CROWNED WITH STARS - wearable woolly mandalas
Fair Isle knitting, especially when it comes to making berets or tams, is something that combines my love of colour with sacred geometry. Inspired by nature, these hats are warm, woolly, wearable mandalas.
Designing the pattern, working out how many stitches, how many repeats, to make a star at the crown, is a meditation in itself.
People often think Fair Isle knitting must be terribly complicated, but it's not really when you follow the basic rules like using no more than two colours in any one row.
Once the knitting begins, it becomes more of dance, as hands and yarn move together, following the rhythm of the pattern repeats. The rhythm carries me, just as it does in poetry, circle dance or drumming. I only make mistakes when I start to think about something - I fall out of the flow and lose the rhythm. Thankfully, the rhythm is forgiving, and unpicking, unravelling gives an opportunity for reflection.
Each of my berets is unique. Contact me if you'd like something made especially for someone you love, or for the patterns.
Fair Isle knitting, especially when it comes to making berets or tams, is something that combines my love of colour with sacred geometry. Inspired by nature, these hats are warm, woolly, wearable mandalas.
Designing the pattern, working out how many stitches, how many repeats, to make a star at the crown, is a meditation in itself.
People often think Fair Isle knitting must be terribly complicated, but it's not really when you follow the basic rules like using no more than two colours in any one row.
Once the knitting begins, it becomes more of dance, as hands and yarn move together, following the rhythm of the pattern repeats. The rhythm carries me, just as it does in poetry, circle dance or drumming. I only make mistakes when I start to think about something - I fall out of the flow and lose the rhythm. Thankfully, the rhythm is forgiving, and unpicking, unravelling gives an opportunity for reflection.
Each of my berets is unique. Contact me if you'd like something made especially for someone you love, or for the patterns.
And I can imagine a world made whole again,
The bones of its story knit tight, the yarn unbroken,
a continuous web of light, rewoven,
Whatever troubles between us unravelling in sleep:
Our lives knitted anew by angels every dawn.
~ Ruth Marshall, "The Story-Knitter"
The bones of its story knit tight, the yarn unbroken,
a continuous web of light, rewoven,
Whatever troubles between us unravelling in sleep:
Our lives knitted anew by angels every dawn.
~ Ruth Marshall, "The Story-Knitter"