MODO 2011 Video

Today I received the wonderful news that my ever fantastic photographer/videoman Rajee had uploaded the video of my show onto Vimeo. And here it is!


Leaf Litter by Michaela Moores from ra jee on Vimeo.

I hope you enjoy it!

Photoshoot!

Yesterday was the official collection photoshoot, and what a day it was! Myself, two photographers and 7 models travelled out to Hampstead Heath in the spring sunshine to get some shots. But wait Michaela, I thought there were 8 looks in your collection? Well yes, dear reader, but due to model shortages I ended up modeling a bit myself! Ooo err!

The photos will be released over the next few weeks as there are gazillions of them, and many will be used for the pattern releases of the socks and garments I've designed. However, I had to share with you some of my favourite "photoshoot in progress" shots. All photos are by the wonderful Rajee Sukumaran.

From left to right: Holly in Inside Leaves version 1; Me in Twinkle Twinkle Little Socks by Aimee Skeers; Urvi in spats; Sofia in Brick by Bricks (small size); Georgia in Reversing Leaves by Cat Bordhi; Wilf in Brick by Bricks (Large Size) 

Models & socks as above. I love this shot!

From left to right: Me, Urvi (carried by Tori), Holly, Sofia, Georgia, Wilf (just seen). We were walking in our socks on the Leaf Litter, and Urvi was barefoot except for the spats, hence the piggyback!

Danmi Lee photographing Tori by the lakeside. This lake was great, we even saw herons!

Tori in the spiny snood and the Autumn wristies.

We found this brilliant branch to hang the collection while we were changing (hence the single sock). Of course it's only now I realise quite how short the short shorts are!

We had the most fantastic luck with the light yesterday, it was brilliantly sunny when we were photgraphing the clothes, but as soon as they went on the models the clouds came over, removing the glare and giving more even coverage.

It was a really fun shoot and I'm really really excited about how the photos came out. Again, we used models who are UCL students, and our photographers were both University of London students as well. I'm very grateful to the whole team for helping me out, and we're planning a short film shoot for later in the year, so keep your eyes peeled!

MODO Show part 3

Thanks for all the support for my work from the previous two posts - I'm waiting on a full video of the whole collection that I will share with you as soon as it's ready (very excited about this, especially as I didn't really get to see my collection!)

But for now, I want to share with you some of my favourite bits from the rest of the show! We'll begin with this brilliant video by James Ho, "The Day", a collection of short shots summing up the chaos that was the Friday show day. I don't think I'm in this one, Friday was pretty chaotic for me, but some of my clothes definitely are! I've set it to play the non-HD version, but those of you with faster connections than me can watch it in HD!


the day from James Ho on Vimeo.

James was kind enough to make us two other videos for our show, entitled "The Beginning" and "The Prep" - I am in both of these videos, I'm the short haired brunette in the shapeless lace jumper or the green dress.

In addition to James' videos, I am also keen to direct you over to ScientistChic, a style blog by UCL PhD student Lizzy Harley, in which she dedicates three lovely posts to reviewing our show. See here for her review of my collection, and here and here for reviews of other people's.


As I've said before, the UCLU MODO Fashion Society Show, which I directed (as much as one can direct a fashion show) and within which I presented an 8 piece knitwear collection, was a collective experience presenting 28 mini-collections by 26 amateur fashion designers using 35 amateur models. Everyone involved is currently a student at University College London and as such has volunteered their time and skills to the collective. Bearing in mind that nobody is a professionally trained designer, some of these creations are outstanding.

For starters, these amazing silk painted pieces by Naomi Russell, painted by hand over many weeks to create the butterfly effects shown (excuse the back shot, this photo by Rosie Willatt shows off the detail to maximum effect).

This jumper, knitted by Rhi Graves, was one of my favourite looks. Partly because I always appreciate a nicely executed piece of handknitting (the grafting at the underarms is excellent), and also because I love the attention to detail in the styling here.The model had a pencil skirt of Rhi's creation, simple black court shoes and this perfectly fitting hair. Love it! (Photo by Josh Blacker)

I probably don't need to explain why this look by Aminat Omotosho is fantastic. (Photo by Josh Blacker).

This circus themed collection by Tori Jordan was particularly good fun! (Photo by Josh Blacker)

As was this collection by Kirsten Shastri (Photo by Josh Blacker).

One of my favourite looks of the night was this conceptual design by Marta Owczarek, inspired by the Barbican's recent Japanese Fashion exhibition.(Photo by George Lampadariou)

Another example of the importance of viewing a fashion show as an event, not just an excuse to show off some clothes, came with Anna Dzieciol's fetish inspired collection. Using latex "fabric" and glue, combined with excellent styling, models, music and stage direction, she produced one of the most talked about collections of the night. (Photo by George Lampadariou)

Closing the show was Jackie Ng's Miliatary Romance collection, nine gorgeous dresses inspired by the Army, Navy & Air Force, my favourite of which was this beautiful Naval inspired ball gown. (Photo by Josh Blacker)

I hope that this has at least a little bit inspired you to go out and do something creative - you don't need an art and design background to produce beautiful things. I'll keep you posted over the next few weeks and months with the goings on at UCLU MODO Fashion Society, and who knows, maybe you'll join us at next year's event!

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!