Oh Ravelry! How I love you.
Here are a few more patterns that sit in my stash, waiting to be purchased and knitted in good time!
Month: October 2015
A Q&A with Figo Home
Way back in 2014 I wrote a post about this lovely Bristol based company. Figo Home is the brain child of Siobhan McGinnis, who set up shop back in 2013 pairing statement contemporary lampshades with classic hand-turned bases. The result – individual, personal pieces for each customer, inspired both by nature and wanderlust.
I myself have a classic geometric design that sits perfectly in our spare room and to this day we still get lovely comments from our guests. And I love the fact that no one else will have anything like it!
These beautiful lampshades and bases are 100% made in Bristol, England – a city I know and love from spending four years there at university. I was thrilled to discover this fantastic company, who’s name literally means ‘Cool Home’! And Siobhan was kind enough to join my Q&A series so you can get to know her and Figo too… Continue reading
Knitwear designers 101
Google ‘knitwear designers’ and you get thousands of links directing you to mega fashion houses and large retailers. The large brands that pop into your head every day of the week. Not what I really wanted to see.
When I think of knitwear designers, names like Pam Allen, Jared Flood and Olga Buraya-Kefelian come to mind. Knitwear designers that inspire me to pick up my needles, purchase their wonderful patterns, or even get creating my own. Sadly, Google didn’t agree with me.
I’m not-so-secretly waiting for the day when slow fashion really takes over and these become household names not just for knitters. It’s slowly bubbling under the surface. Non-knitters are beginning to see the influence making-your-own is having over our generation, that even ready-to-wear companies are getting on board. Knowing where your fibres have come from, the farm where the sheep were reared, the dyer that dipped the skeins of wool…the list goes on. And whether I buy my yarn or patterns in the UK or across the pond, provenance is increasingly important for me.
The reward I get from taking time over my own clothing and homewares is entirely the reason I knit. And I’ve rounded up the list of knitwear designers who are (for me) synonymous with the slow-fashion movement.
Michelle Wang
National poetry day 2015
The Patience of Ordinary things – Pat Schneider
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
x
My pick of the yarns
If you follow me on social media, you may or may not have heard that I am on a yarn embargo at the moment. No more ordering, until I’ve cast off a few ongoing projects, and dwindled my yarn stash down to half its current size!
That being said, we all know that as soon as we deny ourselves something, it’s all the more tempting. So I’ve been having a look at all of the lovely yarns I’ll be looking forward to buying once I have permission to do so!
Going forward, I’m definitely going to be more conscious of the types of yarns I buy, and where I buy them from. I also want to work with different fibres, weights and textures to broaden my knitting horizons! I’ve included links of where to buy all of these lovely yarns too, so please go and check them out, and the lovely companies that bring these skeins to our doorstep.
Alchemy Silk Purse
DyeForYarn Tussah Silk Lace
Shibui Knits Linen
Erika Knight Vintage Wool
Eden Cottage Theseus Lace
