MODO Show part 2

Hi Guys!

Hope that you liked the photos in the previous post, and Hello to new readers coming from Hoxton Handmade!

I just wanted to post a few more photos from the show that I love, and chat a bit more about some of the garments. But first, everyone is really really recommended to check out www.hoxtonhandmade.com - this fantastic knitting podcast is narrated by the lovely Katie, who very kindly came to our show at MODO this weekend. In this weeks podcast she chats to myself, my gorgeous model/show producer Tori and some of the shows' other knitwear designers, Giulia & Rhiannon, as well as Socktopus aka Alice Yu, Knit Nation organiser and overall lovely person :) She also discusses some Do's & Don't of crochet, a review of the new Interweave Knits, some up to the minute Knit Nation news & a look at knitting with Habu (I love Habu)'s stainless steel yarn.

So, onto the photos!

I love this photo of Evgenia in my t-shirt by Slobodon Radosavljevic. It's lovely to see the purl stitches up close and from this angle the construction looks better than I believe it to be (as I've said - this pattern needs WORK!)

What's not to love about this one, also by Slobodon Radosavljevic, a student at Imperial College London. This is Tori, in a snood made from Habu Textiles 100% bamboo (I repeat, I love Habu).

The show was opened by the UCLU MODO President, Jenna (right) wearing a cape made from 5 panels knitted in 100% felting wool from www.knitting4fun.co.uk. I felted the panels using a normal washing machine cycle, steamed flat and cut to shape, after which my lovely other half sewed them all together with some lining fabric to match the knitted shorts and socks. Using the remaining felt I cut leaf shapes and superglued them onto kirby grips to make hairpieces. Tori, left, our Volunteering & Photography coordinator (and overall great person) closed my collection. (Photo by Sophie Constantinou, former MODO President)

Close up of hairpieces worn by Jenna by George Lampadariou.

I absolutely adore this photo by George Labpadario, of Helen, my 5th model. She also wears hairpieces made from knitted leaves, and a yoke necked jumper. I made this jumper as part of National Knit a Sweater in a Month Month back in November and I love it, it's so comfortable, and the use of the Sirdar Crofter DK so effective!

This photo by George Lampadariou of Prashant Jain is one of my favourites. This look represents the first snow, and I think the lighting is just perfect!

This photo, by Katie Powell, really conveys what I wanted to achieve with the cardicape. It shows the lovely drape of this fabric, and the comfy fit of this garment. Not to mention Urvi's wonderful figure!

I've been so stressed and worried about this dress, but this photo by George Lampadariou of Sofia really conveys it from a fashion perspective. I want to open the side seams a little more, but it's nice to reassure myself that this could be more (to me at least) than a Sunday afternoon jumper!

And to complete the collection, my favourite photo of the drop dress by George Lampadariou modeled by Georgia.

Walk off!

Next time, more details of press coverage, and photos from the collections of other MODO designers!

UCLU MODO Fashion Show!

It happened! This show I have been cryptically talking about all year finally happened! I presented an 8 piece knitwear collection across two nights as part of the UCLU MODO Fashion Show. In addition to designing my own collection, I have also directed 27 other designers through their design process and show production - so this has been a pretty big deal for me! Fancy a peek?! All of these photos were taken by Josh Blacker, a fellow UCL student. All models are also UCL students.

The concept of the collection is of a tree passing from summer through the depths of winter. It's fresh buds are replaced by juicy fruits and then a slow change to brown. This is then interrupted by the first snow, who leaves behind only the finest leaf skeletons, which then fall from the branches.

The first look was worn by Jenna and consists of handknit socks of my own design (this pattern excites me, but needs some work!) shorts inspired by Marnie McLean's Assets of Evo (ravelry link) and a cape made from handknit then machine felted panels, and a sewn lining. Thanks to my lovely boyfriend Andrew for help sewing this!

The second look consists of handknit socks inspired by Aimee Skeers' Twinkle Twinkle Little Socks (ravelry link) and another pair of hotpants, as well as a t-shirt of my own design. This pattern is in need of a lot of work, but I want a nice simple t-shirt pattern, so it will be improved upon soon!

The third look consists of a "cardicape" of my own pattern, and some quick and dirty spats modeled by Urvi. This cardicape is one of my favourite pieces in the collection, and the pattern is just awaiting some formatting changes, tech editing and test knitting before we are ready to go!

 

The fourth look is an oversized boxy jumper dress modeled by Sofia. This jumper is quick, comfy and unusual, although simple enough for advanced beginner knitters. She is also wearing the women's Brick by Brick socks in Sweet Clement Smitten, colourway "Mahogany". This pattern too is just about ready to be sourced out to tech edit.

The fifth look, modeled by Helen, contains a hat pattern that I have been developing, a yoke necked jumper of my own design and leggings inspired by Joan McGowan Michael's Leggings with Mesh Sides (ravelry link) from the book Knitting Lingerie Style. I highly recommend this book, I've made a number of things from it, and I find it very refreshing to see a book like this pushing the boundaries of flattering feminine knitting.

The sixth look is my men's look. I decided to do a men's look as in MODO we have some excellent male models but almost all female designers, many of whom prefer to design for themselves. However, I feel like a complete convert to menswear. I loved making this look from start to finish. The jumper, Layers of Ice, is soft as soft and a constant source of compliments, and the socks, the men's version of Brick by Brick, are lovely too. I may be biased due to the cashmere content of the yarns used (Debbie Bliss Como & Easyknits Cashmere/Merino/Nylon) but I doubt it.

My 7th look, modeled by Georgia, is my favourite. This dress is based around the Not a Drop stitch pattern by Arlene's World of Lace (ravelry link). I've transformed it into a dress by introducing a backwards loop cast on, side shaping, I-cord straps and a crochet edging. I've already had several offers of purchase, but this is staying with me forever! The socks are Reversing Leaves by Cat Bordhi (ravelry link) from The Knitter's Book of Wool.

The eighth and final look, modeled by Tori, consists of lace wristwarmers (I love them, pattern will be available), a highly intricate lace snood using 1 skein of Habu Textiles 100% bamboo viscose (1oz, 525ish metres), and a puddle of fallen knitted leaves around the model's feet. This look represents a tree in the depths of winter, it's spiny branches in the angluar snood, and the pile of dead leaves at or falling towards its base.

I'll post more photos and a link to the video as soon as I have them! Hopefully this has stimulated your interest for now!

Natural Dyeing with Onions

A couple of weeks ago I set about fulfilling a task I had set myself a long time ago - natural dyeing with onion skins. Improving my dyeing is one of my ambitions for 2011 and this seemed like a sensible way to continue following the washing machine dylon dyeing. If anything, this was easier!

Much of what I've read online about natural dyeing has stressed the importance of using a mordant for colour fastness, however, the suggested chemicals are rather difficult to come by, and after discussions with the lovely ladies at the Handweaver's Studio (I love this place so much!), I decided not to use one. Whether my results are colourfast or not is so far unclear, although they have been thoroughly rinsed with no loss of colour so far. To be on the safe side I decided to use a cobweb weight yarn so that I knew would be a rare visitor to the wash pile (because really, how often do you wash shawls?).


The method is very simple, the most challenging part is collecting enough onion skins! All in all it took a couple of months of saving onion skins in our kitchen to get enough, but there are only 2 of us and we eat out a lot, so it may take you less time. I used a large cooking pan (big enough for stew for about a dozen people), and, leaving the onion skins in quite large chunks, it was about half full.

I filled the pan with water so that the skins were covered, brought the pan to the boil and simmered for 45 minutes.

At this stage they look a bit like red onion skins, but I assure you that I only used brown onions!

Take the pan off the heat and leave to cool for about 45 minutes. Meanwhile soak your yarn in cold water. I used Lush Lace from bluefaced.com that I bought at Knit Nation last year. 1200m in 100g of 80% Extra Fine Merino and 20% Silk, for the princely sum of I think £7.95! You are highly recommended to put in about a million figure 8 ties to hold the skein in shape, although don't tie them too tight unless you want tie-dyed yarn!

After 45 minutes when the dye bath is cool drain the onions (not into the sink!!!!),

Pour the dye back into the dye pan, and I stirred through 75g of urea crystals. I'm not sure if this is necessary, but I had it kicking about after the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace and thought I'd give it a go, it's supposed to increase the intensity of the colour, and the colour is quite bright, so maybe it worked!

Add the soaking wet dye to the dyebath. Both yarn and dye should be the same temperature at this point. If the dye is still hot wait longer otherwise you'll felt your yarn (this is very bad!). Slowly raise the temperature of the yarn/dye mix and simmer until you get the desired colour into your yarn. Bear in mind, that the dry yarn will be a lighter colour than when wet.

Upon first adding the yarn,

45 minutes later,

Turn off the heat and leave the yarn+dye to cool for about 1/2 an hour so the yarn is lukewarm (or wait longer, the longer you leave it the deeper the colour). Run the tap so that the new water is the same temperature as the dye and rinse the yarn thoroughly. I didn't use a detergent, you could, but you may reduce the colour (see above statement on colourfastness). You can keep the leftover dye to use another day, although I imagine it's lifespan is limited due to the organic content. Mine is in a coke bottle, I'll let you know when it goes off!

Hang the skein up to dry,

Once dried, take pretty photos,

Wind (I wound using a nostepinne, partly because I enjoy it, partly because I wanted to check the whole 1200 metres over before I started knitting it), knit, then feel rather smug :)

My word! Press and Promo!

My word it's been a long time since I posted - my only excuse is that it's taken this long to get myself, my camera, my camera cable and the laptop all in the one room as Andrew has been using it for work a lot. I know, I am getting round to getting my laptop fixed.You can now follow me on Twitter @MichaelaKnits for up to the minute updates!

There's lots to say! Firstly, following on from the previous post I made some adaptations to the Mathematica Knitting Chart program. This can be downloaded here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?idw99pef28s0byx

This will only work if you have access to Wolfram Mathematica, so it's usage is possibly rather limited, but I was very proud of myself!

I have also recently appeared in University College London's most recent edition of Pi Magazine. UCL is the second largest university in the UK, and as such, I imagine that the readership of this student publication is over 10,000! And they gave me half a page!

I don't yet have a digital copy, so sorry for the photo! Notice also that it's the centre page - even more attention paid to it! I brought them 2 huge bags of everything I've knitted and am proud of, and they chose to use my Ikebana socks, designed by Judy Sumner and featured in Knitted Socks East and West, and my Ice Layers jumper of my own design. This is a men's jumper, but following the shoot (and the lovely comments I've received) I'll almost certainly size it for women too. The best part of this is that the rest of the shoot was dedicated to full time, professional fashion designers, so I'm certainly keeping good company at the moment!

Regular readers will know that I have been working for many months on the development of my own collection for the University College London MODO Fashion Society Show. I have been working since September to develop the team and have found 27 other excellent designers to produce an astounding 116 garments for our show on the 4th and 5th of March, at UCL Gower Street, London.

Tickets are available for £8 and can be purchased at www.uclunion.org/shop. Doors are at 6.30 and attendees can enjoy drinks and vintage refreshments (not literally vintage!) while they wander through our exhibition. The show begins at 7.15 and is expected to last for around two hours including an interval during which there will be opportunities to take a closer look at some of our garments. I will be opening the show with an 8 piece knitwear collection inspired by the revealing of tree branches during autumn. If you are attending, leave me a comment and I'll try and make sure I chat to you!

Following the show I will begin work on my newest and most exciting project - stocking my first shop! As soon as possible after the show I will begin stocking hats and accessories at The Create Place, 29 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green. I'll let you know when I first start stocking, I'm sure we can arrange a special gift for those first magic customers!

Amazingness!!

My day has just been made, taking a peak at KnittyBlog over my lunch today their new post mentioned that a new knitting chart production program had been made, in fact, I'll quote what they say;

"Awesome: a knitting chart generator developed as a demonstration application of the Mathematica mathematical programming language."

This free to use (I think) bit of kit is just brilliant - and even more exciting - is in Mathematica, the programming language I use every day for my PhD! The link to access it is here:

Wolfram Demonstrations Project: Knitting Charts


If you use it in Mathematica Player the demo recommends taking a screen shot and then cropping the image to match the size of your chart, however because I can play with the source code (which hopefully means I'll be able to figure out how to add even more symbols!), I have been able to extract the JPEGs directly and then crop from there. 

I don't know if you can see, but at the top there's a slider that lets you choose the number of stitches square of the chart, which is great! It's super easy to use, just select the symbol you want, and then click where on the chart you want to place it. 


I'm chuffed to pieces to have found this, it's going to make my chart writing so much easier!

Andrew's First Socks

I thought it was about time that I tried my hand at knitting some socks for the long suffering other half. He was initially duboius about the whole "hand knitted socks" idea, but since these beauties have been completed he's totally come around - praise indeed from someone so fussy!

They are made using Easyknits' Superwash Merino/Cashmere in Gun Metal, the most gorgeous light grey colourway, with subtle variations in tone between the lighter and darker regions of the skein.

They are knitted from the top down and use my own easy to execute stitch pattern.

A heel-flap construction with slightly modified heel turn to accomodate a man's rounder heel,

And a wedge toe made to my own formulation.

This pattern will be released as part of a men's mini-ebook that I am working on, although will also be sized for women.

These socks are a quick and easy knit for an experienced sock knitter, and they would serve as an excellent introduction to knitting men's socks, or any socks at all! All techniques will be explained in detail to maximise the audience for this rewarding pattern. The mens size will fit UK shoe sizes 9-11.

Speak soon!

My Excuse

So sorry for the delay since the previous post, I've been fighting a troublesome bout of the flu. So much so, considering I spent two weeks without leaving the house I feel like I have very little to show for it! But I'm a productive soul, so there are a couple of things...

Firstly I finished a pair of socks for Andrew, these are one of my own design, and will have a post all of their own tomorrow.

I also finished a pair of socks for myself. I knitted the first of these a while before Christmas, but was trying to put off knitting the other one in preference for deadline knitting. However, when flu strikes intricate lace is a bit too much effort for me!

The pattern is Sensu by Judy Sumner from the book Knitted Socks East and West, and the yarn is Wollmeise Twin in Daisy. I didn't change the pattern too much, I swapped the ruffle top for a ribbed edge, left out the purl stitches from the stitch pattern, carried the stitch pattern down the foot and used my own wedge toe construction instead of the books (I have stumpy toes!). So by the middle of January I am well on the way to my 11 socks in 2011 target! Hoorah!

You may have noticed a certain someone sneaking into the middle picture up there.....

It seems Joey has a new favourite spot! Andrew was very patient with him and even let him have a little nap! Lucky Joey!

Over the weekend when I was feeling a bit better I even managed some dyeing (abliet only washing machine dyeing) of this Sirdar Denim Ultra, a super bulky acrylic/cotton/wool blend (only 15% wool, otherwise I wouldn't have dared machine dye it!) which came out better than expected:

Note the Elmo cat in the last pic there!

This is a really airy, lightweight yarn I used a lot as a teenager, and I had about 600g to dye. Unfortunately most of this airiness has gone, and the resulting yarn is probably better suited to 8mm needles than 12mm. This is probably not a bad thing, as I get bored very quickly using the really big needles - it's just too much effort to knit at that scale!! The yarn was originally bought by Andrew to crochet a jumper, but he wasn't happy with how that came out so it was sent my way. I can't remember the original colourway (ballbands are long gone), but it was brown and white.

What's interesting about how this yarn has dyed it that seems that the different plys are different fibre types. The cotton content has dyed in some of the plies, but some are near to their original colour. This is not what I expected at all, and was a lovely surprise that I think really adds to the yarn. This yarn is destined to become a lace sweater dress for the show in March.

Speaking of the show, I spent an hour this evening blocking bits and pieces for the show....

Excuse the lighting in this photo, it was dark when I got home!

In the back of the photo is a chunky knit jumper I've made for Andrew. This is actually the third time of blocking, for this jumper, and I've shown you a couple of snapshots before, here and here. It has been seamed, and Andrew has been wearing it, but the seams were a little tight and so I'm trying to relax them. As the jumper has started to felt (!), I felt a re-block was necessary to help reshape a bit.

I must say I'm really disappointed at the speed of which this work seems to be disintegrating. I knew pilling was a risk with using a single (unplied) yarn, but the extent of it is massive. There are large felted patches appearing on the chest and underarms, which, considering this is made with Debbie Bliss Como, an expensive yarn at over £5 for 50g, and which I won't be using again. If the twist was a bit higher it would probably have been a lot better.

In the bottom of the photo are 3 out of 4 sections of a cape that I am working on. I posted about the swatches here. More on this when it's sewn up!

In the top is my favourite piece of the collection. A dress I'm making based around the Not A Drop stitch pattern by Arlene's World of Lace in Wollmeise Lace in Golden Pear. Trust me, there will be a lot more on this dress later.

Oh, and I read another book, The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis. So that's 2 out of 11 done there as well!

Speak soon!

30 Minute Mime Beret

So I finished the first of my 11 books in 2011 today (I know, what a good start to this challenge!) I read The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle. I've been reading quite a lot of Agatha Christie lately, and as such was gifted by my lovely boyfriend a copy of this Sherlock Holmes escapade and The Valley of Fear. I must say I rather enjoyed it, although I did spot several of the "deductions" early on. That being said, I love the style of prose and the manner in which the characters talk to one another.

In other, perhaps more interesting news, I have published another pattern! This lovely hat is a quick knit I made in time for my New Year's Eve celebrations this year, in which I attended a vintage circus themed party as a mime.

The hat is a very simple, stocking stitch beret with tracks of decreases forming a small spiral at the top of the hat.

As you may be able to imagine, it was a very fun evening, with dancing (I was introduced to blues dancing, that was particularly fun!), a live band, poetry and dancers.

The pattern is available for free via Ravelry (pattern page is here), or the PDF can be downloaded directly via this link download now . The pattern calls for less than a skein of Rowan Big Wool and uses 12mm needles. It should be possible to make in half an hour or less!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all, I hope you had a wonderful New Year's Eve!

I've been thinking a lot about some New Year's resolutions/aims for next year, I wrote a few of the more broad ranging ones down the other day:

1. Finish my collection ON TIME. The deadline for my 8 outfits is the 4th of March, currently only 2 are fully complete….
2. Get the patterns for everything in said collection written up and up on Ravelry within at the most a couple of months.
3. Make some sort of a dent in my fibre stash. I have enough BFL/Alpaca blend for a cardigan so it would be nice to spin and knit that!
4. More dyeing. It’s fun, and I’d like to be better at it.
5. Use stash/finish things. Most notably, my Golden Wheat Shawl (an epic, 2m square beauty) is lacking only 3/4 of the edging.

In addition, I'd like to knit 11 pairs of socks for 2011 (at least 11 pairs, anyway!) I haven't planned by patterns and yarns in advance, as I know I wouldn't stick to them, although I have a few planned in advance.

1. Mens sock of my own design using Easyknits Merino/Cashmere/Nylon in Gun Metal (admittedly, these are already half done) - I bought this yarn at the Bothered Owl's Christmas Party to make some socks for Andrew, so far so good!
2. Father's New Socks from Susan Crawford's Vintage Gift To Knit, in Wollmeise 100% Superwash in Zenzi, and Wollmeise Twin in Ebenholz. These have been started, but may be ribbed back, I'm having some serious gague issues!
3. Climbing Mistletoe Socks by Jon Dunn-Ballam in Wollmeise 100% Superwash in Olio vergine (although I may need to make some adjustments to the pattern, as it calls for 3.25mm needles, which won't work with this yarn.
4. Fiori Di Zucca by Alice Yu in Wollmeise 100% Superwash in Single Malt - This is the yarn and pattern I was gifted as part of my Secret Santa gift from Trisha
5. Inside Leaves by Me (I think this is what I'm going to call it), I've already made a practice pair of this design for the show, but it needs a few tweaks. I'm going to use Wollmeise 100% Superwash (spotting a theme there!) in Frosh.

I'll add things to this list/cross things off the list as and when. In addition to the knitting challenges, I'm planning a self imposed book challenge, also along the 11 for 2011 theme. It's not that I didn't read 11 books in 2010, more that I want to ensure I read 11 proper books, Literature with a capital L if you want. I haven't decided on the complete list for this yet either, although I have a number of ideas.

But I won't bore you further, here's some pictures of my only piece of Christmas present knitting for this year, a hat for my Uncle Stu of my own design, as seems to be the theme of this year, pattern coming soon!