Somme 100: Poppy Patterns

Work in progress on patterns

I love the diversity of my work, I love the different opportunities that come my way and the chance to work with lots of different organisations on different projects. I have just finished designing two patterns for Cumbria's Museum of Military Life, which records the history of Cumbria's County Infantry Regiment. The patterns I have designed are a knitted poppy and a crocheted poppy.

Working on the train: Trying different shapes

The patterns are available on the museums website and are part of a larger project commemorating the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. The aim of this part of the project is to create a knitted or crocheted poppy for each soldier of the Border Regiment who died during the Somme. The poppies will be displayed from the windows of the museum building, each month more poppies will be added to the display, corresponding with the number of men who died that month in the Somme 100 years ago.

Knitted Poppy

Detail

In total the museum are aiming to make 1700 poppies. It is very difficult to know exactly how many people died and when they died. A soldier may have been injured during the battle and died from his wounds many weeks or even months later. There were also of course other Cumbrian's not in the Border regiment who died in the Somme but in order for the project to work there has to be some parameters. I hope that rather than getting caught up in agonising over exact numbers people will recognise that a huge number of individuals lost their lives and each of those lives was significant and this project commemorates them all.

Crocheted Poppy

Creating these patterns was surprisingly challenging, not because they were difficult to make but because part of the brief was to make the patterns accessible to beginners. I spent a lot of time stitching and un-stitching trying to get a shape that worked but that would be easy to re-create. Hopefully I've managed that but we will see! As part of my efforts to keep the pattern simple I chose to use the stylised shape of the poppy used by the British Legion.

If you'd like to get involved with the project please contact the museum, there are a lot of poppies to make!

Knit fast, Die Warm

My completed jumper

I began this jumper in January last year (2013) and have finally finished it. I don't have a great track record with finishing jumpers in a timely fashion, I get distracted and do other things and so although this project has taken over a year and a half for the vast majority of that time it's been sat in my knitting bag doing nothing. I realise it is therefore somewhat contradictory to have 'knit fast' knitted on it but it amuses me, and it is very warm. Also, one cardigan took me seven years to complete so actually this was pretty speedy in comparison! Knitting is my therapy, I do it to relax and for enjoyment so I don't really mind how long something takes.

Knitted hot water bottle cover

Getting started

A few years ago I designed and made a hot water bottle cover with a very similar design on the front. I thought at the time it would make a good jumper but knowing the chances of me making it any time soon were slim it stayed as an idea for quite a while. Eventually, many projects later, I decided the time was nigh and I started to look for basic patterns that I could just add my chart to. I was going to design a pattern myself but decided that this would increase the length of time it would take me to complete the jumper by too much, I actually quite wanted to wear it.

Chart knitted, now all the black...

After a bit of interwebbing I found a free pattern on the Lion Brand website that I thought would work. It is knitted all in one piece and is nice and slouchy, which is what I was after. I'd never knitted a jumper that was all one piece before and I don't think I would again. Because the sleeves aren't set in (the jumper is a classic 'T' shape) it is a bit bulky under the arms but this is a minor niggle and I think I will get used to it. I also found that the sleeves were very short (or I maybe just have monkey arms) so I ended up extending the cuffs by about 30 rows. I used Fashion Aran by King Cole, a wool/acrylic mix. It feels very nice, hopefully it will wash well too. I also re-charted my design as the needles were a bit wrong on my first attempt for the hot water bottle cover. I used knitters graph paper and drew out my design in pencil, altering it until I was happy.

The jumper on

Monkey arms

One 'slight' mistake I made was starting the chart too soon, so there is quite a big gap between the neck edge and the design due to a slight mathematical miscalculation and being over cautious ( I didn't want to run out of space for the chart.) However, I have decided to embrace this space as my necklace space, and I shall just wear a pendant necklace kind of thing when I wear this jumper. I should also have worked backwards and done the back first because then I would have got my chart in the right place and had something to look forward to; because I did the chart first I then just had acres of boring black stocking stitch!

Cuff detail

Side detail

Overall I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out, I wanted a cosy casual jumper with a funky design and that's what I've ended up with.

Design detail

Ninja Slippers

Nifty ninja napping

I've been promising my partner a hand knitted pair of slippers for some time. After rejecting approximately  3,622 patterns we eventually found a pattern he was happy with. Then, due to my dislike of knitting rib (the whole pattern is 1x1 rib, grrr) and my hatred of doing things in pairs (gloves, socks, sleeves; I finish one speedily then it takes me months to do it's partner) he had to wait another 6 months for me to finish them. However, a couple of weeks ago I did finish the second slipper and he now has cosy toes. I adapted the pattern from nifty knitting's kimono slippers (http://niftyknitting.com/kimono-slippers/) and used a pure wool (for extra cosiness) in dk on 4mm needles, he chose dark blue with an off white trim which I think works well. I think I will use puff paint to paint some grip spots on the sole as they are a bit slip slidy on the kitchen floor at the moment. It's a good pattern, nice and easy to follow and even though I don't really like rib the slippers grow quickly. The pattern calls them kimono slippers but my partner calls them ninja slippers, which sounds pretty cool!

Detail

Cosy toes

Completed Stole of many Purples

The completed stole

Detail of some of the pattern

Before my Shadowfolds book arrived I finished the stole of many purples and have been happily wrapped up in it on these cooler autumn evenings. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out although I think I would use thicker yarns (or smaller needles) if I was to make it again, I keep getting my ring caught in the holes! It was a very satisfying thing to make as it grew very quickly (due to the 10mm needles used) and the lace pattern was very easy to memorise. It also used up lots of odds and ends and I was really good and didn't buy any new yarn for it. Of course now I will have to go and replenish my stash...

Double wrapped

Drapey

Bundled

Pattern detailStole of many purples

It's (finally) a wrap!

The finished lace wrap cardigan

This time I have a really good excuse for not posting for a while, I've been in New York. We had a great holiday, saw lots of cool stuff and had a good time. More about that in a later post when I have sorted out our photos.

Before we left I finished a cardigan I'd been working on, literally, for years. It's a clover lace wrap cardigan in 4 ply cotton, with bell sleeves. I really loved the pattern, which is from Stitch Nation by Debbie Stoller, and started it, as I mentioned, several years ago. Because of the lace pattern, fine yarn and my tendency to get distacted with other things I would work on it for a while and then abandon it for months at a time while I worked on other projects. Anyway, I finally finished it before we went away, dyed it purple (me and white are not a good combination) and instead of giving it a knitted neckband and ties I used ribbon.

Detail of the clover lace pattern

This was a good move in terms of saving time but a bad move in that it left it too wide, the cardigan kept sliding off my shoulders. So, I put a little tuck in the back and this seems to have solved the problem. In retrospect I probably should have knitted the neck band but I was so desperate to finish the thing that I just couldn't face it. Typically, I've finished this lightweight cotton wrap just as the weather has started to change, but ther's always layering!

A little tuck in the back

The Lace Space

The Lace Space

This was one of the pieces I made with the Creative Textiles group during our two week community art project, Universal, at The Heathlands Project. We started off experimenting with cutting plastic bags into strips and fusing them with the iron, this produced some nice effects but the 'lace' was not very strong so we decided to knit the strips and then fuse the knitted piece. This created much firmer pieces which we were able to sew together to form the final piece. It took a lot of plastic bags and a lot of knitting, crocheting and weaving but I think the final piece is very beautiful and it is lovely to stand inside and look out. 

I cut out a pattern for the piece from newspaper and used this as a guide to lay out the pieces of 'lace' we'd made. Once all the pieces were stitched together the stitching was also fused with the iron.

Laying out the pieces and stitching them together

Weaving and stitching the pieces together

Detail: Crocheted lace

Detail: Knitted piece

Stepping inside (in the rain!)

Detail: Entrance arch

Swaying in the breeze

Detail: Knitted lace

 

Knitting a rainbow

I love to knit. I learnt when I was 19 and needed a piece of knitting to destroy for a piece of work I was doing at art college so I got my mum to teach me and I really took to it. Since then I've knitted a lot; sometimes for my art but more often for pleasure. I find it very therapeutic. I go into a kind of zen state when I knit and I find I often have my best ideas when I'm knitting away and often an issue I've been struggling with in a piece of work will suddenly resolve itself as I knit and purl. I find that knitting occupies my mind just enough to keep worries and thoughts of daily life at bay whilst leaving it free enough to explore the creative pathways of my mind . Plus, I like making stuff and I love that with two sticks and a bit of string you can create pretty much anything.

Beautiful colours!

Detail of the lace pattern

My current project is from Knit Magazine (issue 36) and is called the kaleidoscope vest, it's a simple sleeveless cardigan type thing. It's a really simple pattern so is great just to pick up and put down. I'm using Rico Poems sock yarn which is a beautiful self striping yarn in gorgeous colours and I'm working it on circular needles (but not in the round). I'm just over halfway through the vest and am looking forward to completing it. Unlike in my art work I often like to use very bright colours or bold combinations.