea urchin shells back to the croft house. When I scrutinized the patterns, I saw that both my hat and urchin shell had a similar shape – the hat with a 5-pointed section crown and an urchin-like roundness and in return, the sea urchin shell looked hat-like.  When I returned home to Yorkshire at the end of 2019, I produced my first knitting pattern in January 2020, and called the it, Sea Urchin Shetland Hat pattern.

I am now loving using Rowan Felted Tweed yarn for this new pattern which is just called, Sea Urchin Hat.

The new pattern using Rowan’s Felted Tweed yarn, is here  but you can use any double knitting wool to knit it and if you do knit it, tag me on Instagram @traceydoxey so that I can see your experimental projects.

My workshop is now live on the Rowan Connect Website.   There’s lots of workshops on during the weekend of 12th – 14th April – Even Kaffe Fassett, is doing a talk. So, maybe I will see you online on at my session on 12th April  – hope so.  AND if you would like to win a place on all complimentary sessions and to my workshop at Rowan Connect on the weekend of 12th – 14th April, I will be picking one person out of a hat from the people who buy the new pattern. Closing date to buy the pattern is April 5th.

I’m really excited to be doing an online colour blending workshop for Rowan Connect because it will run completely differently to how I run my smaller workshops.

Online colour blending workshop for Rowan Connect in April is in link below

https://www.rowanconnect.net

Let me know what you think 🙂

Much love, Tracey.

Sharing my Creative Practice

Hi everyone, Firstly, I would like to say a big thank you to those who have followed my on my website for some time, and to those new people who have recently joined me on here. This is my ‘blog’ and covers topics from knitting to travel, inspiration, Shetland, my cats and my workshops.

today, it feels like a long time since I started my Patreon supporters website so, I’d like to update you on some of the exciting knitting posts that I have been uploading onto my Patreon site around the 1st of each month, since last August.

I cover topics such as behind the scenes (of knitting projects, patterns, motifs, colour blending and events) as well as inspiration, links, prompts and every month, there is a downloadable chart or charts in both colour and b/w so that you can use them with your own coloured yarns to knit in your own projects.

I started posting in August – with my first post – For the love of colour work knitting, which is free for everyone and is here 

https://www.patreon.com/posts/for-love-of-work-87220920

Then there is the first August subscribers post where I add half of the motifs that I used in the Stash buster neck warmer – both in colour and in B/W for every knitter to enjoy

September’s post shares the joys of swatching for colour – not for gauge. And I add the last of the neck warmer motif charts to download  – so now, you could knit it yourself without even buying the pattern because you have all the motif charts and all the colours.

By the time we are getting to September, I have written the stash buster neck warmer pattern, that so many people wanted and the pattern is finally launched, which I share first on patreon.

Then people on social media want more than just the neck warmer so I start adding charts of the pullover to Patreon too on the October post called Using my intuition and pragmatism.

In November, I write about finishing off and inspiration. And I also do my first pod cast chat and it is with Irina Shar – which was a bit scary for me but I loved it nonetheless.

December post begins with my love of – it is all about Shetland Dice.  – I tell the original story of my first pattern and why I used the dice patterns  – there are many images of the dice swatches and downloadable charts

In December, I post from my stay in Kyoto and there is a free little story on the needle shop and I post photos of knitting in the dry raked Zen gardens in the temples, which I fell in love with.  On January 1st, coming from Kyoto, I share how the city has inspired my love of colour and I start swatching for Kyoto Baby pattern – there are beautiful photographs fo the temple gardens and of my swatches and of the fabulous Wedding kimono that started my love of Crimson.

In February, I post about my behind the scenes of designing the Kyoto Baby hat and there are downloadable charts of the motifs.

March’s post is already written, it will be posted on 1st March – there will be downloadable charts, behind the scenes on my upcoming Rowan Connect workshop, and I will be joining a crochet group and there’s links to really interesting stuff.

So, you see, there is so much to get your teeth into.

There are  5 different levels of memberships.  The knitting level only – is £5.00 a month – cheaper thana a cuppa and a biscuit in a café – and that’s gone in 10 minutes.   Your subscription also goes towards supporting me as an artist – to continue creating.  If you join now, you get all the older posts back dated so it is a wonderful opportunity to see and read so many months of posts.

take a look at the site here. there is also my story from when I bought the croft house in Shetland.

https://www.patreon.com/Tracey_Doxey

There is an expensive tier where you get a free workshop and 1:1 tutorial with me too and I have one incredibly generous supporter who joined at this level.

Each knitting subscriber, also gets 20% discount on all of my patterns on ravelry and a discount of 10% on my online workshops.

So, if you like my work, and if you follow on here, you can get much more from Patreon –

thank you to my current subscribers. some have left, many have stuck with me. I am back, I have energy again. I am looking forward to March’s post 🙂

Let me know your thoughts

Very best wishes

Tracey

knitting and walking.

7:15am

This morning, I felt flat, deflated but didn’t know why, couldn’t figure it out.  So, just after 7am, I put the dryrobe on, over the top of everything, including a bag over my shoulder with my knitting in, to just walk.   I headed towards the damp, defrosting, dripping, waterlogged world in the woods. As I walked, I slowly knitted, because it’s a simple pattern but still, I connected with little. I neither wanted to walk, nor knit but to stand still would be worse.  There was so much water everywhere, coming through the small gulleys and streams to make large quantities of water swirling and surging and falling at great speed and I saw the tiny tree sapling hanging on by a rock, and the huge tree trunks covered in rich deep green moss. But still, I felt little.


Until, on exiting the wood near Forge Dam, I heard a whooshing noise like the sound of wheels going around and around. Upon looking up, I saw two herons, flying side by side, their four great wings making the eerie beautiful sound of great creatures in flight. And there it was, the true moment that I felt alive, connected, grateful.


Temporary. Fleeting.

all large shetland motifs in the jumper were started, test knitted and charted in the Stash Buster Neck warmer pattern.

the same motifs as are in the neck warmer, are also included charts to download in patreon.