Autumn Colour palette – tracey doxey

Shetland light.

Sun Rising pure light.

Saturday, Sitting in this old house, with the doors open for this fine Shetland sunrise, listening to the sparrows and starlings mutter and chatter over the breakfast seeds on the wall, the red light pours sharply in to the house as a shard of light, hitting the back wall at an angle in the corner – a different place from even two weeks ago where light hit the middle of the sofa. I am learning a cycle of annual shifting light.

Light, so commonly taken for granted, is a big thing here. Its appearance is being squashed into a smaller opening by the darkness of Winter speeding in to borrow light’s hours. The night darkness is squeezing out the daylight day by day but sunrise is putting up a spectacular morning fight.

For a brief half hour, I listen, wait and watch to see the magnificence of a new day writing its signature across my walls, through my windows and refracted through the old lead chandelier prism crystals that now become brokers in this arrangement between sunrise and light. The crystals throw rainbows of light across the walls and ceiling. The moment is enchanting. Why not be enchanted? – if only briefly.

I have always noted shifting light, where it hits the walls of my homes, how it affects me, how it shifts around the room at different times of year, how I wait for it to appear at certain times of year and how it slips away. I have rejoiced in it for years. But here, here it is more powerful because being so northerly, the light is extra precious during winter. I have yet to learn of its daily power during living here through a summer where the light fights back to take over the hours of darkness.

This morning, all my world stopped to be in this November moment. Grateful at being able to see the pure light and to feel its powerful healing properties.

Pure Moon light.

A moon beam paints its light in the whole shape of the window across my bedroom floor. Unbeknown to me, light is also painted across the floor in the room downstairs.

Outside, the moon world is brought together by a party of present and missing elemental guests. The sharp light is here because wind and rain are missing. The moon is the main guest of honour. A moon so bright and full that it creates a pool of light in the basin of the wide and deep sea. The fold of the earth, visible through the window, as horizon line between earth and sea, marks a line between moon light and night darkness as if drawn by a spirit level.

After the storm, after the Orcas, the moon paints the sea silver and my bedroom floor with a faint but clearly defined light in the shape of a window resting on the old wooden floor boards.

How can I turn away from this natural visual world that is lit by a full moon guest? To sleep is to miss it. I cannot sleep, or read and although knitting beckons me, the moon light pulls my gaze and I see nothing but tones of grey, silver, slate, graphite, black, white. A boat sails on the horizon trailing its own white light.

To be alive at this moment, here, now, with all the elements in perfect harmony is priceless. Except for the personal cost of noticing, taking time, being aware, being in the moment – given freely.

I write in the pure darkness, not seeing the pen or the words. The white page is faintly highlighted by the painting moon light.

Suddenly, rain arrives at the party, accompanied by blowing wind and bringing cloud. Other natural elements join the party, breaking up moon’s isolated glow. Rain, wind and cloud cover moon – he leaves the moonlit party, taking with him light.

Black ness returns accompanied by rain on the roof and wind down the chimney.

If you would like to receive a monthly newsletter on living in Shetland, I have started a Patreon site for unpublished stories – which will only be available to Patreon supporters. If you would like to receive monthly newsletters, stories, updates on research on this old house and Susan Halcrow, discounts on my knitting patterns and information on Shetland, please consider supporting me through Patreon at £3 per month or £6 per month. The link is here. https://www.patreon.com/TraceyDoxey

This story is the first one and it is free. After that, my Patreon supporters will receive exclusive stories and I will dedicate time to my writing on that page.

If you are interested in staying at Smola in Shetland, the link to Air B&B is here

https://airbnb.com/h/levenwick

A Shetland sunrise

6:25am. A calm, slightly damp, silent, start of a day, with a waft of wind around my bare legs.

The one star left, after the star-studded sky has evaporated, is high and to my right – it may be a planet, I need to learn. Last night, at 3am, the Plough, ploughing amongst a sky of stars, I, noticing its different position to that when I was in Sheffield.

Here, 60 degrees north, the tilt of my view is different, sharper, present. On opening the door, in dressing gown, slippers and down coat, I’m greeted by a peachy ribbon hugging the sea top and sky bottom, falling temporarily in its homemade fold in the Earth’s atmosphere. Since moving here, it has been my greatest pleasure to be greeted by a line of colour dividing earth from sea – this is on lucky weather days. Some days, there is no differentiation between either. Almost seven weeks since I arrived and my first waking moment has never changed. I look out to sea, to the horizon, in search of a sunrise.

I have renamed the bench a Thinking Bench, rather than a Procrastination Bench. I procrastinated in that quiet garden in Sheffield, here, I view the changing light, devouring its fleeting moments.

This place is not an easy place to live but I am alive by its weather challenges and gift of light because it is becoming briefer at this point of the world. Nothing is missed, nothing taken for granted, nothing is sure – the changing light is a gift.

The door is open. Shetland

If you are interested in visiting this part of the island – bookings are open from spring time for single traveling, exploring ladies who want to experience this part of the world in a safe, unique house by the sea. Air B&B offer 20% off for the first 3 bookers. https://airbnb.com/h/levenwick

Levenwick Beach online Knit along – Smola Gloves

I pack the bike paniers for the beach – a place that I know is today in a wind storm. Laying the blanket upon the fine sand, making ready to start knitting the gloves with my online Ravelry Knit group is wonderful moment. It is THE perfect location to sit and knit, think, feel – the sea rolling and heaving in front of me, the bike tyres being quickly buried under small sand drifts behind me. I dig into the bank of the crescent beach and unpack a speckled banana and Christmas biscuits in an old tin, my 5 year old Thermos from Japan, my note book, pen, yarn and chart.

I sit as if a child on a picnic for no one and watch the weight of water lift the surface of the sea in front of me. Waves break and reach the shore line as if they move along the keys of a piano – right to left along the entire long beach.

Sand grains settle on the surface of my tea as if in a grain huddle, in the base of the open biscuit tin, on the blanket in the shape of the base of my shoe, in the threads in the ball of yarn, on the canvas yarn bag that travelled a thousand miles, in my hair, on the scarf.

**I am here, this is me.**
**Sand blown, wind blown, sea salt tasting.**

I scan the sea for whales – the whales that came in to the bay last Weds when I was at St Ninian’s. The weight of the sea water, rising and sinking, ebbing and flowing – covering secrets below its surface in the cold, cold depths of ancient sea sounds.

Today is the first day of my online Ravelry Knit Along where you can join me until 12^th October in a group to knit the Smola gloves – named after my home in Shetland. You can ask questions, add photos, let me see your projects. THANK you to all those who have bought the pattern for the gloves already.

If you would like to join this online group – here is the pattern and here is the ravelry group, if you would like to join

Happy knitting, happy sea and beach thoughts – If you’d like to join me on the beach next year, I will be offering Air B&B for single lady crafters, artists and explorers. Message me if you are interested in staying in my 200 year old house by the sea.

just knitting

The process of ‘just knitting’ is so much more than a series of actions to produce something – a result.

The result may never actually be realised or known. We may have an idea and through the process of making, it just doesn’t turn out the way we thought or hoped. Or the resulting finished article may just be a by-product and the art is in the making and in the journey and finding out new techniques or things that we never thought of before or even knew existed. As in today, the knitted item I’m looking at was a by-product. I watched a lace curtain that I’d knitted waft in the breeze above a sleeping cat. I watched for some time. The movement is now the art not the knit.

It took a really long time to make the curtain which has holes, is then darned and is knitted lop sided because of ‘take-down’ from the machine (in other words, the brushes on the power knit machine pulling it). In the process of making, I understood how the lace patterns that I had seen in the Shetland museums are made. I translated those designs into a computer aided design package which were then sent to the power knit machine where the panel grew with holes and stretched edges and errors. But all I could see was a thing of beauty which is now hanging ill fitted across the window of my small flat.

Today, I watched the dappled light fall across the room, from the peeping sun forcing its light through the tree outside my window. The dancing shadows in between the light created a small dancing scene on the wooden floor. The shadow of the lace curtain left its trace.

lace curtain shadow

Before I went to University to study FTK, I didn’t even know that the knitting industry cut knitted fabric to make jumpers. This I found quite shocking and have not knitted in a way that can be cut and produce waste. I never knew there was such waste in the fashion industry until I started this course. Cutting knitted fabrid has never been an option for me, so now I’m finding ways to sculpt and manipulate the knit to create garment shaping.

Over the summer, I practiced smocking knit to varying degrees of success (bearing in mind that I used to smock dresses perfectly for my daughter over 25 years ago) Smocking knit is another thing. It’s unruly and ununiformed.

Last week, I met Debbie at Uni whilst I was smocking the neck of a dress I was making. She was really helpful and said that the smocking must add to the knit because the lace was sophisticated – to think of the yarn and finish. I’ve always gone for a contrasting yarn but looked again at the thickness and shine or matt finish. At that point, I stopped the smocking. I’m looking at other ideas for fabric manipulation to shape it.

but in the meantime, here are the latest panels that I have shaped into dresses by smocking.

Something has happened to my knitting. I started by designing knitted lace inspired by Shetland lace but it has become something more. Learning traditional patterns has given my knitting integrity and credibility. Shetland lace is a story of landscape, tradition, journey and sociocultural meaning and I wanted to bring those values to a wider audience. I marry traditional lace patterns and highly technical poser knit designed in CAD to ‘just knit’ now. I’m using fine metallic yarn from Lanificio dell’Olivo and pure wool by Sato Seni who are both considering sponsoring me and I feel that I am just at the beginning.

Lanificio Dell'Olivo yarn + geelong sept17

a making process

At 5am, before sunrise, I wake immediately thinking about my making process – what it is and why. I thought it was the middle of the night because it was still not light at all but when I looked at the time, it made it acceptable to get up and develop the thoughts I was thinking. ‘What is my work’ is the main point that I keep coming back to when I’m reflecting on my making. I research craft, mending, repair, reflection, authenticity and tradition. What is my work about, if it’s about anything at all?

And, this is how I come to be in the avenues of the Hanging Water allotments at 6:30 am with the heavy scent of a late flowering honeysuckle in the air whilst picking fat ripe blackberries – sun rising to my left. The ground is very damp, wet in fact. The late summer sun is rising with a hint of Autumn snapping at its heels. Quickly, I threw on any clothes just to get out in the sun rise. I noticed that it was the first time I reached for a jumper before leaving the house. The mustard fair isle cardigan was the first choice – a perfect choice to greet the sun.

All the world is here in this moment in the allotments. Whilst picking the ripe berries, I think about what people have said about my work. The first thing that someone said about my work was stridently expressed in a tutorial at NTU. ‘You’re at Textile Artist, I’ve already told you’. So, I assumed that mantle – an impressionable 53 year old taking every word as the truth. But I’m not only a textile artist and this I have learned along the way through reflecting on process, result and reason.

The rising sun catches my face, plump berries from a cultured, thornless bush fill the bowl. Nature’s sounds fill the air – the brook at the bottom of the avenue, pigeons calling, a bee. You can almost hear the fruit creaking with weight.

My process is to see, think, feel, have an idea, run with it, see what happens along the way, make modifications, see the outcome, accept the outcome and either embellish it or just let it be – as it is and the outcome feeds another idea and it develops. I’m constantly learning – rarely is anything repeated, which makes it more of an art practice.

I’ve realised that there is a narrative that runs through all of my work. There’s a story. Even the innocent blackberries that I am picking, weave a story or a moment into my work and process. It could be colour or texture or taste, even. Can’t work just be about the journey of making textile and memory? How can this small avenue of long wet grass that runs between old allotments, with the sun rising to my left be a starting point – but it is. All the world is here, if you just look.

process

Tracey Doxey is studying at NTU on the MA Fashion, Textiles Knit course.

She will be carrying out an Artist Residency at The Booth in Scalloway during December 2017

Picking Heather and Berries for Winter.

The moorland that borders Sheffield and Derbyshire and stretches as far as the eye can see toward Edale, is carpeted in heather and speckled with thistle. The heather is knee high.

In the sun and breeze, the air is constantly heather scented. Everyone the you pass along the way, shares their complements on the miles and miles of purple. Apparently, it is a good year for heather.

If you walk from my flat, through the Hanging Water allotments, up the path winding through Whitely wood to Ringinglow, cross the road by the old toll bar house opposite the Norfolk Arms and walk across Hound Kirk Moor, which is an Toll Road, you’ll see the360 degree purple carpet. Along the moorland track are two old milestones. I head for them every time I walk this way. The most interesting milestone registers the miles to Tidswell (Now spelt Tideswell) and Buxton and has a skull and cross bones carved underneath it. The Milestone was reunited in 2014 with its base after it was found in a garden in Dore where it had been part of a Rockery. You can read about it here but go and see it for yourself – it’s always a joy.

This is the second walk that I have done in two weeks where I have seen this natural purple carpet. Today, the view so enriched my walk that I have chosen the colours of heather, thistle, stone, rock, sand, pale sky, gravel, blackberry and blackberry for my yarn colour palette for my new work. I have been knitting the colours into Fair Isle samples for a workshop I am doing on 2nd September but in doing the samples, I can see how beautiful this colour palette is.

In September, I will bring Fair Isle back into my work and the colour palette will lean towards autumnal heathers. In the Winter, when I look at the yarns and colours, I’ll remember this summer day and the carpet of heather.