Southbank Sweater in The Knitter Magazine

My Southbank sweater is in this month's The Knitter Magazine, Issue 155! Designed specially for West Yorkshire Spinners new Wild Shetland yarn, this sweater is full of cables and texture. I love the long colour change gradients of this extremely soft yarn. The pattern is part of an eight-page Spotlight all about Wild Shetland, that also includes a lovely article by Helen Spedding describing the story behind this beautiful new yarn.

Juliet Bernard has written a great article for this issue all about the beauty of cables.  The title page of the article is illustrated by my Linwood Sweater from The Knitter Issue 134. When I was asked to contribute, I had no idea that my interview would featured be alongside talented designers such as Lucy Hague, Martin Storey and Norah Gaughan! I am really honoured by this, especially as I am a huge fan of all their amazing design work.

The Gladys Jeskins Sampler

One of the most inspiring projects I have recently been involved with is an exploration of an incredible stitch knitted sampler. This sampler contains 899 stitch patterns and is part of the Knitting & Crochet Guild's Collection. As part of Unconvention 2020, the current Sampler Project Team got together on zoom to talk about the sampler and why we find it so inspiring. You can view our discussion here and watch the original pink sampler being unrolled! 

The sampler was knitted by one amazing knitter, Gladys Jeskins, over a period of many years. It all began when Gladys decided that she could design more interesting stitch patterns than were available at that time. From there the sampler grew and grew into one very long piece of knitting. After Gladys passed away, her family kindly donated the sampler to the Guild. 

Individual stitch patterns from the sampler will be released over the coming weeks so that everyone can enjoy Gladys's wonderful knitting. The image at the top of this post shows a selection of re-knitted stitch patterns from the sampler on display at last year's Convention.

Unconvention 2020!

 The Knitting & Crochet Guild are currently hosting an online Unconvention!

Following the cancellation of this year's AGM and Convention in Leeds, the Guild have done an amazing job setting up an online alternative. There is so much content to see! Today I am watching Kaffe Fassett discussing his swatching and design process and I'm discovering all about a wonderful project called Knitted Leeds. These amazing videos are available to everyone, so if you would like to take a look, please click on the links.

On the Unconvention homepage, you will find more links all the events and videos. There are techniques to explore and historical knitting to discover. I am especially excited about Sunday's video releases which include a project that I find incredibly inspiring. If you would like to learn more about 899 stitch patterns knitted by one amazing knitter, please take a look at The Gladys Jeskins Sampler video any time after 9am on Sunday.