O mother knitter…. you have been set a challenge by a friend who lives, breathes, and sleeps Yohji Yamamoto black. The friend you have made a pair of mittens for (see white mittens below for an idea of shape and pattern), which she loves dearly.

She recently saw in the Yamamoto store a beautiful long neck shawl with a built-in hoodie. In that sort of Yamamoto utilitarian-sized knit. Black, of course. She has tasked you with the job of creating it in all its glory.

Get clickity-clicking.

BDW

Drawstring Bag

The T-shirt has been completed and has taken a plane to London.

I took myself firmly in hand and set about completing all incomplete knitting projects …funny what over 700 (and still they come) ‘quakes in three weeks can do to a person.

It’s a bit like tidying up the area around oneself when things get too out of control or messy. There is nothing I can do about the all too frequent ‘quakes, but at least I can regain a little control in my world, in a small way, by finishing some started projects.

So… the T-shirt is complete, the duffle coat for a two year old, the lovely silver grey Rowan Cocoon roll neck jersey, an inner for a cane basket and a drawstring bag….all complete.

Now I need another project to keep my mind off the swaying, rocking and rolling land beneath my feet. I must tidy up my stash, the colours and the textures will inspire me.

MBW

Colour combinations are tricksy things, but exciting possibilities await. Taupe and fuscia, blood orange and dove grey, forest green and bright mustard. Is the mind giddy?!

One of my favourite combinations is black and blue.

Maligned by many generations, black and blue is a class act. Think black and blue grosgrain ribbons tied in shiny bright red hair! Or tweed-y bouclé wool in a sharp suit with gold buttons – black jacket, blue trew. Or howsabout a midnight blue silk column and black patent shoes avec matt bows? Limitless, excitable permutations.

Texture is key. Think of the deepest, darkest Indian ink velvet with the deepest, darkest navy in fluid, fine wool. Or a beige-based soot, the kind of black that has faded in the sun leaving it with an antiqued tinge, with tattered, feathered sapphire.

Together, black and blue reminds me of Coco Chanel’s sharp observation: ‘elegance is refusal’.

BDW

For some reason, this image reminds me of my childhood. Maybe it’s the reminder of feeling very small in a very big world, with tall adults around you (like trees reaching for the sky), being blinded by the sun as you looked up to see their faces.

But childhood also reminds me of knitting. The act and art of knitting was everywhere in my youth. Obsessive knitter taught me to knit before I could flex my digits. Nana knitted us socks and jumpers, the obsessive knitter knitted us those and more.

One of my favourite items was a cherry red balaclava. Given I was a sickly child (involving glue ear and tonsils), the balaclava was the best remedy – wrapped close around the neck and protecting the ears from the cold winds.

But it was the colour that got me. Given that red is my all-time, best-est, most cherished colour, it was inevitable that giving me something red was going to win favours with me. It still does – even if it’s a dish-cloth (‘it’s red – now go use it’). Red in all its permutations still excites and calms me at the same time. Perhaps a bit like this picture.

BDW

The T shirt awaits...

Since early Saturday morning the awaited 1940’s T shirt has had no attention. It needs only the neckline ribbing and the sewing of the fabric to be complete and ready to post to London.

In the early hours of Saturday a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck our Southern Hemisphere city, Christchurch, New Zealand. Subsequently we have experienced at least another 120 quakes. The latest, this morning, Wednesday, was 5.1 on the Richter Scale. We are shaken and stirred at this point, feeling somewhat fragile and knowing that there is little we can do but do what we can.

Earthquakes remind us that this moment is the only moment we have and how we live it is evidence of who we are. All the minor things we can do have been done. We had arranged the basic necessities of water, food, torches and battery radio and just needed to get out of the house.

I lived in Istanbul when the devastating 6.9 magnitude earthquake of 1999 killed thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. I learnt to always have shoes ready beside my bed, water and torch to hand. On Saturday, the quake struck at 4.34am, the electricity was out, it was too dark to see. The torch had been flung to who knows where, the water was split on the floor, but luckily my shoes were still beside the bed. I called to my son at the other end of the hall to get some shoes on, grab his clothes and get out!

I did some blind mountaineering to gingerly get out of the bedroom, over the debris and glass of the living room, gathered up the dog and stepped outside to a beautiful and clear starlit sky. We dressed in the cold, dark air, and waited for the ground and our nerves to settle.

As the day woke, the sun shone, and the follow up quakes kept us occupied. Buildings have been damaged, stuff has been broken and lost, neighbours are OK and no one has been killed. We contact friends and family for reassurance. We are a thankful people.

Slowly, as the aftershocks take their toll, we realise that at the moment we are to just keep safe and look after those around us. The city centre is closed as falling buildings make it too dangerous to enter. The people who maintain the city services have been working non-stop to make people as comfortable as possible. Now we have power and water, and we are almost normal.

I say almost – with each subsequent quake we find more damage done. On Saturday the chimney was broken, swaying precariously with each aftershock. Rather than leave it to fall through the roof, with the help of neighbours and friends, we demolished it brick by brick.

The front porch must be frightened as it is trying to leave the house. Cracks appear in the foundations, the walls, the floor dances and the perimeter fence is cracked. We have much broken crockery and glass and strewn food stuff mixed with pickles and preserves gathered up into boxes. We clean up what we can but do not get too anal about it as we know more may follow, so we make things as safe as possible and find something normal to do.

I have had enough of picking up broken stuff so I start to weed the vegetable patch. Having my hands in the soil usually calms me. I plant some coriander seeds and transplant some lettuces. We will need lettuces in a few weeks, so will the neighbours. I move on to complete the t-shirt, counting the stitches as I pick them up around the neckline, but I cannot see the black 2 ply well enough to get them even. I am too edgy to knit. I find myself weeping, not for myself but for the Turkish folk who lost so many family members and so much in 1999. We have lost things – they lost people – and once again my heart goes out to them.  MBW

This image of tree bark sprung to mind shortly after I had spoken to the obsessive knitter and brother after the recent earthquake in New Zealand. Even if half the obsessive’s glass collection was in tatters on the floor, and an out of sorts chimney stack was leaning precariously to many sides, I was glad they were safe and sound, hearing the sighs of relief in their voices and mine.

The obsessive knitter and I want this website to inspire, to encourage you to create your own ideas. We won’t dictate a pattern that you will create without question – that’s just not what this is about. So, we will regularly post inspirational words and images that we hope will get you thinking about the crafts, including knitting, in a different way.

The image – why did it spring to mind? It was something about the cracks in the bark, like mini-tectonic plates, where the old is swept away and reborn, anew.

The word fissure encapsulates it – those cavities that encourage and reveal new ways of looking at life; the tremors and vibrations (often felt on the other side of the world) that invigorate and inspire fresh perspectives.

What does this image make you think of? Would it inspire you to create, and if so, what would you create? What colours would you use?

Can you knit an earthquake?

BDW

Mustard Moss Stitch Scarf

Everything comes to those who wait.
That mustard wool had hidden in the stash for at least thirty years, waiting its turn to be chosen as ‘the one‘ for today.

Patiently, silently it accused me of neglect.  Thoughtlessly, I used it as a trail, a pattern test for size and drape, knitted it in moss stitch, then once again cast it aside.  Again it waited, fabric now, until he discovered it and fell in love.

Discovered, coveted, wrapped around his neck, it has now flown to the other side of the world to live in beauty.

Every knitted piece, eventually, finds the one who loves it.

To knit the scarf:

Play with your swatch until you have achieved the feel and the look you want, then knit to your heart’s content and wear with joy.
Length  180cm
Width  34cm
10 by 10cm swatch: 13 stitches across, 20 rows

Knitted in Moss Stitch, on an uneven number of stitches, you do not have to count and remember which stitch you begin a row with as it will always be a knit stitch.
So, knit 1, purl 1 until you have yourself a scarf.

MBW

Red and white and crisp

I seem to be recalling a lot of childhood music that my family used to sing when I was little. The tunes flood in from nowhere. Not sure why, but it is wonderful to hum the songs that surrounded my childhood.

I also seem to want to surround myself with the colours that I loved as a child. Red has always been my colour. Fire engine red, poppy red, orange-red, blood-red (that deep blue to the base). When I found wool that was flecked with a good, deep red contrasted with white, I knew I had found the perfect material for something. And then it came to me – winter (or Christmas, to us Northern hemisphere dwellers) mittens. Those big paddles that mittens make of your hands are another fond childhood memory. Perfect for hard, crisp snowballs. Ready, aim….

It was an easy pattern that I mostly made up myself. Big needles, big wool meant the mittens took no more than two evenings.  BDW

Mitten swatch agreed by all. That intangible Yamamoto weight to the stitch is achieved. Time to measure wrist, calculate numbers of stitches, and consider depth of ribbing.

Ribbing is like a good picture frame. Not only does it contain, hold in place, pull into shape, but it balances the whole. It sets a tone. You can either go traditional or contemporary with ribbing. There’s a fine line. Length and breadth are neither here nor there. The ribbing informs what you have chosen to do with the body of the garment, and vice versa.

Imagine da Vinci’s Mona Lisa surrounded by her Renaissance golden curlicues framing that sly smile. Now imagine her with a plain, patent black frame. What different stories that would tell. You get the picture.

I settle for a narrow ribbing, equal length, at both ends of the mitten. Needles crossed it works out. That’s part of the fun of knitting your own recipes. Worst case scenario, and I can always undo.

I am undone by too short a length to the mitten. But with a little help from the obsessive knitter, who picks up my lost stitches, all is saved. And I get a good ribbing.

BDW

I’m on the other side of the world from my adopted home, on holiday, spending time with my mother and brother. I’m watching my mother knit my 1940s t-shirt.

Me, monsieur demanding Dauphin, the anointed one in the corner on the chaise longue. Drinking cups of hot elderflower cordial made for me by brother, eating homemade chocolate biscuits made by mother (in between rows), considering my navel.

Does guilt seep in the corners? Is it time to get knitting again, after a long time away from the needles? Me thinks so.

Inspiration comes through necessity. A cold, wet winter full of southern winds. Samples of the obsessive knitter’s fingerless gloves are tried on and wholeheartedly approved of. The perfect present to take home to the partner in the UK.

Time to choose wools. The end result must be more Yamamoto than Topshop. This means a faint sheen to the fine wool (although too shiny and you veer towards luxe, and that is not the desired effect), with a density and weight to the texture. We find a mixture of 70% merino, 25% silk and 5% cashmere in 4-ply black. Just the look we’re after.

And now to swatch.

BDW