#knitsonikmittsalong mitts return to Silchester!

Yesterday was the perfect afternoon for a trip to Silchester. At Silchester you can see the beautiful Roman wall and amphitheatre that were the inspiration source for the #knitsonikmittsalong kits that I produced last October.

I’m still feeling my way with stuff like producing kits. I’ve been both excited to see other people’s mitts appearing on Ravelry, and keen to complete my own. For my mitts I created motifs as I went based on the flints, the greenery around the ancient walls, and the shapes of the rocks in the mossy wall. After I had created the first mitt, I then made the second one, adapting each motif by either changing the pattern slightly or tweaking the shading. I kept the height of each motif the same in both mitts, in order to make a pair that were matchy but not identical.

Here are some of the amazing mitts completed by other KNITSONIK comrades so far in the #knitsonikmittsalong… you can click on each picture to be taken to its corresponding Ravelry project page.

I love the variety of ways in which the grey-green palette that I proposed for these mitts has been put to use and modified by comrades and am really looking forward to seeing all the different projects at the end of the month. I will be sharing them here! It’s really interesting to notice how different people look and see, and which details stand out to different creative souls and sensibilities… and though all the mitts together look similar and related, each pair is also as individual as its talented maker.

Myself and Mark have walked at Silchester many times and have often mused on the inspiring qualities of the old wall. Running the mittsalong provided me with an incentive to crack on and do something with that inspiration… to immediately put it to work. Creative ideas can often stay as just that – ideas – and there is something very exciting about acting on an impulse right away rather than allowing it to idle indefinitely. Deadlines and doing stuff with other people are great strategies for just getting on with something. January is often a sad time of year for me and this year I had a big project to complete and have been unwell to boot. However I have deeply enjoyed playing with colours and patterns in these mitts over the past couple of weeks, and must confess that even if I say so myself, playing with The KNITSONIK System has really cheered me up. I spent some time thinking about how to style my completed mitts at Silchester, identifying a matchy nail varnish from within my extensive collection (ahem) and using a gift card that was a present for my last birthday to purchase some joyous, well-matched bling. I rummaged about for an appropriately coloured dress in my wardrobe, plus hat and shawl (it’s been cold!) and then off we went to play outside in the handknits with a camera…

…I sat on the wall… and we played with the Alpacas who live on a farm situated at the perimeter of the Roman Wall…

…I hugged a tree…

…and I threw some strange shapes in efforts to demonstrate the spooky resemblance between the mitts and the context they represent.

Our photoshoot and working on the mitts have both been a fantastic reminder to me of the importance of play, and how it can really deepen your enjoyment and pleasure in everyday life. I will never look at moss and flint in the same way again, and I hope my comrades in this #knitsonikmittsalong feel the same way.

Thanks to Mark Stanley for taking all the photos, I’ll be back soon to introduce you to some other comrades who have been experimenting with The KNITSONIK System, until then I am YOURS IN MITTS XF