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Wouldn’t this be wonderful realised as a hand-knit? (Of course it may be, but something about it makes me think perhaps not.)

The waterfall shape is beautiful, and from the numbers and different sizes and shapes of people I see wearing it seems to be almost universally flattering – inasmuch as anything can be. In a wool/silk blend this would be as luxurious as they come.

Category : Inspiration &Other people's designs

Last winter, I wore my Clapotis all season long. I knew it would be an absolute wrench to take it off in spring. I actually cast on in some pale pink Sirdar silky stuff (bought on clearance at Ally Pally) for a spring/summer version, but at the same time happened to be browsing a Japanese pattern book which had this wonderful stitch – a sort of a hybrid of two perennial favourites, the Clapotis and the Jaywalker.

The pattern was pretty but nothing more in solid pale pink silky… the beauty of the Jaywalker pattern (I’m sure that stitch has a real name?) is that it works so fabulously with variegated yarns. The zigzag just doesn’t show up with a solid. I toyed around with ordering some Handmaiden Double Sea but couldn’t justify the expense. So instead contacted Kirsty at Wharfedale Woolworks about getting some bamboo dyed. The colourway we came up with is a combination of palest pinks, golds and greys, called ‘Raindrops on Roses’.

I love it – for me, this is one of those designs where the yarn and the pattern together become greater than the some of their parts. The bamboo is slinky and slithery, cool to the touch, the scarf is long and wide enough to bunch and drape in any number of scarf-wearing styles. The fringing is, admittedly, a little fiddly to work: but if you know me at all you’ll know we never shirk the fiddly finishing: if you spend 40 hours on a beautiful piece it is worth, I will not be persuaded otherwise, an extra two or three to finish the thing beautifully.

Of course, as with all successful designs, I now wish I could start again with a whole different scheme. This time I would work it in four or six rows of an intense bright followed by two rows of black, inspired by this offering by Missoni.

Category : Original designs

I should have started updating the website six MONTHS ago! What was I thinking? We have all these beautiful new designs to share with you and nowhere to put them! (PS: Be sure to read right to the end of this post because we have a special offer for you which is valid for the whole of spring and summer!).

The archives can wait, because I can’t, not a moment longer, to share just a few of the designs we have waiting in the wings. We had planned to release them all together, as a collection, but time and life and commitments just got in the way, so we’re going to be releasing them one or two a week over the next little while.

There is so much variety, I really think (and hope!) there will be something to please everyone! We have bags (capacious day bags and beaded evening bags), heirloom lace, summery scarves, belts, socks, coats, tops… If you see something you particularly love, let us know and we will do our best to move it up the queue!

Because we have been gone so long, and because we are so excited about all the work we have been doing (and so frustrated because as hard as we try it often feels like wading through treacle), we are running a special sale. Just type the code SUMMERSALE11 into the discount code box when you check out, and you’ll be able to buy four patterns for the price of three. The code is valid now and for the whole of spring and summer, and what’s more it’s valid on all patterns, not just new ones. You can use the same code as many times as you like – every time you buy three patterns, you can pick another one to have free, too!

Category : Original designs

It’s a wonderful thing about the very best designers – you can refer to them and refer to them and years later they are still ‘right’. Sophia was my attempt to interpret the Alexander McQueen (rest his soul) cardigan coat from 2006.

It’s no McQueen, but by my reckoning a pretty successful version of a cabled cardigan coat. The yarn is Jaeger EFM Chunky (I’m sure I’m not the only one still mourning the line – yes there are good substitutes for fibre content and twist, but not for the colour range). I’m a big fan of chunky yarns for larger pieces like this or Flicca. It puts them within range of reasonable knitting time – probably no more time consuming than a 4ply sweater.

I know that bobbles divide knitters. Personally I am pro, but respectful of other positions. For the anti-bobblists, I’d suggest filling those medallions in the cable pattern with a little patch of moss stitch.

My final word on this piece: it is warm. The great big collar effectively gives a double layer of fabric over the shoulders – where I feel the cold most. Wear with a sweet little slip of a dress and boots for winter fashion style – or over fine knits, chunky socks, long johns and thermal undershirts for when winter really digs in and chic is a consideration for more clement times.
More pictures, and the pattern, soon.

Category : Original designs

Apparently I’m not busy enough (parenting a three-year-old, working a full time job, working on a collection of new designs) because I’m still unable to ignore that terrible lust we occasionally get for knits. I don’t know what it was about Sedna that drew me in – perhaps my failed attempt at the February Lady Sweater meant the style/construction had not left my system (not that the pattern failed, nor the knitting – I enjoyed it immensely, but the finished item did nothing to flatter me. Luckily the shape and the colour (Dream in Color ‘In Vino Veritas’) both suited my ma to a ‘t’, so as soon as she said she liked it it was off my back and onto hers).

It started when I was working at Ally Pally earlier this year, I kept picking up Yarn Forward 8 and flicking back to it; when I remembered I had a sweater’s worth of Kilcarra Aran Tweed in stash, the deal was sealed.

The process was not without its problems: the horizontal band around the hips was far too short when I sewed it into place so instead I unpicked the cast off and reworked the band as one would an applied edging, working ssk on RS rows and slipping the first st of WS rows so there are actually two rows of band to each stitch of body. It makes the cardigan flare out slightly which may not be flattering to the top-heavy but is OK for someone as straight up and down as me.

It’s more difficult, now, approaching 40 and having changed shape. Inevitable, of course, after childbirth and a certain age, but I’m still not used to it. In my 20s I could really rely on being able to wear anything, and now that I can’t, I’m far less confident about the choices I make. But my sister said she likes this on me, so for now, at least, it’s in wardrobe rotation.

One day I will unpick the bands at the wrists and knit an extra half a repeat on the arms’ lengths before sewing the bands back on – the sleeves are just an inch too short, that I feel I must keep tugging them down.

Category : Other people's designs

Or perhaps, ‘we have resumed knitting’. Not only knitting, but also writing, designing, and planning.

‘We’ in this case is not the pluralis majestatis nor the ‘editorial we’. No, a literal ‘we’: Needle & Hook is now two. My sister has joined me – the hook to my needle – and her input and encouragement has motivated me to get more done in the last month than I have in the last year. Isabel has a practicality and tenacity where my strengths are elsewhere. Together we are unstoppable.

Our first order of business will be to make available some of those patterns now back in my copyright or which have been previously published but for one reason or another made unavailable. Sally, Bridie, Argyle and more.

But that is not all… oh no, that is not all…

Category : Blog

Awful when precious knits are lost (I still, periodically, mourn the disappearance of my Dundonnell stole) but despite the pain of the loss, and given the alternatives, this must be one of the best possible fates for a handknit?

Of course, the finest honour is that it should be worn out. Worn to holes, darned, worn some more, clung to despite being no longer actually fit to wear (reference the sleeve of my Great Sweater waiting, for a year now, for a few stitches to secure this disgraceful sleeve) and then gracefully, regretfully, retired. An attractive and well-fitting pair of socks and an appreciative owner will usually secure this noble destiny. No less desirable, but not always appropriate, is the knit which is outgrown, then preserved, carefully, for a younger sibling – it being too precious to place in the round-robin bags of infant clothes that travel between parents of young children, who do grow (you may have heard) like weeds.

And yes, perhaps they may be lost. The Ene’s scarf I made for my aunt the Christmas before dear John died, escaped. It’s disappearance even made the front page of the local newspaper (‘Reward offered!’), but alas the absence proved permanent; snagged (maybe?) upon some wire croft fencing, no doubt by now shredded by the elements and the animals, vanished into the air, earth and water of the Highlands.

Better to be lost in the course of regular wearing, though, than ignored! Pity the poor handknit, received with a smile but relegated to the dresser drawer, it’s woollen heart swelling with hope each time it peeks the daylight, only to be disappointed once more. The creases where it has been carefully folded set more firmly with the passing months. The fabric takes on a faint layer of dust. The garment barely knows what it would do with itself were it ever to be worn.

Christmas knitting invariably raises this issue. For the most part, people are polite and would not dream of expressing disatisfaction with a knit gifted them. No matter how many times I invoke, “Please, if you find you don’t wear it, return it to me and I will give it a new home! Believe me! I will not take offence!”

I only wish I had the confidence that they would all be allowed to fulfil their only wish – to be worn, and to warm their owner – like this one

This is Ann Hanson‘s Wing of the Moth shawl, made from some Sirdar laceweight probably as old as I am, liberated from a stash organisation undertaken a couple of years ago. The yarn belonged to John’s mother (an expert knitter before she lost her eyesight) and I hope that in its new incarnation it will warm the neck of his widow. What it lacks in the beauty of the berry colours of Ene’s scarf, I hope it will make up for in sentimental value.

Category : Blog

It’s an adventure sending things away to be knit. ‘Will those instructions I wrote, and sent off with some balls of wool and a packet of beads actually come back as a garment?’

As you can see (thanks to the wonderful Pat, who, may I say, could not resist trying on the sweater and modelled it with great élan), they did. I love the semi-solid Handmaiden sock yarn as a background to the strong, black ‘jewellery’. Yes it’s pink, but quite a masculine pink, if you can imagine such a thing – it leans toward the grey/mauve. The inspiration was a catwalk piece, possibly Armani, which had beads or sequins appliqued onto a fine knit pullover. Once I’ve woven the ends in I will try and get some shots of me in it – the pattern is already written and sized, and if I hurry it may even be possible to make one in time for the party season ahead. If I were to make another, I’d love to see it in a watery, pale blue-green… or in dove grey, with silver beads… or cobalt, with bronze…

There’s another beaded sweater in my sketchbook, with beads falling down the sleeves to land in a thick, heavy layer at the cuffs. I’m so pleased with how this one turned out, it may be the motivation I need to go in search of the perfect yarn and bead combination once more.

Category : Original designs

I love those Mason Dixon girls. Their books make me wish I had only just learned how to knit, so I could experience the wonder of all those possibilities opening before me. But what am I saying? I’ve been knitting for by far the greater portion of my life, and their books still have that effect on me.

December 2006 I went to meet Ann on New Years’ Eve, she was visiting London, and I was completely honoured when she invited me to come up with a pattern for the new book, published yesterday. I received my copy a week ago and have been wasting hours of valuable time, poring over the pages when I could be knitting. It has had me visiting online yarn shops, filling my virtual basket over and over again, before sternly reminding myself that I have far too many unfinished projects awaiting attention to justify any more new beginnings, and navigating away.

The Errant Socks, which you will find on page 48, were originally conceived as fraternal twins, a non-matching pair, but space limitations brought the eventual published number of errant sock possibilities down to one. But in the wonderful world of web, there are no such limitations! So here is the prodigal Chart 3. To make your Errant socks even more errant, complete Sock 1 exactly as written in the book, for Sock 2, replace the second paragraph of instructions under the Foot section thusly:

&c from pattern. Enjoy the mismatchiness – which is after all the nature of handknit socks; and the movement from chaos to order – the nature of knitting.

Category : Original designs

On a whim, I bought a sewing machine. (My whims have not yet caught up with the reality that our savings are now spent and the end of maternity leave and going back to the office (not yet, but soon), while tinged with regret, are tinged more strongly with relief at the promise of a monthly paycheck.)

I have a torrid history with sewing machines – when people who cheerfully coexist with their machines ask, I say I haven’t the patience. Which strikes them as odd, coming from a knitter. But truly, nothing drives me to fury faster than that atonal groan (‘nehhhh – nehhhh’) which is the sound of a sewing machine chewing up my beautiful fabric and knotting it’s bobbin into a birdsnest. Knitting I can, at least usually, control. Two pointy sticks give minimum opportunity for atonal groaning. Of course your experience may vary.

But motherhood is evidently doing strange things to me. First, I want to make the boy a patchwork quilt. I have a stack of pre-cut ‘I Spy’ quilt squares which I will piece in a chequerboard with white to make a quilt that can be both a game (two of each fabric, find the matching pairs) and a prompt for improvised bedtime stories. I fully appreciate that there will be a minute window of opportunity for this, between him being in the big bed (at least another year I expect) and ungraciously eschewing his dear ma’s handicrafts in favour of a spiderman duvet – at which point I will reclaim the quilt and cuddle up to it when I feel sad and remember how I would sit under it and tell stories to my sweet tiny boy at bedtime. I may even return it to him at some point in the future, if he’s very good.

Then there were those Oliver + S patterns. Having had terrible girl clothes envy it was all I could do to not to dress Stanley in a little frock all summer long. Instead I dealt with it by making a pair of shorts. I thought the bloomeriness would fit well over his cloth nappies. The shorts were, indeed, gorgeous but alas my tiny boy is actually huge for his age and, even though I made a size 18-24 months, he barely got to wear them (he was eight months in this picture) before they were too small and in the bag marked ‘baby clothes to save – in case’. Nevermind. They were fast to make and satisfyingly sweet and a good use of an old linen dress. And the next baby to wear them will look adorable.

Last, for now, was a new pushchair liner. Stanley had been sitting on the underneath part of his winter cositoes (for the uninitiated, it’s like a zip up sleeping back with holes for the harness through the back part) but being navy blue it got very hot when the sun came out. This decrepit, ragged, perished and falling apart quilt has been sitting in my fabric cupboard for absolute years, but I’ve been unable to throw it away. It is fit for nothing, really, but I just cannot bring myself to bin all those hand stitches. So I used the winter liner as a template, and cut out one from the patchwork (reinforced with straight lines of machine quilting) and one from an old quilted cotton mattress protector, sewed them together with some home made bias binding, and used the buttonhole feature to reinforce the holes for the buggy harness. The work of an hour or two.

It may only last a year, but it’s soft and pretty and it’s some kind of use for that poor old raggedy quilt.

I do hope you’re all well – please tell me what’s inspiring you? I can’t start every entry with resolutions to do better or apologies for my absence; that would be too tedious. Instead I will just do what and when I can, and content myself with composing endless posts in my head between times.

Category : Sewing