crafts – tracey doxey

Knitting to keep us warm and to develop ideas.

This week, the weather has had a sharp turn from really quite warm to really quite cold, in fact bitterly cold.

On Monday I reached for my stash Buster neck warmer and here I am on my bike going to the gym at 6:30 in the morning for a 7 am Body Balance class. I love Body Balance class on a Monday morning – it starts the week in the right way but getting there on these days in the pitch dark and freezing cold with sleet or lashing rain, on a tiny wheeled bike is a bit tough.

I designed the Stash Buster neck warmer in September 2023. You can see a link here for a blog on the making and designing of it. At the beginning of the process, I decided to chart out lots of Fair Isle patterns in my design sketch book on graph paper using the OXO motifs in different colours which means that the neck warmer is constructed in an intarsia way where each block has its own set of colours.

I have had a lot of new followers on instagram, and since I have been wearing the neck warmer again, there has been a small revival and interest in this pattern. so I want to say thank you for supporting me.

This week, on Tuesday evening, it was our crafting night at a local café in Nether Edge which has a huge wood burner inside. The cafe is a small room full of wonky tables, lots of chairs, a large fish tank and lots of plants and friendly people. This cafe is very comfortable in more ways than one – it is open- hearted and totally inclusive.

It is the best café in Sheffield and maybe Yorkshire so if you’re in the area check it out it’s called Café9 and you will always receive a great welcome

Next Friday, I will be flying to Tokyo. This week I’ve been sorting the last small details and meeting people who are going to look after my cat and come and live in my flat over the time that I’m away.

This afternoon I showed a new friend, that I met through Instagram, all the things in the flat and how they work for when she comes to stay. I wrote a cat and flat manual. This evening, I pondered how Instagram is quite a marvellous platform for joining people up. I have met so many brilliant women through my Instagram feed – either they’ve got in touch with me or I’ve got in touch with them and over time, we have built up longstanding friendships.

I’ll be taking quite a few of my making ideas to Japan. I’ve decided to take my Tree and Star sleeves to Fuji, because I have an idea that I’d quite like to add them to a jacket that I’ll make using flea market kimonos. I’ll take the kimono to pieces and reuse and reshape the pieces in different ways to make a jacket body – this is one of my ideas – I have a lot of ideas and I don’t know if any of them will come to full fruition but I am so looking forward to having one month in Fujiyoshida to just be – think, write, observe, sit quietly and notice the details.

I am excited to be taking the sleeves, because I know that they can be knitted into to any number of things such as on to a previously knitted vest or as I hope to do, added to a fabric body or as add-ons to the kaleidoscope jumper.

When I begin to be free with my creativity, more and more ideas come. Ideas to create things that I had not thought of before.

I was asked on Instagram today, if I could post works in progress so, above is an image of both of my Tree and Star sleeves using colours from my stash.

If you would like to knit the sleeves yourself, to add to other projects, or to add to your Kaliedoscop jumper the pattern is here

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/tree-and-star-sleeve

I post work in progress on Instagram here – I love instagram for images.

Sewing leaves

The owl hoots to his mate every morning around this time at 6 am. Sometimes he calls from within the garden or from behind the house over the road but always, the owl has the same call. Within seconds, the response comes. I like to think that the two callers are mates but I don’t know anything about owls except that their calling is something that I love to hear before any other nameable sound, when I wake.

Yesterday, I started collecting leaves, without having a prior plan. It is just that when I come across fallen leaves of deep beauty, they were too hard to leave behind on the city street. The varying red leaves covered the cobbles in the city centre, by the Peace Gardens. I don’t know what species of leaves they are, but I collected a bag full with an aim to sew the leaves. It’s a spontaneous idea, responding to the season of falling leaves, and this is why I find myself here, sitting in bed at 6:30am, in the darkness hiding where the owl is hooting and I’m beginning to sew leaves.

For the purpose, I’m using the Japanese silk thread that I bought when I was in Kyoto, a tiny needle threader and a Japanese needle in the hope of maybe that using them may evoke some tactile connection between Japan and my red Sheffield leaves

Beneath the dim light of the lamp beside the bed, I go through the leaves without priority and started to sew them together with running stitch. They’re not wet. They’re not dry. They have a moisturised feeling to the facing top side of these beautiful different leaves. I know that I could put them in some glycerine / water liquid to make them last and be more flexible but that would take me too long. The leaves, are after all, right here, right now.

What’s interesting is that I started sewing the leaves in a running stitch with a single thread but then the thread has fallen out of the needle at least three times so I think it’s best to sew using double thread with a sturdy knot at the end like my Grandad showed me how to do. That’s one finding and the other is my eyes are not as good as they were when I was younger and so I now need the help of a small wire needle threader and then the other thing is that from the age of 14, I was sewing all the time, anything even dresses and later, I did a lot more sewing when my children were young – I even made hand smoked dresses for my daughter. I was busy being a young mum but I still did a lot of sewing. I haven’t done any kind of sewing for over a decade but recently, about a month ago, I treated myself to a new sewing machine and I’m really excited to be able to start sewing again but the other thing is I realised that even if I haven’t sewn for years, that tacit knowledge comes back through the hands and through the sewing thread and how I hold the needle. My hands know how to move and hold. It’s quite hard to explain but if you give me a needle and thread, and if I could thread it easily, then I’m away and running – fearless. My hands go back to the knowledge that I have stored within the core of my developing years for over 50 years.

I’ve noticed that the leaves I’m sewing are building up in the centre because I didn’t make a plan. I recognise that I am placing them too tightly but when I move the growing sheet of leaves in my hands, it feels like fabric. They haven’t dried out to be crisp. They’re floppy.

I add more leaves to the little bundle and the owl is forgotten until tomorrow before dawn. I’m finding that I’m looking at the juxtaposition of the colours of the leaves against each other and how I look at one colour behind the other so that they stand out – just like knitting. The pack of leaves gets thicker in certain sections and my running stitches I think are too long. And, I find that the red thread is lost against the red of the leaves so I think I will go and choose a contrasting colour but at the moment I’m just experimenting.

I put a knot in the silk thread at the end and chose a scarlet colour and then I started a gentle running stitch through the leaves. The leaves are so fresh, only having fallen yesterday that they are easily manipulating in a pliable way just as if fabric. I just set off sewing around the edge of the first tiny leaf and then kept adding leaves behind and enjoyed the feeling of sewing through leaves. The act of sewing quietened me. It made me slow down because of trying to place the leaves and I just kept adding there was no order to it as such and this is the first time I’ve done it so I just wanted to experiment. I’m thinking of doing sheets of these leaves just to see how they work but also that they may work really well as a coating to my paper pots.

Another of my findings is that sometimes although all the leaves look the same some, more than others, can tear when the stitch is pulled through the leaf. After the red, I’m using an orange thread now which is more visible and shows more mistakes. I’m not sure which colour thread I prefer.

Sewing leaves is a very slow act and I’m really enjoying it without any aim or goal other than to see what happens.

Let me know what you think

When I am lost, I go to the stones

Kaleidoscope Jumper

When I am lost, I come out here – to the base of Stanage Edge where the millstones lie. I eat breakfast and feel the gentle breath of a breeze. I can see for miles out towards Hope Valley, the stones are ancient – have been pushed and fallen, the rocks well climbed by amateurs and professionals alike and the paths well walked.
I have so many creative ideas that they are bursting and I’ve stopped to a point of disconnection because I measure myself by reward – but this place, this earthly place brings me back to me, to a core that I hadforget. The stones make me care again, connect and contribute to my creative process. I cannot compete with the millions of knitting patterns pushed out into the world that are for sale, nor do I want to but I know that this Kaleidoscope pattern is a very good one.

When I meet the millstones and the old stone trough, I knit, I eat, drink tea and I am grateful for my thoughts. I have had 3 ideas to put togethere with my Tree and star new sleeve and you will have to wait until I have finally made my choice.

I am heading to an artist residency at the base of Mount Fuji for the whole of December and I am working on a piece called between Silk and Paper, drawing on the Japanese concepts of Ma and Mono No Aware – You can read about it here

I’ve been working on the materiality of the pieces

But for now, I am very much enjoying my new knitted jumper – you could too, use your stash, make it yours, go out into the countryside and knit

Kaleidoscope Jumper

We Live in Time

‘We live in Time’, is my knitted textile piece incorporating a hand- knitted vest and two photographs of sisters from 1970 (my sister and me)

The work is partly about the gaps in the relationship between me and my sister and me not being able to reach her which also takes into consideration the Japanese concept of Ma, the spaces in between (間 ) the silences, the unspoken, past and present. It is also about knitted garments for siblings over time.

I was born on 26/06/1963, my sister 11 months later on 27/05/1964. Our mother dressed us identically for about 12 years until we tried to impress our own tastes upon the clothes we wore. My Grandad enjoyed the latest photographic technology available to a working-class man. He took many photographs, particularly in 1970 when I was seven and my sister, six years old. He loved his polaroid camera -these photos, though, were taken by a small new instamatic. In all of the photographs that I still have, my sister and I stand beside each other but rarely touch – there is an unspoken physical and emotional space between us. All of the images were ‘set up’ in a way for my mother to show that her daughters were ‘well turned out’.

There are hand written words over one of the photographs – ‘What about our Julie?’, which is what I always asked if I was ever given anything and she was not – this was, of course, very rare.

There is a poignancy from our childhood to now, where there is still a wide physical and emotional gap between us.

As a representation of personal choice, I have knitted a vest in nine dark colours which were chosen by my sister as an expression of her preferred colours now. When I asked her what her favourite colours are – she said, black, navy, dark red and mustard –but, I had to knit with some contrast so added pale grey, pale yellow and pale orange. We were cut from the same cloth but with totally different personalities. I knitted the same article for myself but it has sleeves and 100 colours.

We Live in Time, is part of a larger piece called, ‘I cannot reach you’ where both pieces will be exhibited beside each other, not touching, and my jumper will be reaching. Four photographs of us in 1970 will accompany the textile piece – showing how we always looked – for years.

‘We live in Time,’ questions the discouraged individuality growing up in a working class home in the 60’s / 70’s – and the ever growing space between sisters.

If you are in Sheffield on Saturday, 15th Feb, you are invited to the private view, because it isn’t private and it’d be lovely to meet you from 4-6pm. Come and look at some textiles. Address in invite above.

outdoor knitting

In celebration of knitting outside for one year, for moving around the sun for another 12 months outside knitting, I wonder if I am filling time, or am I connecting to self? Why spend all these hours knitting and walking and sitting outside when there could be something better to do with my life. I saw a post yesterday, where Julia Roberts learned to knit on set and looked at a length of knitting as ‘lonely time’ It made me wonder.

Because I feel, completely calm and peaceful in my outdoor surroundings from the time of knitting temples of Kyoto one year ago this week, to knitting at my favourite place beside ancient abandoned millstones at Stanage Edge, or beside the work of Lee Ufan in the Summer Garden exhibition in the Rijksmuseum, to the simplicity of an early evening walk from my home in the city, through the allotments, beside the stream to wait for the King Fisher and knit – watching the sky change colour. Just sitting quietly and knitting. Am I filling time?

Could I be doing something better with my life other than working with my hands, creating art, out in nature, connecting to self, waiting for that one pure moment of natural beauty whilst knitting? I have realised that all of these times have given me peace. I am not sure what could come close to that total peaceful time? maybe in the arms or a partner but failing that – I rely on myself to find the peace.

Happy Wintering. Peaceful moments in this time of world uncertainty.

If you would like to join me in my online colour work knitting workshop, then please go here , I have a few places left in January. And if you would like to join me for a 1:1 workshop, then please get in touch – I could take you out knitting in the wilds of the local area.

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

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.