I’d like to celebrate something that seemed small when it happened but has been the absolute foundation of my creative practice today.
On Jan 21st 2020 – 6 years ago, I published my first pattern on Ravelry. It was my Sea Urchin Shetland hat pattern. When I look back, I see that I have never really just produced patterns but knitting stories – like recipes – like myths – like stories that I uncovered.
The Sea Urchin Hat pattern text starts with the below (it was written in January 2020) :-
Dear lover of yarn and of the tactile act of knitting,
This hat design has been long in the making. I’m producing it as a design sheet because the pattern can be followed to the stitch and colour, or you can use it as a springboard to develop your own ideas by choosing your colours and even a different tree and star motif to the one I have chosen to incorporate into your hat pattern – you can make it your design too.
Over the years, I’ve made this hat using varying yarns and colours. I’ve blocked it in to a shape that resembled a slouching hat or a kind of beret. I still have two of these hats from 2015, and I’ve worn them in all weathers and in many countries. I’ve left one and lost it in places but I have always retraced my steps and gratefully been reunited with the hat that now is part of me every winter. Seeing the early photos of this hat, I see a different shape entirely to the one that has morphed and shaped to my head through being soaked in gale force rains, being stuffed in pockets and in bags and left for months in a drawer. In November 2019, I was living in Brindister, West Burrafirth, Shetland and wore this hat every day whilst walking around the voe. By now, its shape had morphed into a basin shape and I felt lost without it if I ever forgot it any winter day – especially in the piercing winds.
In November 2019, when, every day, I walked around the Voe at Brindister, I began to find discarded Sea Urchin shells left by seagulls. They were abandoned where the gull had left it after breaking it open to eat the urchin. I found them on banks and on flat, wet, mossy plateaus used as seagull breakfast tables. All had been smashed to get to breakfast but I was on the lookout for a complete one. The first found sea urchin shell was an exciting surprise, like finding a four-leafed clover when I was a kid. I turned it around and around looking at its pattern and the smashed opening. Then, I started looking out for these sea treasure on the land. I collected any shell that was whole, even if it was broken into until I couldn’t carry them in my hands – so I used my hat to carry the porcelain like sea urchin shells back to the croft house. When I looked, I saw that both my hat and urchin shell had a similar shape – the hat with a 5-pointed section crown and an urchin-like roundness and in return, the sea urchin shell looked hat-like
I would love for you, the knitter, designer, maker, lover of yarn and the tactile act of knitting, to make this hat in whichever colours and with whatever tree and star motif you would like. Any motif will make the same shape as the decrease around the tree creates the crown. Have fun, send photos of your finished hats to https://www.facebook.com/DoxeyKnits/ and I will post them on the FB and Instagram pages https://www.instagram.com/traceydoxey/
I would like to ask – How many knitting patterns do you know that start with a letter to the knitter ?
The pattern ends with the following words :-
I hope that you have enjoyed knitting this hat. If you want to experiment with larger needles and different yarns, as I have over the years, you’ll have a lot of fun with the results. I look forward to seeing your hats.
Big knitting love, Tracey.
How many knitting patterns do you know that end like a letter.
I want to thank this little design that I made whilst staying in Fair Isle then in Brindister, Shetland, running up to the end of 2019. The design challenged me at the end of my MA in Knitting from NTU during which time, I went back and forth to Shetland until I finally bought a croft house there in 2020 and I am ok that I made the decision to return to England in 2021– I wrote a book about my life in Shetland but it never was published.
I want to acknowledge and thank my creative spirit for developing this simple Shetland Yoke motif and simple hat into workshops, colour blending, and finally – a new jumper pattern. I have learned so much along the way, in 6 years.
What a journey.
Thank you to every one of you who has supported me by buying a knitting pattern or attended a workshop. I do not know what is to come 😊
much love. Tracey 🙂
Ravelry patterns are here – you will see the visual journey
Sea Urchin hat and mitts pattern 2020
Sea Urchin Shetland hat pattern is here
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tracey doxey 