After visiting Amsterdam, I have made a new little knitting pattern, which I started knitting and designing in the garden of the Rijksmuseaum and finished on the Eurostar back to London. Then I had to do the difficulty of writing the pattern out, getting it checked and test knitted.
But, here it is, I’ve made a new Little Kisses Mitts pattern – the left mitt was knitted using greens inspired by the the garden against the pebble colour of Lee Ufan’s stones in the summer garden exhibition in the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam. Then knitted a matching mitt to the green one but using berry colours – Cherry and Raspberry. This pattern is a very easy knit using a cute peerie Shetland motif, which looks like little hearts in boxes – which is how I finally came to choose its name – Little Kisses Mitts.
The motif is very easy. It is only made up of 6 stitches and 6 rows, so, when you have set up the first round, you will not have to look at the chart again until the round to insert your thumbs.
The thumb is easy to knit. I have added clear written instruction and photo tutorial to take you through all the stages to produce neat little thumbs in your mitts. There is also a little reel on Instagram which shows all the stages too – it is here. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBtwzO4IUen/ go to the link to see the clip of knitting the thumb.
Little Kisses Mitts, Pattern uses 3 listed 4ply colours from Jamiesons of Shetland but you can knit it in 2 colours or as many colours as you would like to use from your stash. It’s a very quick and joyful knit with endless colour possibilities. I knitted the both mitts in Jamieson’s of Shetland, Spindrift. In Pebble, Moorgrass and Mermaid – then in Berry colours using Dewdrop, Cherry and Raspberry.
You can also use JC Rennie Scottish Supersoft Lambswool 4ply which I also used after buying a lovely large ball of aqua colour in Amsterdam.
I have used 3 colours in each of my knitted examples, in order to make the knit reasonably priced – rather than the patterns that I have been knitting recently, which have grown in the amount of colours used in them.
As always, thanks to Karen Barker for her brilliant checking of all of my details written in my pattern and to Gary Butler for knitting the mitt and giving advice on the pattern notes. Your support is much appreciated
I would love to know what you think of using this tiny little motif in this easy pattern.
Is it true, that the longer we live, the more appreciative we become of the small things closer to home?
Such as the simplicity of setting off from home spontaneously on early evening walk, after teaching, just as the sun is setting far away, where the exquisite but simple chrysanthemums glow in the pink evening light in an allotment, or how the trees cover me in the woods but do not touch each other, and where I walk in an absolute carpet of leaves for miles while the sound of ever present moving water in the over flowing brook accompanies me. A change in 10 minutes from dusk to dark where I noticed every fleeting detail.
And yet, last week, at this time, I was in Amsterdam in the Oude Kerk (dating back to 1200) looking at, gently touching and enjoying beyond all understanding the hand painted linen walls in the Marriage Banns room dating back to 1760. It is called wallpaper but it is linen painted in the finest aqua, duck egg colour overlayed with exotic tulips, chrysanthemums and nasturtium.
These two moments, a time spent walking close to home through a wood at sunset, in the city and finding the blue lined walls in the oldest Church in Amsterdam, affected me in the very same way. A connection to absolute unexpected beauty.
so many things in Amsterdam affected me through the senses of sight and wonder – here are a few.
miss nothing. find joy in small unexpected things as well as the grander wonders of the world.
This weekend, I have watched two films online – the first, Jo Jo Rabbit and the second, ‘Hunt for the Wilder People’, both directed, (amongst many other things ) by Taika Waititi, a New Zealand Film Maker, then of course, I looked up Taika and watched his TedX talk from 13 years ago and already saw the influences from his part Jewish back ground in his writing of Jo Jo Rabbit, and in which he stars as Jo Jo’s imaginary friend, Hitler.
In his TedX talk, Taika, says all of the things he does, ‘they’re all tools’ he painted, wrote poetry, made films, travelled, was a comedian and all these things visibly influenced his work then and now.
I looked around at my tools, knitting, crochet, travel, drawing, photography, writing, sewing, colour, landscape, and noticed that, of course, these are my tools. The tools I am bringing to my new studio -which, at the moment looks slightly hopeless on the output front. I am playing with cyanotypes from attending a small workshop here in Sheffield. My hands are dry from washing papers out in water, the washed out liquid colouring my fingers. I wondered if the studio is one expense too much for me because I will not earn from it. And yet, here I am, on a quiet Sunday afternoon, after visiting the Buddhist Centre at Walkley’s, Summer Fair, I am here, present, in this tiny room with windows on both sides, sunshine pouring in, Gorecki Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, playing to me and I am content.
I’ve opened my tin of Lomo photographs from when I lived in the Hutongs of Beijing, the winter of 2010/11 to remind me of the far off places that I have been and to bring a thread of future travel here in to the old steel works building – which embeds me in Sheffield.
I am learning new things and Ideas are coming, practice led ideas but for now, I am excusing my inability to produce anything profound, by say, ‘ I am playing’, though for how long, I do not know.
If you are in Sheffield and want to come and visit me, get in touch. If you would like to support me, then please buy a knitting pattern, this will help pay for my studio 😊 the patterns are here, and very good. The patterns are here
I am making cyanotypes with all the pressed flowers from my garden and from hanging over walls in the city. This is my favourite one so far. I actually like the accidental finding of washi tape that is holding the tiny daisy in place.
When I moved to Shetland, I just flippantly mentioned, ‘write to me’ in one of my instagram posts after I shared my writing space in the croft house. Over 100 people sent postcards, this time, it is different. I am in the city, but I am still me.
Today, I am in an old steel works in Sheffield, If you fancy sending me a postcard from where ever you live, then I would love to receive it. I am in
Studio 10, Bloc Studios, 4 Sylvester Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S1 4RN
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.
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 live in Sheffield. Whilst I was sorting out yarn this afternoon for my 2nd Fair Isle Pullover, Richard Hawley’s ‘People’, was playing on Six radio. I stopped to listen. Sheffield, is, I have realised my home – I have lived here since 1998 but honestly, I didn’t realise until a conversation with my son last week, that ‘I live in Sheffield’ . I may sound odd to you but to me, I have always been looking to other places, mostly far away.
Saturday 8th June, my bike outside the beautiful Three Tunns pub, Sheffield
I have got on a train and got off and lived and worked in China, I’ve lived in Salzburg, London, and of course, Shetland. I have been a traveller for some years and travel is part of my art but, honestly, I have only just realised that, Sheffield is where I live, where I want to live; it is my home. And then, Richard sings, ‘People’ and I could understand every word – every place mentioned and how people are called, ‘Love’ it is a colloquialism – People in this city, call us ‘Luv’ – On the bus, at work, at the fruit and veg markets stall, at the chip shop, about town, not always, but a certain generation, it is often.
I love Sheffield, the city centre is a bit broken, the SHU university is financially on its financial knees, and there isn’t much here but there is also everything here. Art, music, friends, cinema days, festivals, history, vintage shops, people – ‘who fight for every breath’ and so much more. I am proud of this gritty city.
Anyway, I digress, whilst I was setting up my little video of my swatch book for my new Swatch workshop on 5th July, Richard’s new song – ‘People’ came on the radio. I found it quite haunting. It is love of a city and a life and people. So, I recorded the video with Richard singing in the background. It seemed quite fitting.
I am not sure how the swatch workshop on 5th July, will pan out yet but I am asking for registrations of interest.
I am also doing a one off special FREE online zoom workshop for everyone who has bought the Fair Isle Pullover worksheet. The session will help anyone who has bought the worksheet, to develop ideas of colour, alignment of Fair Isle motifs in your project and ideas to help you get the best out of the worksheet to make a great project – it could be a hat, scarf, jumper of vest. This session is on 22nd June at 3-4pm UK time. You don’t have to register for this one – I will email everyone who bought the pattern with zoom joining instructions on 19th June – so you still have time to buy the worksheet, if you have been thinking about it. It is here.
If I was still living in Shetland, my workshops were sold out within 30 minutes of advertising them. Now they take time because I live in a city far away from Shetland. But, I am still the same person, and my workshops have developed into much better experiences than when I was in Shetland. Come and join me.
TWO NEW DATES FOR MY ONLINE COLOUR BLENDING WORKSHOP IN JULY
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 60th 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 2nd 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 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.
I am sitting in the calm, welcome sunshine resting on the small patch of grass outside my flat in Sheffield, which I have surrounded with strong sunflower plants that I grew from seeds, a sea of forget me nots, beautiful jasmines in early bud, potatoes growing in bags, peonies in bud and the hydrangea taking over. I am at my laptop setting up my June post for ‘My Shetland life’, on Patreon – the month of June in Shetland.
I remember when I first moved to that beautiful croft house in Shetland and the wonders of existence that I felt every day, until I had to leave 14 months later. I wrote a book in monthly chapters of my life that year on the island, I also wrote to the woman who had lived in the house from 1976 to 1960.
If you have ever wanted to live on an island, or move to a remote place, either as a couple or a single woman – then, you may be interested in the story I have to tell. I have released each month as a chapter, that aligns with the month that we are currently in so that it will give insight into where you live and what Shetland is like. I release the chapters on the 1st of each month. I am sitting in the city calmness, rereading my June chapter before I set it up ready for release and I wanted to share an extract with you.
Extract from May
It is the first day of the fifth month. I’m excited to take a seat on the small seven-seater plane to Fair Isle. The trip is easier for me than someone not living on the island but even so, it’s not a straightforward flight, which makes it all the more unique. I’m used to the flight path from one island to another, but the close proximity of the tiny plane flying low above the land and sea coupled with the craziness of flying in something so small never ceases to amaze me. In the small building at Tingwall airstrip, I watch the flight safety video on a small tv balanced on a table, take a seat amid the two rows of six orange plastic chairs to wait. One of the guys who loads the plane plays his guitar in a room behind me – I hand my bags to the official man, whom I know by name, at the weighing scales to measure the weight of baggage going south (never on the return flight though), and smile.
Outside, where the plane rests on the tarmac, I wait to be seated inside, related to body weight and distribution of balance. We don’t want all of the bodies on one side, tipping the plane, do we. Bags are stowed in the back of the tapering metal tail, behind a net. I’m seated above the wheel and love it. My view down is obstructed by the tiny comical looking triangular metal blue leg with two fat small rubber wheels. It’s like the spindly leg of a blue metal bird.
Extract from June
At 1am, the horizon line between sea and sky is still visible. In the gloaming, the sky to the North is a pink stripe of clouds where the sunlight lingers between setting and rising, neither dusk nor twilight. Suspended half-light where everything is still visible. A magical dreamlike world twists in the atmosphere. The energy of the island atmosphere charges our weak bodies. The magnetism in the environment of this northerly world is palpable. It makes me spin. It draws me outside like a moth drawn to the light bulb.
Together, the two merging lights and the calmness of the evenings full of bird calls are recognisable as only Shetland.
Time is like a breath. It feels as if our island world held its breath so long during Winter and spring, that now, there is an opportunity for a gentle exhale.
On the 12th, I do the rarest investment of time and money, I leave the island for Edinburgh for four days, and I take a small plane from Sumburgh. On the tram into the city, I see healthy green trees for the first time in 10 months. Before my friend arrives, I drop in at the City Arts Centre and find the oil painting, La Musica Veneziana, by Charles Hodge Mackie. So beautiful is a dome of light in this painting that I sit opposite it for some time, thinking of Chinese style lanterns dancing in the breeze above the gondola at night. The grand buildings framing half of the painting draw the eye to a life I have never known. Gondolas float on the water at the forefront. But it is the dome of light that holds my attention. It may be the lights of a building, I couldn’t say and I didn’t need to know. it’s such a captivating work that it needs time. It was painted in 1909 and I thought of Susan, living in Shetland in 1909 at the age of 33 and that if I could pick any single work of art from here to show her, it would be this painting. So that she could see something of another floating sea world so different to that of her own.
What light we lose in the winter, we gain in the summer. The Simmer Dim rolls in upon us bringing days in waves and folds of calm, still light so long and rich that they stretch my mind. The bank sides on the drive home from Lerwick, are covered in long swathes and carpets of dancing white dog daisies. I’m shopping at Tesco at 10pm thinking it is day time and on the way home, at St Ninian’s at 11pm, the gloaming light astonishes me – I am home at 11:20pm feeling restless, so, I nip to Levenwick beach at midnight There are two magical lights in the calendar of the Shetland year. One, is the cracking open of the world between sea and sky in the deep winter where the sun light spears then leaks along the horizon just before the sun rise and now, this crazy time of Simmerdim, where I am out at 1:30am looking at the sky to the North where a pink line of clouds lie suspended where the sun light lingers in a place that I don’t know about. Suspended light…
I am wondering if I actually do tick things off a subliminal list – the sun sets after midnight, ducks flying overhead quacking, a beautiful boat bobbing in the bay. I don’t feel that this is ticking things off, this is just watching, listening, waiting, experiencing. My face glows in the setting sun light while I knit on the beach. My legs shiver with cold. I feel it all. Nothing is missed. I knit the sea, air, and light into this jumper of mine and I am grateful to take the risk to live here. If I squint at the setting sun, it becomes a pointed star shooting deepest red, orange rays across the sea. The red fire ball sinks into the sea but there is no boiling water as if a hot iron dipping at the iron smiths. Suddenly a few folks arrive at the beach to witness the spectacle I wait for the green flash but there is none, the sun sank into the sea at exactly 10:30pm having bored its light into my retinas.
Trust your uncondtional imagination – I heard this said, by a musician. How many of us spend the time, the real time, to see our imagination?
This morning, I write, quickly, without inhibition, my unconditional imagination – not dream, nor hope but mature, possibly achievalble yet far reaching thoughts.
What I imagine is living in an old small Japanese house in Kyoto, much like the quadrangle houses in the hutongs of old Suzhou in China, where I once lived. I would find the perfect small place, – where I would live a small, simple life for one year.
I would learn to speak the language of the local people – every day, a little more – enough to get by. I’d get up when it was time to rise – maybe 4am at the sound of the bell ringing at the temple, or 6am when Nishiki market is rising and I would have a purpose to understand the passing of the seasons of one year, in all of its seasonal and serendipitous times.
I know where the Persimmon grows over the water but I have missed its blossom and leaves – only arriving last Winter to see a few plump fruits left hanging on the bare spindly branches, for the birds, or for the water but I want a year of the Persimmon trees of Kyoto. I have not seen the blossoms. I’d like to view them, feel them, sense and respect the history of them.
I want to learn how to wear Kimono properly – I have been shown but I want to be able to wear it in my small house. I want to rake the tiny garden, hear the rain travel down the rain chain from the roof, admire the growth of moss upon the rocks resting in the raked gravel of the sea. I want to regularly visit my favourite gardens – Dai Sen In, which made me almost cry at is beauty, Tofukuji, where I sat with the winter sun, a beautiful granny of a bride and watched the great oceans raked into the gravel with wonder at an act carried out in the same patterns for generations, or my first ever visited garden at Kenninji temple in Gion, where the guard was so used to me sitting on the long veranda facing South, in the winter sun knitting, that he began to smile.
I’d like to write the story of the seamstress, who works in the window of Old Gion. Hope that she would begin to trust me that I am not with her to take from her but to respect and admire her skills of many decades. I had begun to sit with the man who has befriended the heron on the river bank, I’d like to be a regular companion beside the changing year of the river, so that the birds would also begin to know me too. I’d take the time, hours and hours.
These are the things I already know exist but this is the tip. I want find, keep finding, keep learning, keep growing as well as give and share, as I once did when I lived in China.
I’d like to just feel the unique wonder of the cultural differences until it was no longer new to me because then, I would have emersed myself fully – grown the bonsai, joined the ladies chattering outside the theatre in their finest clothes, viewed the moss for so long that I could almost hear it grow, sat on the old wooden stools up to the make shift table in Nishiki market to eat sushi on a regular basis that they would know what I liked and I would know them as friends not as fine sushi and fish sellers, where I would greet people in the local greeting and mean it, wholeheartedly. I’d like to see the blossom move from south to north, I’d like to find an Onsen and revisit, I’d like to see Mount Fuji from the window of a passing train, in rain, in sun in mist.
I’d like to live a simple life with complex thoughts and feelings, to appreciate deeply from my heart – Kyoto for one year and face what may happen – good and bad because these things don’t come easily, don’t come quickly – they take time.
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.
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 –
tracey doxey 