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Follow Jen and Jim's many knitting and craft adventures, including expert knitting tips, tutorials and book reviews, with bonus quilting and other crafty content.
Three weeks onto A Year of Techniques and many, many Hyacinthus wrist warmers have been cast on. You will have seen a few examples in the yarn choice post from a couple of weeks ago and you can see the range of projects here.
Helical stripes aren't just for a single pattern though, so I've picked out a few from our KAL on Ravelry to highlight the range of applications.
Read moreJim thinks he knits inefficiently. What do you think?
Read moreTwelve projects, from world-class designers (you wait until you see the list!), teaching you twelve new techniques that will bring your knitting to a new level. Each pattern will be supported by an article with a detailed photo tutorial, as well as a video tutorial to walk you through each step of the technique. The projects are intended to be small enough to be completed within a month, thus allowing you to try something new without over-investing in either time or yarn. And the best part is that we will be with you every step of the way, knitting along and encouraging you as you try something new.
Read moreAhem. There seems to have been something of a proliferation of projects on the go at Arnall-Culliford Towers. It has nothing at all to do with the season. No, nothing at all.
Without further preamble, here's the first out of the massive bag of half-done-stuff:
Read moreA few weeks ago, the postman delivered a book from Shetland. Jen remarked, "The Wool Week Annual is bigger this year - that's a bit of a surprise," then opened the package. It wasn't the Shetland Wool Week Annual, but something a little different (the Wool Week Annual arrived a couple of days later and more on that another time!).
A Shetlander's Fair Isle Graph Book in Colour consists of reproductions of two notebooks from the second quarter of the 20th Century. These originally belonged to Bill Henry who was in charge of the Hosiery (Knitwear) Department at Anderson & Co. of Lerwick through the middle of the last century.
Carole Christiansen's introduction gives a great insight into the knitting industry in Shetland and really sets the scene for why what follows is a little special. Usually, if charts were drawn, their purpose was to give the knitter an idea of how the colours should change, rather than which colours to use. What sets these notebooks apart is that they have been fully coloured in, that is directing the knitter to colour choice as well as pattern.
What fascinates me about this book is the air of mystery over who actually drew the charts and what the purpose of the charts was. Is this a record of Fair Isle motifs that Bill had seen coming in from the local knitters, or were they produced by him, or someone for him, to direct knitters to a particular pattern, or a combination of both? Whatever the truth this is an important record of how external influences affected design through the period of the books, from the inclusion in the earliest pages, and thereafter absence, of swastikas to the appearance of Norwegian styles through the 1940s.
The big draw of this book is obviously the huge number of Shetland colourwork patterns to use within your own knitwear, but I think it is more than just that, so if you have an interest in the development of knitting, or are looking for a reference for colourwork, then this is a must-have book.
A Shetland's Fair Isle Graph Book was produced by the Shetland Guild of Spinners, Knitters, Weavers and Dyers and is published by The Shetland times. It is available from The Shetland Times bookshop and is priced at £20.
Disclaimer: We received a review copy of the Shetlander's Fair Isle Graph Book free of charge from The Shetland Times. We have not received any other payment for this review, and are sharing it because we think it's a great book!
I just couldn't stop thinking about those tucks. The delight of them flowing from ribbing to tuck! The satisfaction of the stitches working in just the right ways. And then it occurred to me that they could work from ribbing to stocking stitch... Or indeed from stocking stitch to ribbing...
Read moreFollowing on from the HapsarehappeningKAL, which still has plenty of chat going on a month after it finished, we racked our brains to come up with a new idea for the next knitalong. After much discussion about the topic, scope and name, we settled on picturethisKAL.
The idea is simple: knit a project that is in some way inspired by an image. It can be a photo you’ve taken, it can be a famous painting or photo, it can be any image you like! Your project can be inspired by the image’s colour, texture or shape. It’s up to you! Our aim is for the knitalong to be nice and inclusive. If you have an idea of what you want to knit next, then make it so. There’s an image for every possible project.
This KAL will run until Monday 17th October 2016 at midnight Alaskan time. To get involved, please tag your project on Ravelry with PictureThisKAL, and use the hashtag #PictureThisKAL on Instagram and Twitter. This allows everyone to see all of the inspiring projects involved in the knitalong.
There will be weekly prizes, selected at random for works in progress and also a prize for finished objects. Full details for eligibility are in the KAL thread.
Stuck for inspiration?
It could be a landscape such as this one of the river through Wick by Claire (soup dragon).
You could choose to match colours from other crafts, such as this cross stitch made as a present for Georgie (georgievinsun).
Perhaps something in the garden, like Danielle's (KnittingNixon) roses.
You could take inspiration from the colours of garden wildlife as Beverley (0bev0) has.
Or you could be like Alix (AlixPearson) who is basing her colours on a memorable dinner in Sweden.
Whatever you choose, get casting on now and join in the fun!
In the month since the publication of The Book of Haps, the hapsarehappeningKAL has racked up nearly 200 projects on the needles, or finished. I wonder how many there will be by the time the KAL finishes on the 8th August. Whatever the final number of projects, there will have been a bewilderingly large number of stitches worked, and hopefully a huge amount of joy in the making process, joy in completing projects, and in many cases joy in receiving a hap as a gift.
As usual, I've picked a few project photos that have caught my eye. First up is this Lang Ayre in progress, made by Kharis (peeriewyes). I'm a great fan of the delicate pastel palette she's put together.
The original colours of Happenstance were chosen to match Romi Hill's surroundings in Nevada. This photograh shows another Happenstance, made by Dawn (nibbleknitter), again with colours that reflect her surroundings.
My favourite photo of Houlland in the book is undoubtedly the one with the hap and its shadow as it reinforces the lacy nature of the hap. Similarly, I really like this Houlland by Pauline (Ranadi). The yarn gives the lace motif firm definition.
I may have mentioned previously how much I admire Uncia, so here's another fine example, made by Tina (TinerW).
The last two rounds of prizes have been generously donated by Carol Feller and Romi Hill (last week) and by Hélène Magnússon and Lucy Hague (this week). The lucky winners are SaraMW, kathrynsmyth, fluffspangle, wolke100, Dimityknits, soupdragon, Gynnifer and Annarga.
Keep tagging your projects with hapsarehappeningKAL to be in with a chance of winning prizes as next week is the last for WIP prizes. You can see all projects at a glance here, and see all the Instagram photos posted of projects here. Come back next week to see more beautiful creations.
Keep up to date with all we're doing:
Arnall-Culliford Knitwear on Facebook | Arnall-Culliford Knitwear on YouTube | Arnall-Culliford Knitwear on Ravelry | JenACKnitwear and VeufTricot on Twitter | JenACKnitwear and VeufTricot on Instagram | And sign up in the sidebar to get our blog posts delivered to you by email.
All photos © of the respective knitters.
I have been slow in putting together this week's progress post, but I have been giving it some thought. One thing that's struck me throughout the whole Book of Haps project has been the number of designs that began with the letter h, roughly half. Except for the obvious, I've no idea whether naming haps with an h was deliberate on the part of the designers or not.
With this in mind, I'd like to share two finished h haps, Happenstance and Houlland.
Top: Happenstance made by Kim (kimknitessex); Bottom: Houlland made by Julie (Crochet-Julie)
It should be pointed out that Julie's Houlland is one of 3 haps she's finished already!
Last week, I featured a partial Hapisk, one of the larger projects in the book. This week, we were treated to the sight of a completed Moder Dy, a square some 5 feet across before blocking. I am hugely impressed with the speed at which Elithea has produced this, and really look forward to seeing it laid out to its full size in the near future.
Of the other massive projects, a few more Hexahaps have been shared in the last week, and this half Hexahap by Caroline (lindyhopper) is all but finished. If you click through on the link to her project page, you get a really good feel for the modular nature of the design.
Random weekly prizes for this week have been kindly provided by Martina Behm and Gudrun Johnston and go to Dimityknits, daynasue, MonkSqueeDunk and 0bev0.
Keep tagging your projects with hapsarehappeningKAL to be in with a chance of winning prizes. You can see all projects at a glance here, and see all the Instagram photos posted of projects here. Come back next week to see more beautiful creations.
Keep up to date with all we're doing:
Arnall-Culliford Knitwear on Facebook | Arnall-Culliford Knitwear on YouTube | Arnall-Culliford Knitwear on Ravelry | JenACKnitwear and VeufTricot on Twitter | JenACKnitwear and VeufTricot on Instagram | And sign up in the sidebar to get our blog posts delivered to you by email.
All photos © of the respective knitters.
All over Knitlandia, knitters are making haps in all sorts of shapes in all sorts of yarn. This week, I've picked up some pictures of the haps that weren't featured last week.
Working backwards, first up is a finished object: Lucy Hague's Uncia, made by Danielle (KnittingNixon)
I am constantly impressed with the way that Lucy managed to reproduce the architectural lines of great cathedrals of Europe and this and all of the other Uncias out there are permanent monuments to Lucy's skill as a designer.
While some of the haps are relatively quick to knit, there are a few enormous designs that take some doing. Moder Dy by Kate Davies and Hapisk by Hélène Magnússon are two of these.
Georgie (GeorgieVinsun) has got further than this photo suggests, but you can see the wave motif that gives the pattern its name very clearly.
Pip (RamsayBaggins) is charging through Hapisk. I find the colour combination almost mesmerising, and although it wasn't the inspiration, I am strongly reminded of photos of Saturn when I look at the stripes.
Of the smaller haps, Montbretia by Carole Feller and Theme and Variation by Veera Välimäki have proven to be popular.
Beverley (0bev0) has chosen colours inspired by wildflower meadows to make her Montbretia and they work fantastically well together.
Trish (Trish88) has gone for an attractive blue and grey palette for her Theme and Variation.
One of the ongoing discussions within the KAL has around choosing a favourite bird, and then matching yarn to plumage to customise the Nut-Hap. There will be birds from all over the world represented.
This example, that was recently completed by fluffspangle, takes its colours from the greenfinch. You can see how tucks are incorporated into the design, and to find out how to do this, Jen made a tutorial on adding tucks to your knitting last week.
The randomly selected winners of prizes, provided by Donna Smith and Jen, are: Nell9, carolynintheuk, nibble knitter, and elithea.
It's still not too late to get involved as the KAL will run into August: simply tag your Ravelry project with the tag hapsarehappeningKAL to join in. You can see all projects at a glance here, and see all the Instagram photos posted of projects here. Come back next week to see more beautiful creations.
Keep up to date with all we're doing:
Arnall-Culliford Knitwear on Facebook | Arnall-Culliford Knitwear on YouTube | Arnall-Culliford Knitwear on Ravelry | JenACKnitwear and VeufTricot on Twitter | JenACKnitwear and VeufTricot on Instagram | And sign up in the sidebar to get our blog posts delivered to you by email.
All photos © of the respective knitters.
