Tag: creative practice

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

Stormy weather. time for mitts again.

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

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

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

https://videopress.com/v/QCV0hgcy?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

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

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

Keep dry 🙂 Happy knitting

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

Kimono

New Adult beanie hat pattern, just out, to match Kyoto Baby.

Are you a mum, nana, Aunty, Dad, brother, sister, mummy, granny, guardian, brother, or friend who would like to knit a matching hat for yourself and a little person?

Here you go, full of colour.

Inspired by a Crimson hemmed wedding kimono that I saw being made in Kyoto in December – this beanie can be as bright as you like. Use your stash to make it. You don’t need to use the colours I did.

Let me know what you think

Kyoto Baby is here and Kimono is here.

xx

Kyoto Baby.

On the way back to the Kyoto guest house, as the light was fading, I passed a small shop in Gion. The front was covered in a grill, at the door, was hanging a traditional Japanese door curtain (Noren).  I was only 3 days into staying in Kyoto and had no idea what the little place was, but, I could see a bent woman, working at a table under a light. A small gap in the grill showed a flash of crimson framed by the window.  I watched the woman carefully sewing, and, as is my habit, I wanted to know more.  At the window, I gestured to ask if I could enter the tiny shop.  The Noren, always bending the guests as they enter.  I, making no exception to this, bowed as I entered the tiny shop.

Inside, the space, the only thing I could see was the colour in exquisite Japanese silk Kimono taking up the entire huge table under the window and the woman standing beside it.

 

Crimson, peach, orange, ginger, cherry, turquoise, gold, purple, mint green patterned silk covered in cranes (symbolizing honour, good fortune, loyalty, and longevity) in flight shone under the sewing light.  The seamstress was hand sewing the great, padded roll of crimson at the hem of the Kimono.  She explained with few words and many gestures that it was a wedding kimono and entirely hand made by her.  She exuded the gently quality of unassuming dignity. A craft master who had probably worked at that table, under the window for decades.   I was awe struck by her skill.

I returned to the shop a number of times whilst I was in Kyoto – the last time was to show her my ideas to knit using colours that were inspired by the exquisite silk used in the kimono.  I particularly noted the thick crimson roll at the hem.   She understood what I was trying to do but must have thought that my swatch book was rather naive to her own skill, though she never showed it.    We passed small talk about colour, each using our own languages, understanding little in words but everything in the action.

Before I went to Kyoto, I hoped to live in a space between ‘Balance and Beauty’ and here I was, at that exact place.

This little pattern is the result of that experience and inspiration of colour.  I swatched for colour in the little guest house, I swatched the colours in the Sky Garden on the 11th floor of Kyoto Train Station, I swatched in many of the Zen temples whilst viewing the zen gardens. 

This little hat pattern, brings together some of the colours that I found that day.  It is called Kyoto baby.  It’s very easy to knit. The rib is an easy left crossing cable in Crimson to emulate the padded hem of the wedding kimono.  It has a simple Shetland flower motif.  The pattern has 14 colours related to the Kimono but it can be knitted simply in 6 colours.  All the information is in the pattern and it was a joy to make.   It is modelled by a beautiful little Sheffield girl, whose name I will keep a secret.

Kyoto Baby is here.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/kyoto-baby

there are a number of colour options in the pattern. I swatched for colour and so did my lovely test knitters. Shona Brown In Nova Scotia is has test knitted the baby beanie. – Thanks, Shona 🙂

The adult pattern will be out next week – Let me know what you think –

Kyoto baby

An accumulation of Impulses – Dear Susan

I had a dream, I achieved that dream but I had to leave it behind.  My story is about finding joy / fear, love and loss, heart and soul – trapped and free over the duration of 14 months.

Capturing that year is too big a task.  So, I am trying.  Many people write about their dream to leave the city and to move to an island life – few write about the reality of that seismic change and the decision to leave the dream, of leaving behind hopes, love, dreams, can be read as failure – but only to those who have never tried.

I tried my hardest and here are the remains of that massive attempt.  This is the story I created, then broke down with hardly a word to say for it.

THE HOUSE OF TWO WOMEN

Dear Susan.

Synopsis

‘I stand for a second to take in the moment, to look at the old plank-board door with a square wooden knob, which I finally turn sharply to the right. The simple mechanism lifts a wooden latch inside. Human touch has left tangible traces of every hand that has opened this door before me. The hollow sound of the sneck – a door latch hitting its casing – is what I will always remember of this place. I understand that it is a unique sound to this house, one that will forever embody a simple place of great beauty. In this exact moment, I am sold on the sound of a wooden latch and the view of the stone flag floor in the empty room in front of me. Before the agent has even arrived, I know that I will not pull out of this crazy unfinished deal to buy this house and change my life forever. I won’t admit to the agent that it is the sound of the sneck that sealed the deal, but it is.’

This book is my story: a single, 57-year-old Yorkshire woman who dared to follow a dream against all odds; to sell up and risk all to move lock, stock and two cats from a small city flat to a home facing the sea, in the northernmost reaches of Scotland, the islands of Shetland.  It is a love letter to Shetland and its extreme elemental landscapes; to an old croft house and three generations of the same family who lived there for more than 140 years, knitting and landscapes. It is an accumulation of impulses. This is also the story of hope and desire and of demise and leaving.

Here, are the bones of my life of one year on an island and the letters I wrote to Susan Halcrow, a woman that once lived in the house, from 1876 to 1960.   It unfolds in monthly instalments, beginning on the very first day I visited the house, and heard the sneck, in August 2020, to my last sunrise in October 2021, when I walked away, never to look back again. I dreamed of living on the island to be closer to nature, creativity and a life less ordinary, with my knitting practice at the heart of every day; of moving through slow travel across sea and natural beauty, to come to a personal understanding of both inner and outer landscapes.  I never dreamed I would want to leave to return to the city.

I hope to share how emotionally challenging it is to make such a seismic life-change from city to island life and how my being an incomer, made it hard to find community both with some islanders and with some other local incomers.

The full book, written entirely from the islands of Shetland, ending abruptly in October 2021, offering an insight into island life and, finally explaining the reasons why I had to sell up and leave, to never look back again. Here, I draw out the bones of it in letters to Susan.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver.

Sea Urchin Hat pattern

January 2024

I thought that it was the Sea Urchin hat pattern’s third anniversary, but, because we slipped into 2024, when I was in Japan, I finally realised that this unassuming first design pattern of mine, is a big FOUR years.

I gave it the name of Sea Urchin Shetland pattern, after collecting Sea Urchin shells in Brindister on the West coast of Shetland in the December of 2019.

There were so many on the hills making the lunch tables for wild birds to crack open sea shells, that I began to call the place, ‘Sea Urchin Hill’.   

So much has happened since the inception of this little beanie pattern, that I had already been making up in vintage tapestry yarn for some time.  In January 2020, I formalised the pattern a released it.  I didn’t know about test knitters or pricing or anything, and it flew.   It was the colours, you see.  I made the pattern beanie up in my very first use of Jamiesons of Shetland, Spindrift, after returning from 2 months of living on Fair Isle with Mati Ventrillon, as intern, at the age of 56.  It was around that time, after many visits to Shetland, that I began to feel at home there, and think about moving to the islands. 

I look back to the time of writing and designing this little pattern and now see that is it was the Kickstarter to my creative design process – the beginning of how I saw colour in knitting and how I began to blend those colours.   The pattern became incorporated into my online colour blending workshops and was the possibility for a new me. 

I designed the pattern on the doorstep, out back of my Sheffield flat using the yarn from Jamieson’s, posting little posts on Instagram, building what I didn’t realise then, was an interest in the pattern and in my colour ways.   I began dreaming of living on an island 60degrees north.  (the full story unfolds here and you can read Aug – January of the book I wrote, if you join us on Patreon now – then each month will drop on the 1st of the month) and enjoyed how I mixed the  colours to sing.

It makes me really happy to see this pattern interpreted by knitters in their own colours, some of which are included here.  If you have knitted this pattern, please tag me in your posts so that I can see the results. 

Here is the little pattern.

Just think, you never know where knitting can take you. It is all interconnected and all a journey .

Thank you to everyone who supported me in 2023.

Tracey 🙂

Small wins / Gratitude

I had forgotten to read, almost forgotten how to read. Reading used to be my go to, my come down, my love but now, my time being taken up with work and knitting admin, I had forgotten how the written words of others, feed my own written words.

Nourishing transient words and thoughts flowing from the simple act of reading.

To neglect my relationship with the written word removes one of my senses – not sound, nor sight, nor taste, touch or smell but the 6th sense of inspiration. 

I am visiting Kyoto for 3 weeks in December / January – to nourish excitement, to be in the moment, to be baffled by everything in front of me by not recognising a thing – not the written or spoken word, nor the food or shops or culture – to have, in essence, my senses born again.  I am also going whilst I still have most of my own faculties, though I may have to tie my name and Japanese address on a string around my neck. 

To pursue a real and floating world that I never knew existed is exciting.  Who knows where it may lead. Three weeks, or thereabout, give or take forty hours of travel in the sky and waiting in my old beloved Pudong airport, is a wonderful hard-earned gift in life.   To leave a son and a daughter at Christmas would be unthinkable to most, but ‘Christmas’ is brief and we will make it up at the beginning of December – tree and all.

My trip to Kyoto slots in between a holiday break given at work (plus a few days either end) and, although a great financial cost, I will make do – cycling around the city, walking and eating cheaply.  I will wash my clothes in the wash tubs on the roof of the hostel over looking the mountain and I will live small with big thoughts.   I will stay in the attic of a hostel owned in Kyoto by a couple that I met in China in 2008, when they owed a hostel in Chengdu. They sold up and moved to Kyoto.  I never thought that I would ever see them again but I return, to people, to places.  They are beautiful people and Maki has been in touch regarding the booking. I feel quietly excited although a little nervous. 

I am knitting Maki a gift, which I will wrap beautifully and hand over to her with two hands and a faint bow as a sign of respect – something I learned in China and became second nature. Respect for a hard working woman, for communication, and mutual respect.

So much still to organise,  the thoughts are on a little back burner, slowly simmering.

For now, on this rainy day in Sheffield, I am having a delicious hour with the three books that I bought in the summer from a real book shop. That day,  I returned to work and said to my colleague, ‘ I think I’ll nip to Japan.  After all, I bought the books so now I have to go. ‘

I’m thinking of taking a small business card to reflect my knitting, this is a mock up, it is not the finished image but an idea – quite ridiculous and not at all corporate – What do you think?

Stash buster neck warmer is here

Stash Buster Fair Isle Neck warmer

I designed and knitted a little thing – then a big thing.  I made the neck warmer, initially because my face got cold while I was biking to the swimming pool at 6:30am every day in the Winter and spring and then, as I knitted, the whole thing developed into a swatch for a jumper that I began to want to knit – this is how my mind races.  So, I spent hours and hours graphing out the charts, changing the joining sections of the motifs to fit 24 stitches, placing them in order and choosing colours, then, I just set off knitting without any real plan, though, alignment and the feel of the drape is crucial for me. I wanted a Persian carpet look using traditional Fair Isle motifs. And I got it

Finally, I put a little pattern out on Ravelry   It has a lot of colours BUT, really, you can knit this pattern in just two colours because the gauge doesn’t matter, so you can use your own stash and to support that, I have added all the motif charts in 2 colour ways and in Black and White so that you can knit it in your own colour choices – so give it a go.

If you want to use the same colours as I have, you need one ball of Spindrift in each of the following colours – Peat, Burnt Ochre, Sunrise, Burnt Umber, Mustard, Maroon, Daffodil, Coffee, Midnight, Sea Grass, Twilight, Granny Smith, Port Wine, Old Rose, Mantilla, Pot Pourri, Peony, Pumpkin, Camel, Clover

But, really, use your stash – don’t leave it in your cupboard – it is a waste and share your projects with me on instagram here @traceydoxey

I am also thinking of doing a knit along on Ravelry, if enough people would like to join  – I will knit the second neck warmer in much simpler colour work.

In total, there are 8 charts/motifs – each in knitted in 2 different colour ways, making 16 charts in total and 16 colours used and 4 additional colours used in the small band at the beginning and end. But, as I can’t stress enough, this is a pattern but it is also a worksheet for you to choose your own colours and use your stash of yarn – it is even called Stash Buster. For complete ease, you could knit the neck warmer, entirely in 2 colours only. For example, a light background and a darker colour motif. And if you only use two colours, you could knit it in the round – that would be easy peasy.

Take a little look – it is here and it took a very long time to write and chart this pattern out, it would be great to see it knitted by a community of stranded colour work knitters. 🙂

Ravelry: Stash Buster Neck Warmer pattern by Tracey Doxey

much love. Tracey

now I am going to share my behind the scenes knitting piece with Patreon supporters

Have you ever wondered…

Tonight, when I was out walking and knitting, through the allotments and the wood, I wondered, ‘Have you ever wanted to know what it is like to sell up your home in a city and move to an old croft house facing the Sea in Shetland?’ 

Well, I did that, as a single woman in my late 50’s and wrote the story.   On Patreon, I will share my story of living in Shetland from the time I went to view the old, tiny, sea-facing croft house three weeks before signing the binding Scottish missives  – from opening its original plank house door, to the day of walking away and closing it again behind me, 14 months later. Because, I had to leave it.  

On Patreon, I will post the book’s chapters in chronological monthly instalments, aligning them with the month of the year that we are in currently in August 2023, with the same month in 2020. The story will start from the day I went to see the house for the first time. As time passes, the story will unfold about the previous tenants of the Levenwick croft house and my research into their lives in Shetland. I spent many hours in the archives at Shetland Museum, going back through records to the 1840’s. I was especially interested in Susan, who was born in the house in 1876 and died there, 83 years later, in 1960. In every chapter, as well as writing on my life in Shetland, I write her a letter, linking past and present. Some of the chapters are linked to knitting patterns that I designed, inspired by my croft house and Susan, at that time.

Additionally, I knit, teach online colour blending workshops for Fair Isle knitting and design small Fair Isle style knitting patterns.  I only use Jamieson’s of Shetland, Spindrift yarn because of its many colours, hues and tones.  Two of my Patreon tiers offer a bi monthly meet up to talk about knitting projects or my old Shetland croft house or life in Shetland for a ‘Sooth Moother’

Take a peek at the tiers and come and join me. If you do join, I will email a thank you but bear in mind, the time difference from the UK to your place and I work in between. 🙂

https://patreon.com/tracey_doxey

the little mitts are Fiona Blue and in the link below

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