Peerie Fair isle jumper

I finished the peerie Fair isle jumper a couple of weeks ago (isn't it great when an UFO becomes an FO?).  We haven't had very good weather over the last week or so, but the sun was shining on Saturday so we headed to Minn beach at the south end of Burra-Isle (5-10 min drive from our house).

It's a good fit (thankfully) and it is good for digging in the sand and gathering stones as we discovered.

I tried knitting it without putting buttons on the shoulders but no matter how much I pulled it wasn't going over his head. I undid the neck, opened the left shoulder (the arms were attached by this time)and added in an opening with buttons which makes it much easier to put on. Serves me right for being lazy and thinking I could get away without putting in the buttons.

I used my Mum's old jumper board to block the jumper; Shetland wool benefits from being dressed and at one time every home in Shetland would have had at least one jumper board.  This one was made by my Grandad and has seen many garment over the years:

The pattern were taken from a little jumper I borrowed from my friend Wendy of Burra Bears shown here modelled by the lamb on the right - this fantastic photo taken her Brother Kevin Ritch has been made into greeting cards and you can see them on the Burra Bears website. To Joseph's jumper I added a coloured 2x2 rib and used wool I had in my stash - a good way of using fairly small amounts of wool.

Since then I have made my first headband, the pattern is by Hazel Tindall (the World's fastest knitter), you can download the pattern here

It only took a few hours to knit and is a great thing to knit as a first Fair isle project.  Its also a good way to try out colour combinations.  I used Shetland yarn from Jamieson's of Shetland in 6 different shades of grey and one row of sage green in the middle of the pattern.  I changed colours in the background rather than foreground colour as the pattern suggests.  That's the beauty of Fair isle knitting, there are so many ways of doing the same thing which can create hugely different effects.

I have a couple of extra rows in the rib as I knitted too much (got distracted) and it seemed a shame to take it back.  It works OK but I will make sure I stick to the pattern next time.

 

I am now working on gloves to match - more about them later.

Work news: I decided a few months back that I wouldn't work in the evenings unless I absolutely had to as I spent so many years with no time to myself.  This means I don't have a lot of time during the day to make products to sell other than fulfilling my orders from Not On The High Street, but I am "picking away" as we say here and hope to have some scarves into the shops soon, although it is an extremely slow process as pin and needles and toddlers don't mix very well.  I have decided that Joseph won't be little for long and I want to enjoy the time at home with him without being stressed about the unfinished pile of work on the desk.

My temporary work space

I am working on a range of laser cut products which will reduce my time spent on each item, once I have sourced the materials I will be ready to go.

In the meantime - happy knitting!

Hooked on fair isle knitting

When I was little, part of the daily "uniform" usually consisted of some sort of woolly jumper, often fair isle and usually hand knitted by a relative.  Here is myself and my cousin Ingrid sporting fair isle jumpers a few years ago.....

As I was growing up, my Mum and both Grannys spent a lot of time knitting Fair isle. Knitwear, and in turn knitting, became unfashionable, so I never wanted to be taught Fair isle garment construction, which is something I regret. I have knitted many garments from patterns but never knew how to create my own designs. Traditionally garment construction wasn't written down but was something that was "just done" and skills were passed on from one person to the next.  Women used to spend their evenings together knitting and passing on these skills. 

Image from Shetland Museum Photo Library

 

 

Last winter I attended a night class in the local primary school. Each Tuesday night for ten weeks, I went with 8 other women to learn to knit a traditional fair isle jumper. Knitting a Fair isle jumper is basically about scaling up proportionately and having a pattern repeat to fit the number of stitches (or sometimes the other way around).

In order to learn the basic construction we knitted a mini jumper.

 

I haven't finished it as you can see, mainly due to the fact that the nightclass mainly took place during November and December last year which is my busiest time of year and also leaving it like this shows the construction details better.  Jumpers can be made any size you like, its all about proportions and fitting in patterns.  Nevertheless, I thought I should start small and I have been working on a little jumper for Joseph.

I cut the steeks in the armholes last night, I have never done this before so my heart was in my mouth - I reinforced the cut edge first by a couple of rows of machine stitching, my Mum and Granny did this and it means you can have a neat hem that doesn't need stitching down.

My least favourite bit of any knitting project is the finishing, look at all these ends waiting to be woven in......*sigh* 

But the most exciting thing about finishing is the prospect of starting a new project - just look at all this yarn I have inherited just waiting to be knitted up.

 

Emigration - an installation

You may recall back in October I wrote a post about an installation I completed for the Swapbox exhibition in the Bonhoga Gallery.

 

I promised I would write more about it in the next blog post and here we are in March already.  November and December were unbelievably busy, and I think I needed two months to recover!  I was delighted to sell the installation, currently I am transferring the discs onto a board so it can be hung in the chosen place, working with it again has spurred me on to write the post.

The exhibition was by the group Text-Isles, which I am a member of, and as the name implies, started off with us swapping boxes which we decorated and filled with materials and inspirational items based on a chosen aspect of Shetland culture.

I decided to base my box on the popular past time of tea-drinking, machine embroidered the top ("A peerie scar of tae" means "a little drop of tea" in Shetland dialect) and filled the box with various pieces of felt, photos, fabrics etc.:

 

 

Once night last February the members of Text-Isles met at the Bonhoga Gallery and swapped boxes.

 

 

I said goodbye to my tea themed box and gained this one put together by Emma Blain of Aamos Designs.

 

Emma had chosen Emigration as a theme and had cleverly covered her cardboard box to look like an old fashioned suitcase.  Then the thinking began....

This was a very different way to work for me, to basically be given a random topic and materials to create a finished piece of work that would go on a gallery wall and be seen by the general public (I am almost having palpatations even thinking back to that time).

Between the mid 19th century and the mid 20th century a huge number of people left Shetland, some were forced out due to hardship and homelessness and others left in search of a better life.  When I thought about this, one of the main things that came to my mind was that as well as gaining new lives, skills and cultures they also took with them skills, knowledge and culture which they would pass onto their new neighbours.  I read the stories of several people that had left but decided to concentrate on one particular individual, Jeremina Colvin who moved from Shetland to Cowichan in Vancouver Island where she lived until she died in 1937.  Legend has it that she passed on advanced knitting skills to the local women who at that time made socks and other accessories out of their thick natural coloured wool.  This lead to the production of the Cowichan sweater which is now one of Canada's national symbols

It is generally a "chunky" knit in natural colours with some Fair isle borders and larger motifs on the front.

I based my installation on the motif on the jumper below:

This is basically a Fair isle star, several variations of which can be seen in traditional Fair isle garments.  I had been thinking for a while about how Fair isle patterns are "dotted out" on paper, a series of dots making up the designs.

My challenge was to create 115 dots for an installation, each dot to represent a piece of Shetland culture using the materials that were in the box, and I wanted each dot to be different.  I began by knitting many, many samples of lace, each a Shetland lace pattern.  The colours used were based on a piece of fabric that Emma had woven and was in my box.

These were stretched over felt and fabric discs and a pin inserted on the back of each.....

I painted some fabric and embroidered on extracts from the poem "Fair Island mid the Northen Seas" by William Hughson in From Old Rock to New Life, a Shetland Museum and Archives publication, and some dialect words........

 

.......Fused them onto felt and cut them out with my die cutter....

Each disc was pinned on the wall with the help of my template...

By keeping them a few cm off the wall they appearred to float by creating shadows....

 

 

 

Overall I was very happy with the result and it has sparked off my latest obsession with knitting.

I really hope Jeremina would be pleased with it too.

 

 

 

Brooches made to accompany the installation, lambswool knited fabric covering wool woven fabric (fabric woven by Aamos Designs). 

Patterns L to R, Bird's Eye stitch, Bird's Eye stitch knitted on larger needles, Bead stitch.

 

Organising, Exhibiting and Selling Online

Well, it really has been ages since I posted on here - I have been trying; a few months ago I thought I didn't have enough to say and then over the past couple of months I have been so busy I haven't had time, so I feel as if I have plunged right into work at the deep end.  So what have I been up to?


Trying to get organised

I am now back working at home and as Joseph is 14 months, walking and into everything, I have had to rearrange the house so I can work safely and out of reach......

I have cordoned off an area in the kitchen for a desk, my sewing machine, die cutter and other things, but the rest is spread around the house.....

 

Scarves are in the bedroom amongst cuddly toys and books.....

 

 

Mr Smith donated several of these screw boxes he wasn't using for all the felt shapes I use to make my brooches and hairslides. I don't know why I didn't think of that before, it keeps all the pieces in one place and I carry the box to another table if I want to work somewhere else. I suppose he got fed up with finding bits of felt stuck to his socks.

 

 

 Exhibition at Bonhoga Gallery

I currently have an installation at the Bonhoga exhbition, "Swap Box" as part of a joint show by the group Text-Isles, which is on until 4th November.  I took up a massive amount of my time, but I really enjoyed working on it and it has inspired me to knit more Shetland lace.  I will write more details about the show in the next post.


Selling Online

I am now selling a few products on Not On The High Street, you can see these on my pages:
 www.notonthehighstreet.com/donnasmithdesigns

 

 

I have decided not to sell through my own website, at the moment anyhow, as Not On The High Street is so easy to manage, a few clicks of the mouse and the customer receives all the right information. 

 

I also even have my own stickers with my name on it - makes me feel a bit professional!

 

 

 

Anyway, must dash - I have lots to do tonight as I am busy making stock for The Christmas Craft Fair in the Clickimin Centre on 9th-11th November and that will be here very quickly!

 

 

Keeping in Touch

I have been badly neglecting my blog over the past months, I am working on getting back to making and designing and reorganising my entire working life around a little boy who is now 10 months old and moving around!  I will blog very soon (I promise!) with details of plans for selling my work and new products so keep tuned.

In the meantime you can keep in touch by following my Facebook page, I find it easier to pop in and out there and upload the odd photo or two  ww.facebook.com/donnasmithdesigns or by following me on twitter at https://twitter.com/DonnaSmith02.

Hope to see you there and more details to follow very soon!

Shoormal

A few years ago I sang with the band Shoormal.  The music doesn't really fit neatly into any genre, it tends to go under "contemporary folk", but has many influences including from folk, country and jazz with harmony vocals being a major part in each song.  You can hear the music on Shoormal's myspace page.

Shoormal
Gregg Arthur (keyboard, accordian, hammond organ, bascially anything with keys); Jonathan Ritch (bass); Freda Leask (vocals); Archer Kemp (drums); Trevor Smith (guitar); Me (vocals); Gordon Tulloch (guitar); Joyce Wark (vocals)
Photo: Heidi Pearson

We recorded 3 CDs, Indigo Skies, Migrant and Turning Tide.  The first, Indigo Skies was nominated for best newcomer in Mike Harding's Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2001.  You can buy Migrant and Turning Tide from various places including Amazon, and you can download various tracks from there too - it sems strange to think when we first started we used tapes to record new songs and ideas!  The first album Indigo Skies sold out but is due to be rereleased soon.

We travelled a little bit during our time as a band, the photo below shows us in the Hilton Hotel in Austin, Texas.

                                          Photo: Davie Gardner

We had many band practices and many laughs along the way.  Here are some of us at Gregg's before he revamped his sitting room.

Due to pressures of business combined with the fact I am not a bit fan of performing (not a good trait if you are in a band) I "retired".  The band has continued to play in a scaled down format and with one or two different members, and played at events this summer under the name of "Freda Leask and the Shoormal Band".  A facebook page has been set up so you can find out where they are playing, updates on re-releases and other music related news.  Hop over there and have a look! 

Shoormal: A Shetland dialect word meaning where the shore meets the sea.

Project - Peerie Breeks for Peerie Breeks

While England is baking in sun, in Shetland we are experiencing wind and rain (it is October after all), what better way to spend an afternoon like that than doing a bit of sewing while staying cosy inside.

A few days ago I made a peerie pair of breeks (a little pair of trousers) for Joseph. To explain the title in Shetland we would affectionately call a little person "Peerie Breeks" (little trousers).

I had a scrap of light denim left over from a coat I cut out but never got around to sewing (one of my UFOs, I must look for it) and used a pattern I downloaded from Make Baby Stuff.com.  The pattern is free and can be printed on 2 sheets of A4 paper.

I added a couple of inches at the bottom of the pattern and straightened out the bottom so I could create turnups which could be turned down as Joseph grows.  Only 2 pieces are needed as the pattern is placed on the fold:

To add a bit of interest I added fabric stars to the knees by ironing some bondaweb onto a piece of scrap grey fabric, cutting out two stars then ironing them onto the denim.  I stitched around the edges of the stars with a zig zag sttich to finish them off and to stop the edges peeling off.

I thought I would attempt to sew the trousers with french seams, I have never tried this before but it worked out very well.

Firstly you place the wrong sides of the fabric together, stitch along the seam half the width of the seam allowance, turn the pieces outside in then stitch the seam again the width of half the seam allowance.  I found I needed to trim the first seam.  I turned up about a centimetre along the bottom then stitched them, once the rest of the trousers were finished I turned up about an inch and handstitched along the edge to create the turnups.

I wasn't sure what to do between the legs but it was obvious once I got there (although too difficult to explain!)

Once the seams were all sewn together I turned the waistband over twice and stitched along both folded edges leaving a gap of a couple of cm so the elastic could be threaded through using a safety pin.

Once the bottom hems were done I needed a lttle model.

He seems quite happy with them.  Altogether they only took a couple of hours, sometimes the planning and gathering the sewing equipment together takes the longest, so I hope to make a few more pairs during the rainy afternoons.  I hope I have inspired you to do a bit of sewing.

It is still lashing rain and howling a gale out there, so I am off to look out that cashmerino yarn I ordered to start the next project while drinking copious amounts of tea and I might just have to eat that bit of millionaire shortbread that has been staring me out all afternoon. 

Well, it is one of those nights!