This morning, a couple of my favourite things collided to make me being in the right place at the right time on a beautiful sun sparkling morning. I walked to a favourite spot to knit at sunrise.
About 5 miles and 10 minutes from home, lies Burbage car park and bridge. From there, you can walk across the moor to Stanage Edge, which overlooks the back of Hathersage and North Lees wood and far into the distance, Hope Valley.
I’ve been coming here for years and years, to walk, sit, eat breakfast on Stanage Edge, chase fog, climb, or to knit during the golden hour of sunrise. Today, was the first frost of the year and in my tiny flat in Sheffield, I knew that the moor would sparkle. It is so close that I can walk it, cycle it but today, took the car to Burbage and walked the short distance to a trig point high above old millstones, which date back to the 18th and 19th century, used to grind grain into flour, left discarded in some once used quarry area. I love it in this place. Everyone who lives within a 50 mile radius knows of these stones, though many lie buried under grass and moss.
These few that lie just below Stanage, beside an old water trough are my favourites and I often visit, sitting on the same rock with my same thermos, to knit and take in the splendour of this small valley next to a city.
Anyway, last night, I grafted the shoulders of my latest Fair Isle Pullover and took it to the millstones to start knitting the neck. It was such a beautiful morning at golden hour where every rock was casting its own shadow from the rising sun. The short grass glistened with crystalised frost. I knitted for some time then went to Hathersage for a cheeky breakfast at Outside Hathersage café, which was full of climbers talking of their chosen climbing routes.
It’s a lovely place to be, to knit, to see the world. Stanage Edge, bordering Sheffield and Derbyshire. Come visit. Bring your knitting.
In these beautiful crisp Autumn mornings slowly opening up to warm, sweet afternoons, clear sunsets and most recently the large orb of the super moon rising, I have once again, picked up my second Fair Isle pullover which I am knitting with my sister in mind. It started off in the colours that she loves – black, grey, with highlights of navy, mustard and dark red but I was slowly sinking in the monochrome of it all. Without thinking too much, the colours have become richer, using darkest navy as a full-bodied colour rather than a highlight.
The pullover is, as usual with my knitting – a passion project with a story. If you haven’t read the beginning – it is here.
The most resent result is an overall slightly mismatched look, which I am completely aware of – a little like the character of a person, moving through moods. But, on a practical level, the colour change has meant that I am now back in love with this time-consuming knit.
I have packed this project in my backpack and unfurled it at cafes, and on Stanage Edge to watch sunsets, at Chatsworth – sitting below all the ballons taking off, and anywhere calm that I might knit and take in the surroundings and the work through my hands and fingers. The jumper takes on the environment within which I knit.
I am still working on the Japanese concept of Ma – the space and silence between all things and this pullover embodies that considering the space between my sister and me. It taking shape into something just as abundant as the first one but a very different visual character / experience.
I am using my Fair Isle Pullover chart to complete the jumper in exactly the same way that I did the first – the images show the results so far. Let me know your thoughts on colour.
It is a calm Saturday, overcast with a little breeze. I googled the sun and is listed to be out above the city of Sheffield later this afternoon. I have wanted to try something for some time, thinking of home. My cyanotypes have mostly utilised pressed flowers and photographic negatives from when I lived in the hutongs of China, all of which rely on the sun to develop the image. I have mostly worked in the studio but have a small amount of papers that I coated last night, and they are under my nose.
Surprisingly, at 8am, a break in the clouds allowed the sun to break through and cast a brief shard of light across the floor of my tiny flat in Sheffield. Alfie watches on as I place the two objects from home, made of etched glass or crystal, into the shard of light. The crystal glass was Susan Halcrow’s. I tear a pre prepared paper in half to experiment with what I have – a brief moment of sunshine, two objects, my floor and a little hope. Here goes.
The sun gives me about 3 minutes, not long enough to develop a clear image. I don’t move, the sun reappears, Alfie lies down and I hope at the wonder of what might emerge – in total I have only about five minutes of sunshine which matches my impatience.
While I wait, I’m thinking of the shadow moving across the paper, even a small amount will blur the image, if the image will take at all and then I am thinking of the movement of time – the Japanese concept of Ma, ( the space and pause between all things) that I am interested in and I watch as the sun hides again, the paper is cast into a shadow and a faint image is exposed upon the paper. I take my chance.
This is one of my processes. Experimentation – either with wool, colour, photography or cyanotype – to take a chance in the moment, with what I have to hand.
In 2023, when I stayed in Japan for 3 weeks, I viewed exquisite screens in Zen temples in Kyoto, and found that in a world filled with noise and speed, the Japanese concept of ‘Ma’ offered me a new perspective. ‘Ma,’ represents the space, gap, or pause between objects, sounds, or moments. It is not about negative space, but a presence of emptiness that enhances harmony and aesthetics. I am now constantly considering the concept of Ma, I have since resumed my craft and technical skills of wallpaper printing from my time as Artist in Residence at Sheffield Institute of Art (2019). My current body of work is delicately pressed flower botanical prints and encompasses hand-printed wallpaper, cyanotype botanical prints and the concept of Ma. I am working with my own pressed flowers which at first, I rushed to position in fear of losing the sun process to develop the print, but now I am considering, ‘Ma’ within how I work.
Here I am, on a Saturday, in searing heat, down in my little studio in Sheffield.
I am excited to share the new panels of botanical cyanotype prints that are full of risk and joy. Firstly, I spend hours finding flowers then pressing them. They’re pressed under all manner of heaps of cardboard and wood until they emerge, almost flat. I say almost because I am choosing very chunky buds and flowers like the long tall stem of a Hollyhock with varying depths of bud, seed head and stem and slim leaves – which causes issues with pressing different depths of flower. And then there are the wonderful huge fluffy yellow daisy flowers which, when pressed, and gently removed from the paper that they have stuck to, they disintegrate. I have one long stemmed small sunflower that I hardly dare look at, squashed between paper and wood.
The African Lilies didn’t fair well either, when I lifted them from pressing, their petals fell off, so I printed them with falling petals, like tears.
My flower cyanotypes are subject to risk and mishaps and then there is the sun. The sun is vital in the developing process of the sheet and when breeze joins in, my carefully pressed flowers blow across the yard of Bloc Studios and I don’t know whether to collect the hard earned flowers or pick up the half baked cyanotype.
I have been in a wonderful development phase which has opened ideas to working at Carousel Studio here in the city, with their UV light box, because the sun won’t be strong enough to process the development of colour in a month or so. And, it will be out when I am at work – I cannot turn the sun on 🙂 The strength of the sun and the length of time of shine on the developing cyanotype, all make a difference. Here, you can see details of sections that worked through lengthy sunshine exposure.
below, the print is slightly lost through less exposure, but I also like the ghost like finish
I am excited by the results and my process and new ideas from my cyanotype prints. If you have been following me for some time, you may remember my first wallpaper prints which were Shetland lace patterns, and are here in 2019, when I wallpapered the inside of an abandoned croft house in Bressay as a testament to the women knitters who one lived there.
I planning further development of my process in printed wallpaper to include lino cuts and silk screen printing and gold leaf. Maybe even golden petal tears. And I will be showing the panels in Flower shop and concept shop windows.
My field of Art has been knitted textiles for a long time, including a Masters in Knitting at Nottingham Trent University 2016 – 2018. I often placed my knitted textiles into the landscape to create site specific photographic art which explored the social histories of women and the making of knitted articles.
I am currently working on a wall based knitted jumper piece called, ‘I Cannot Reach You.’ It is taking into consideration the Japanese concept of 間 （Ma) – the silences and the spaces in between all things, and relating it to the relationship between me and my sister.
I would like to learn about the meaning and concept of the Japanese word Ma 間and relate it to the way in which I experience life, don’t you think it would make life fuller? We do not have this word or meaning in England and to look at the spaces is as interesting as looking at the solid things.
I would like to explore what ‘Ma’, looks like to me, in the space between all things and use textiles and print to express my new understanding of this. If you are Japanese and have and wisdom to share, please do.
I have recently started to develop Cyanotype prints using pressed wild flowers to create images that are often half present, a little ghostly. I am looking at making wallpaper strips to utilise the cyanotype printing process to create the deepest blue papers with hints of British wild flowers, to look a little at the spaces in between in the prints. Yesterday, I made to sample strips out in the yard at bloc studios, where I have a small space to work.
Currently, I am experimenting and, as you can see, the process is open to risk and failure, but the two wallpaper strips are becoming more loved by me because of the spaces in between. One has less impressions of the flowers than the other due to both my impatience of removing the flowers and due to the wind shifting them but maybe just pure blue is lovely enough with a hint of a story of flowers in smaller areas – less ‘gilding the lily’ to speak.
Today, I hung the papers on my wall at home to really look at what is present and what is a faint mark only, and what is in the spaces. I like the results, in some way, they remind me of the Japanese screens that I saw in the temples in Kyoto. But maybe I need to make them more sparse. Let me know your thoughts.
If you would like to join me in my next online workshops, they are in the link here.
If you would like to contact me about hand printed cyanotype wallpaper strips, please do so 😊
If you would like to follow me on instagram, where there are lots more images, then, I am in the link here
I have posted previously, that I am currently working on a textile piece called, ‘I Cannot Reach You.’
It is a piece about the space in the relationship between me and my sister. The knitted piece will also encapsulate the Japanese concept of Ma, the spaces in between 間 （ま、Ma) the silences, the unspoken past, the misunderstandings in the past and present, it could be in the silence when I hear the sound of a cup being placed in a saucer during a visit. Ma is, the things we know but never say.
My sister and I were born eleven months apart, I on 26/06/1963 and she on 27/05/1964. Our mother dressed us identically for about 12 years until we probably tried to impress our own tastes upon the clothes we were wearing. At that time, my Grandad enjoyed the latest photographic technology available to a working class man – a small camera then a polaroid camera. He took many photographs, particularly in 1970 when I was seven and my sister six years old. In the photographs, my sister and I are beside each other but rarely touching – there is an unspoken physical and emotional space between us. All of the images were ‘set up’ in a way that my mother wanted to show that she dressed her daughters well. In the empty space between my sister and I, there seems to be a lack of intimacy or connection, we are not smiling in any of the images. I remember very little of growing up but I do remember the feel of every fabric of those clothes. Clothes carry so many unspoken signifiers – wealth / or not, clean / or not, fashionable / or not, comfortable / or not. I cannot remember much about my childhood.
Here, we are ‘well turned out’, as my Mother would say. For years, our Nana, my mother’s mother, knitted us identical cardigans to match the identical dresses. She used the wool available to her in those days – nylon from Woolworths.
For one month – from the end of May to June 2024, my sister and I are both 60 years old and are very much ‘like chalk and cheese’. I love my sister dearly and carefully, and she loves me, but I cannot reach her. Our love is not one of laughter or discussion or going places together or tea time calls or spontaneous catch ups or quick visits or trips away together – it is one of careful organisation of a preplanned time and place and length of visit to suit my beautiful sister, who has begun to shut the world out. And, believe me, I can understand that. I cannot reach her but I try. I wait, I hope, I try to reassure but, all I can do is be beside her for just slightly more than one hour at a time that she can manage and I have learned to understand that gift of time. Being with her makes me very happy.
I have initially, knitted something that is recognised as a jumper but it isn’t only that. The wearable, knitted jumper sits well within the intersection between craft / skill / materiality / wool/ textiles/ conceptual art / family / sister’s heritage and cross cultural discussion. ‘I Cannot Reach You,’ is an expression of the space in between us, using the medium of a skilled knitting practice to produce a jumper, that could be for me to wear but that it has a name – ‘I Cannot Reach You,’ it has one sleeve knitted slightly longer than necessary, ending in a knitted glove. The second sleeve knitted in plaited and aran knitted stitches – I chose the Fair Isle for its intricacy and my love of Shetland culture and I chose the Aran sleeve to represent how I plait my hair. Giving the jumper a name, never wearing it and placing it upon the wall, makes it art, right? Textile Art. Now, I am knitting a matching jumper in identical patterns as the first 100 colour piece but this time, it will be knitted in the colours my sister likes, with a blackberry or plain knit sleeve to relate to my sister and how she wears her hair. I hope that one day, we can both wear our respective pullovers and stand closely side by side. Without a space between. But, at the moment, I feel that when the second pullover is finally finished, both will be hung side by side, not touching but with a space in between. Ma 間 （ま、Ma)
If you are interested in the Fair Isle Pullover worksheet, it is here in the link
This weekend, I have watched two films online – the first, Jo Jo Rabbit and the second, ‘Hunt for the Wilder People’, both directed, (amongst many other things ) by Taika Waititi, a New Zealand Film Maker, then of course, I looked up Taika and watched his TedX talk from 13 years ago and already saw the influences from his part Jewish back ground in his writing of Jo Jo Rabbit, and in which he stars as Jo Jo’s imaginary friend, Hitler.
In his TedX talk, Taika, says all of the things he does, ‘they’re all tools’ he painted, wrote poetry, made films, travelled, was a comedian and all these things visibly influenced his work then and now.
I looked around at my tools, knitting, crochet, travel, drawing, photography, writing, sewing, colour, landscape, and noticed that, of course, these are my tools. The tools I am bringing to my new studio -which, at the moment looks slightly hopeless on the output front. I am playing with cyanotypes from attending a small workshop here in Sheffield. My hands are dry from washing papers out in water, the washed out liquid colouring my fingers. I wondered if the studio is one expense too much for me because I will not earn from it. And yet, here I am, on a quiet Sunday afternoon, after visiting the Buddhist Centre at Walkley’s, Summer Fair, I am here, present, in this tiny room with windows on both sides, sunshine pouring in, Gorecki Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, playing to me and I am content.
I’ve opened my tin of Lomo photographs from when I lived in the Hutongs of Beijing, the winter of 2010/11 to remind me of the far off places that I have been and to bring a thread of future travel here in to the old steel works building – which embeds me in Sheffield.
I am learning new things and Ideas are coming, practice led ideas but for now, I am excusing my inability to produce anything profound, by say, ‘ I am playing’, though for how long, I do not know.
If you are in Sheffield and want to come and visit me, get in touch. If you would like to support me, then please buy a knitting pattern, this will help pay for my studio 😊 the patterns are here, and very good. The patterns are here
I am making cyanotypes with all the pressed flowers from my garden and from hanging over walls in the city. This is my favourite one so far. I actually like the accidental finding of washi tape that is holding the tiny daisy in place.
When I moved to Shetland, I just flippantly mentioned, ‘write to me’ in one of my instagram posts after I shared my writing space in the croft house. Over 100 people sent postcards, this time, it is different. I am in the city, but I am still me.
Today, I am in an old steel works in Sheffield, If you fancy sending me a postcard from where ever you live, then I would love to receive it. I am in
Studio 10, Bloc Studios, 4 Sylvester Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S1 4RN
Tiggy out on the lane outside the croft house I bought in Levenwick.
July, I made the decision to return to the city and share the reasons why.
July starts like this:-
July – Shetland
A month of sea swimming at Levenwick, at Spiggie, then on the west side.
Vegetables growing in builders’ sacks that I filled with sieved soil, in the roofless byre.
Speckle of Wild purple orchids peeping out of the long grass.
A long line of sea urchin shells residing in my newly painted deep bathroom window sill.
I return to sit upon a hill, by the sea, where the gulls drop the sea urchins to crack open for dinner – it is, Sea Urchin hill.
The old flagged back yard is dug out and cleared of a hundred years of weeds.
I cradle a large hedgehog curled in a great ball in the palm of both my hands, at Sumburgh Head where the fog horn sounds and the light spears out in the night.
The beautiful gift of a full Fleece from Francis, shorn from a ewe that I greatly admired daily in his field.
The most exquisite incomparable morning light over sea and sky.
The return of heavy fog for days and days.
I write ‘worry’ in the sand at the beach and let the sea wash it away but my worry still lingers in every moment.
The ‘Dear Susan’ jumper is finished – it glows upon the sands
I met with Hazel Tindel in town. She lifted my spirits and didn’t know that I had felt so low
Reading Saturday’s guardian on the bench on Sunday, a Sheffield potted baby oak tree at my feet.
The inside of the understairs cupboard door is papered perfectly with the wallpaper that I lifted from the derelict house.
My first intrepid knitting visitors to the house for a colour blending workshop are welcomed – A hint of things to come.
A visit back to my city of Sheffield, where a daughter meets me for 3 hours from London and I know. I just know.
Here is the beginning of July’s post – extract
Moments on the edge
Have you ever driven to the very edge of the rock upon which you live, so that you can see the curvature of the earth on the horizon in the fading light of the day? To sit, to knit, to think, to feel? To Be grateful for this roller coaster of beautiful life? Have you sat still long enough to hear the call of a thousand birds beneath the whir of a lighthouse light gently turning and the sea slightly roaring below your feet? This is where time stops and the world slows down.
I had begun to think that I am not happy, that I have little happiness in my life, so I decided to note any moments of happiness in a diary – so that I might recognise all the small moments that make me happy during. The happiness is fleeting, brief but those moments add up to make the days with happiness inside. By reading the logs in the diary, I regained that small moment and it made me happy again. here are my logs from the last 5 days.
Happiness Diary 2024
23rd June. 8am
The early sun warms my face and arms whilst I knit quietly on the bench out front and Tig preens himself gently purring by my side – not quite touching me but connected, non the less. He allows me to hold his paws, moving through each one individually. I admire the splaying of his toes and claws in his comfort and watch his flicking tip of his striped tail. My favourite thing is when he crosses my lap and his hair arms brush over the skin of my forearms; I never move, I wait for the brief touch, whilst quietly knitting on the bench out front.
23rd June
The pleasure of a working, functional, above adequate shower for the first time in my tiny bathroom.
23rd June
Talking with my neighbour, J, about cyanotype and giving her a small print that I made at the workshop yesterday, of a daisy cluster – it’s not so good yet but I like it enough to give it.
23rd June
Came home at 2:30 to Jess’s birthday present on the doorstep. It’s a fit bit watch and scales – it took me 2:5 hours to set it up from watching youtube videos, having to launch a new gmail email and linking app to watch to scales to me. I had a real sense of achievement and perseverance and problem solving and after it was all working, I biked to the gym and swam for half an hour then biked back. What the watch can do, lifted my spirits. It is a very generous gift and what makes me happy is the love of a son to buy it, my ability to finally get it all working and that it lifts my energy because it is watching me.
24th June
The first cut of my sweet peas, placed with tiny stems of scented mock orange blossom in a green glass vase – makes me deeply satisfied.
25th June
Laughing lightly, connecting briefly at work with a work colleague over something that seems ridiculous.
26th June 6:30am
Cycling, through the mist, on my way through endcliffe park, I see a great young heron fly overhead coming to land in the pond, only to lift again and gracefully flap its wings to lift high. Such beauty.
26th June 10:00am
It is my birthday, I am 61 years old. On passing the place where Mr Beddoes rests at Edensor, Chatsworth church yard, I move away the weeds and say to him, 24 years without him in my life. I rise to walk into the church, and there it is – a patchwork quilt that I made in 1991, stitching over the signatures of 250 people including Dukes, Duchesses, Earls, local estate workers, Vicars, mothers, sisters, daughters, sons, brothers and fathers. All there, I charged £2 per square and donated over £500 to a charity that I no longer remember. But the quilt survives, on the back wall of the great church designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, such memories flooding back from 33 years ago, many people now long gone.
26th June noon.
I went to meet my beautiful sister and immediately, she talked over her sorrows. It makes me love her even more.
26th June, 4:30pm
Arriving at Verity’s house on my birthday, to a banner of bunting spelling out Happy Birthday, and beautiful ice cubes in the shape of flowers with strawberries inside and a plate of beautiful cakes, the table set in the garden with cloth and napkins made me very happy. Such care and love and attention just for me. I greatly appreciate Verity who has been a friend since 1998. And, I love her too.
26th June – 8:30pm
Talking with Patti, on the phone about happiness. How the briefness of fleeting moments of love or beauty or learning new exciting experiences and creativity makes me happy. She told me about her solstice morning at 4:30am and that made me happy that she had experienced a magical moment.
I began to look back at the few logs I had started in my happiness and realised that they are fleeting, maybe 2 or 3 minutes each but that every day, I am happy when I thought that I had not been. We also talked about the analysis of the moments that had made me happy and I realised that they fell into 3 categories, Love, beauty, and learning/or new experiences. We cannot create happiness moments but to understand what makes us happy can surely help.
Such a lovely birthday, filled with simple, happy moments of joy and surprise and beauty.
27th June,
Sitting outside Park Hill flats at The Pearl, with a cherry bakewell and soda split between my work colleague Jane and I. sitting in the sunshine, feeling free, talking and laughing with such iconic architecture in the background, made me happy.
28th June.
Lying on the bed, beside my old cat, him curled tightly in a circle. I touch his head and he uncurls his body, shifting it into the negative space between my chin and chest. He purrs, his little old paws unfurl, he kneads the bed sheet in satisfaction. He is old, he is safe, he is happy. This makes me happy.
28th June
Picking the 2nd cut of my sweet peas and any individual pretty flowers from my tiny border of flowers, to place in a glass, on the doorstep mat of my neighbour. 😊
28th June
I was walking from the gym in the gentle breeze and faint sunshine, I realised that I was singing to myself. I felt it, that brief but discernible hint of happiness – just sitting above calm and content.
I write the moment into my diary and think of how much happiness I can fill inside this small book. That makes me happy. So, can thinking about happy moments, make me happy? Can I lift myself by reading past happiness?
28th June
Seeing two young student girls bending down, talking to Alfie on the pavement outside my flat. So cute, so caring – when Alfie normally avoids people.
I lived in Beijing for the winter of 2010 and used 3 cameras, my favourite being my plastic analogue Lomo camera. The beauty of Lomo images is that you don’t know if you have captured anything at all on film, or if they will develop and when you get your little pack of prints, all of the images are a beautiful surprise. Yesterday, I got to look back at my lovely Lomo images from the time that I lived in Beijing and Suzhou, by using the negatives in a cyanotype workshop, led by the lovely Andy Dolan held at Carousel Print Studios, here in Sheffield.
I know I had a great time because I forgot about my bike and its safety and I didn’t think about what I could eat next ( much).
Here are some of my cyanotype prints from this workshop and Andy looking brilliant in the last image outside Exchange Place Studios, run by Yorkshire Art Space.
I already have lots of new ideas for grand projects including wallpaper. (why start small) I have rented an artist studio for 2 months to see how I go. It’s good when you find something new that’s exciting. It is good to learn new skills and make new stuff.
here is my previous wallpaper spell, but going forward, I not print lace, I will print summer flowers in wonder blue – just now sure how I can make it work yet.
tracey doxey 