artist residency – tracey doxey

Between Silk and Paper

Between Paper and Silk

I wanted to share with you, something that I have been quietly working on alongside my knitting designs,

I have been building a new body of work titled ‘Between Paper and Silk’, rooted in the two Japanese concepts of Ma (間)—the space between things—and Mono no aware, the gentle awareness of impermanence. I don’t begin to understand these concepts but I am building my knowledge and expressing my understanding through making. These ideas began to take shape during my time in Kyoto in December 2023/Jan 2024 and will be further explored during a one-month residency in Fujiyoshida with SARUYA Artist Residency, Japan in December 2025, where I will develop further stages of this project.

I am applying for a local Sheffield residency which will give me the perfect space and time for a continuation and deepening of that work. I will create a series of papier-mâché pots, made from my British tea pots and cups alongside vintage Japanese bowls, as a testament to both British and Japanese everyday home pottery used in everyday family life. And I will be considering the space between the time of use, who used them, how they hold stories and their tactile shapes lend to me feeling my way through these stories. I will cover these vessels with papier mache, initially using Japanese papers that I collected at the enormous flea markets in Kyoto to create objects which will then be covered in vintage Japanese kimono silk, sourced during my time in Japan to create delicate vessels considering both Japanese concepts of Ma and Mono no aware. I can also use my cyanotype prints from when I had my studio at Bloc. But the fabric of the silk will enable me to embroider a into it and some of the stitches will hold the pots together, symbolising repair, connection, and the delicate tension between fragility / resilience and home life.

Kyoto Flea market

This new work builds on themes explored in my previous piece, ‘I Cannot Reach You, which was exhibited at Farfield Mill and Frontier Gallery both in 2025. Those installations incorporated my hand knitted textiles and archival photographs to reflect on the emotional and physical distance between sisters, drawing on my story of memory, identity, and silence between siblings. It was a deeply personal exploration of Ma, using garments and imagery to express the spaces between people and the quiet weight of what remains unsaid. While ‘ I Cannot Reach You’ was rooted in knitting, ‘Between Paper and Silk’ moves into new material territory—paper, silk, family pottery, and embroidery —while continuing to explore the emotional resonance of absence and connection.

If I am lucky enough to be accepted on the residency in Sheffield next year, the studio space will become a contemplative evolving installation, where the paper tea pots, bowls and cups are hung and arranged with intentional gaps, allowing the voids between them to become part of the narrative. Torn paper from Kimono packaging will be layered into the papier mache, evoking the beauty of incompleteness and paper vessels of impermanence. The Testing Ground spatial arrangement will reflect Ma, inviting viewers to consider not just the objects, but the spaces between them.

Here is my current work in progress. It is may family Burleigh Tea pot. It has 2 cracks in it. I have covered it in 4 layers of paper before testing the cyanotype paper over the top. But, I think that silk pots will be more tactile and hole more stories. Stories of the family pottery and of the vintage silk from Kimonos.

Let me know what you think of my initial idea.

One and Two Cardigans

One and Two Cardigan’s, After Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs.

I finally saved enough money to have a perfect box frame made for the first and only yoke cardigan that I have ever made, way back in 2015. I was never happy with the results, and hardly wore it. The project was a learning curve of both knitting/ textile construction, steeking and colour work as well as my first taste of Shetland from my visit to Shetland wool week that year almost 10 years ago. After making it, the cardigan mostly lay dormant in my bottom draw for some years and I have, on many occasions, almost given it away.

My reason for boxing it, is not sentimental but the fact that, unbeknown to me, Francoise Delot- Rolando, a French artist, painted the very same cardigan in her ‘Clothing Fragments Series,’ in late 2021 and in March 2022, she messaged me asking if she could post the image on her Instagram of the little painted mustard cardigan. I had no idea what it would look like so she sent me images, which absolutely blew me away. In March 2022, she generously sent me the little exquisite painting, framed in a French biscuit tin. It arrived when I was living for one week, in a borrowed house, six months after returning from Shetland, when I was moving from pillar to post without home or idea of home and I was very lost. Here is the post of that time https://traceydoxey.com/2022/04/12/tin-paint-paper-creative-generosity-and-kindness/

When the painting arrived, it took my breath away, made me feel connected to a woman I have never met, connected to her art, to my knitting, to living and creating work again. She lifted my spirits in a very difficult time and I have always been grateful for her spontaneous, incredible generosity. Her gift also elevated my knitted piece from a rugged cardigan in the bottom of a drawer to something to celebrate – a journey – a life.

When I framed the cardigan, I sent an image to Francoise and she said that ‘there’s something of Joseph Kosuth’s, One and Three Chairs, about it.’ I hadn’t heard of the work, so I, of course, immediately googled it.

Joseph Kosuth’s ‘One and Three Chairs’ was a conceptual piece from 1965 – the work consisted of a Chair, A Photograph of that Chair, and a printed text definition of the word ‘Chair’

Every time Kosuth, showed the work, he used a chair from the place of exhibition, so the work remained the same but different each time, with only 2 elements of the piece remaining consistent – the text of the definition, and the subject matter – a Chair. Kosuth’s concern was the difference between a concept and its mode of presentation. He unified concept and realisation. The value of the piece was rooted in concept rather than the work’s physical / material properties. Whereas, I have come about my combined piece the opposite way around – this coupling of the painting of my cardigan and knitted cardigan sits, not as concept – but as materiality and I suppose, women’s work. One and Three chairs explored the idea of the nature of representation – same chair three ways. And in some ways, my piece could now be ‘One and Two cardigans’ but for me, it also raises the question that I return to repeatedly – the notion of what art is and what it should be. I placed the two works together and was introduced to an Artist I hadn’t heard of before as reference to a similar representation.

I have long wanted to box frame the cardigan to sit alongside the painting of it but why elevate the old cardigan? It’s rough around the edges, its yoke colours jar with me now and all I see is how I would knit it now, how I would do better. Let’s be honest, without the beautiful painting, it would not have been a consideration for me to frame this knitted piece. At one time, I would have framed it as a sentimental reminder of my growth in learning a craft involving my love of Shetland, my first experiments with steeking (knitting in the round then cutting the piece open up the front to create an opening) such love and attention to the hand made buttons, such attention to its making would have at one time been a reason for me to frame it – but not now. There was no romance in framing this piece, it is ART when placed alongside the painting, it is something more than itself.

I have finally placed it on the hand printed wallpaper that Emma did for me in Shetland – a Peggy Angus print from long ago. Emma told me that the wallpaper was made to show art – but I always loved the paper too much to cover it – now ‘One and Two Cardigans’ sits on top of a small area of beautiful paper, elevating it even more. Not everyone would see it this way, but I do. The small details in life are what I live by, and then life becomes that beautiful small moment. The small things count.

I invite you to consider this – is my newly framed old cardigan, when framed and placed next to an oil painting of the very same cardigan, is it art?

Is there a concept of knitting as art? Or is it a Textile artist’s work? Kosuth focused on the idea of a chair rather than its physical representation, and now, I too have focused on the idea of The Knitted Cardigan.

Happy new 2025.

Hoping for a year of creativity and small sharp points of beauty. xxx

experimenting with exposure

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.

And here is the first result.

https://videopress.com/v/12Ho1qLr?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

I love how the bottom of the jug is deepened in colour, I love how the etched glass stretches in pattern and a faint movement of impression.

Tomorrow, the sun is booked for some hours, I will try again. Hopefully, with a time of exposure to show movement. While, Alfie sleeps on.

The space between all things

https://videopress.com/v/jfXNJlog?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

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

間（ま、Ma）は、the space between.

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

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fair-isle-chart-2 you can knit it for yourself in any colours that you choose. I would love to see your projects, please use @traceydoxey on instragram, then I can see your project oo.

I look forward to showing the two pieces together but for now, I am busy working on the 2nd piece.

Have you ever wanted to know what it is like to sell up and go and live in Shetland?

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.

Cyanotype

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.

I Cannot Reach You

I have finally finished my knitted piece.

It is called, ‘I Cannot Reach you.’

It is a piece about the space between me and my sister, born 11 months apart.

It has been one year in the making.

It is love.

Our mother dressed my sister and I in identical clothes for about 12 years until we found the voices to be different. We were born in 1963 and 1964. You did what you were told. And, we were told. Clothes say so much about the wearer, about the social history, about what people what to portray, about many things.

My nana knitted us identical cardigans – probably for the same amount of years. But my sister and I were very different people. And we are very different people today. I am not sure if differences in kids was either an accepted or a noticed thing in the 60’s. It certainly wasn’t in our house.

I will knit another piece, in the colours that my sister likes – Black, Grey, Navy, Dark Red and Mustard and place it alongside this piece, made up of over 90 colours and I will hang it beside this piece. I am interested in the Japanese concept of Ma 間 the spaces and the silences in between all things. when the 2 pieces are placed alongside each other, they will show the spaces between us.

For now, this peice will be entered into the Harley Foundation open, because I am regional, because it is art, because, it is love.

On a practical level, I will be starting a knitalong for the Fair Isle worksheet that accompanies this knitted pullover and will email everyone who has bought this pattern to ask if they/you would like to join a free 1 hours zoom session on the worksheet and how I made the pullover with a Q&A, so that they / you can join in the knitalong and use the worksheet to your advantage – to make what you want – hat, scarf, vest, pullover.

If you would like to join me, I will be starting in about a month.

Here is the link to the worksheet.

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

And, thank you to everyone who has bought it, I hope you will join in on this community knit along with people joining from all around the world.

Art, craft, knitting or story telling?

I have knitted something that is recognised as a jumper but it isn’t only that. The knitted piece now sits well within the intersection between craft / skill / materiality / woo/ textiles/ conceptual art / family / heritage and cross cultural discussion. It is nearly finished and it has a name. It is named, ‘I cannot reach you.’

The garment, because it can be worn, has one slightly longer Fair Isle sleeve than necessary, reaching out, ending into a knitted cuff with a thumb. The other sleeve, knitted in Amber coloured yarn in Aran patterns, crosses and plaits the stitches. This style of knit for this sleeve was chosen because of how I sometimes plait my hair. So, the indication is now that it is not clothes but craft or art. Most people who have commented on the Aran sleeve don’t like it – they cannot work with the idea that the sleeve is different to the Fair Isle patterning of the body and other sleeve. Me, I like it.

The Pattern of Life isn’t all perfectly matching or symmetrical or neat or predictable. So, changing the length of a sleeve, adding another style of knit to the other sleeve, working with patterns and motifs for about one thousand hours, has enabled me to Knit an evolving story. First, it was a wearable vest, then I ripped the arm ribs back to start sleeves. I don’t mind if I never wear this garment at all, and yet it is wearable, it is also showable as art, it is passable to be open to a discussion about clothes, knitting, women’s work, materiality – why we knit, why we make clothes, what becomes art, a concept, a thought and why we bother at all.

In my 60^th year, I am figuring out what is the stage of my creative journey, today. I have a valuable story / experience to share – having an MA in knitting when I was 58, a Fine Art Degree at the age of 35, I’ve travelled across some of the largest countries in the world by train, to get to a tiny place in China. I’ve sailed across land and sea to live in Shetland. I knit but I am not a knitter. I can crochet and sew too. I’ve taught English, I’m a coach for apprentices at Uni, I have been a PA, a Contemporary Dance tour manager, and events manager, a gallery building manager – but none of this really matters and yet it all matters greatly because it has brought me to this point in my life – to figure out exactly what is the value of my creative practice and where do I want to take it?

I am not an emerging artist, I am firmly placed in an underrepresented demographic of an older Women still making conceptual art under the guise of a knitted project.

What I would like to do is engage with other women to knit this piece, as they feel fits them. I want everyone to use their own colours choices, yarn decisions, size of the project so that we may talk about the work of women.

I am really proud of being able to knit this ‘thing’ because, let’s be honest, I have been in a privileged position to do so but I haven’t always been so. I could not have knitted it when I returned to the city from living in Shetland, without home or job, crying on the kerb stones. My creative practice was far from my priority then – I needed stability – take Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, for example. When I returned from Shetland, didn’t even have the physiological needs – without home or sleep. Since that time, I have built myself back up and for now, I am around the esteem level with a subliminal eye on Self actualisation. I’ve also been here before and know that it is not a sure thing nor is it a prolonged state and I know where it goes after – that is down.

I think, what I am writing is that my jumper is not a jumper – it is an art piece about my feelings about my beautiful Sister and I cannot always reach her – which is why I have called it ‘I cannot reach you’ And, weirdly, to this end, I am thinking of knitting a 2^nd jumper, in exactly the same way as the first but in different colours because when we were children, our mother dressed us in identical clothes for about 12 years ,when we were, and still are, like chalk and cheese.

For all the lovely people who have bought my Fair Isle pullover worksheet, would you like to join me in some kind of knit along. I will not be teaching you how to do your project but I would love to see your projects and hear what you are making. I think it will be wonderful to share what we are doing. I will be slow, I am not in a rush. I have many other things on the go including finishing this piece, I also have work and workshops and a crochet piece for my daughter and somewhere along the line, I would like to live a little – go see places

I have added a chat group on Ravelry – it is here

I am also thinking of ways to display this piece and have been in contact with The Head of Fine Art at SHU to see if we could show the piece and she had better ideas – so there are maybe a few things being mulled over.
I want to show the piece because I would like to be back in the Fine Art arena because I want to go to Japan to do an artist residency and showing work is part of that process.

Have any of you read this far 😊 ?

Would any of you like to join me in a knit along so that you can knit your own pullover or use the charts to knit something for yourselves? leave a comment or join the group.

Do you have any thoughts on this whole thing? Positive or negative.

Is it art or craft or knitting or story telling?

Here is the Fair Isle worksheet with all the motifs in 2 large charts, if you would like to join the chat group.

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

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