KNITSONIK Timelapse!

Hello!

I had the most amazing video of all time ever planned for today; I set up the space, I lit it really nicely, I washed my face and made myself presentable, and then I set up all my Shetland books and Shetland wool things around the table, ready for the absolute mother of all video shoots. I did several takes with great gusto and gave it my full KNITSONIK heart, including many shout-outs to all my buddies in Shetland, and I wore my Crofthoose Hat WITH PRIDE!

It was going to be my greatest video accomplishment to date, and it was going to pay homage to Shetland Wool and celebrate and share the enormous joy of the Shetland themed #knitsonikmittsalong. However when I came to edit my masterpiece, I discovered that all the audio was unusable.

*mic drop*

I know. I just can’t even.
Mark asked me “is it really bad audio or is it just Felix bad audio?” as he knows I can be a tad persnickety about such things as levels and unwanted noise… but either way, this was not something I felt I could inflict on you good people.

So I’ve abandoned this particular video for a while and will come back to it later with a better microphone setup. The good news is, more time means more opportunities to share some of the AMAZING projects that people are making on the Shetland-themed #knitsonikmittsalong; let’s take a look so far…

Props to EvaL8 who has finished her Shetland Crofthouse themed mitts in record time! I think these are so beautiful with their clear design ideas; grass in the wind, stones with their shadows, the beautiful thatched roof, the sea beyond. EvaL8 recently visited Shetland and I feel that the inspiration from that trip has just poured into these lovely mitts.

The Shetland love continues in mitts by Verveine, whose wall is covered in memorabilia from her trip there last Wool Week where we met 🙂 I love the glimpses of the gate and the stones and the grass, in similar shades to those used by Eval8, but used in a different way, uniquely hers…

Here are the gate and stones yet another way, celebrated in lovely soft round shapes, by Chopkinsknits…

…and again, in another way, in THE FIRST EVER STRANDED COLOURWORK PROJECT COMPLETED BY Lilli55!

I love that approach of just diving both feet first into the process, casting on and going for it; the results are stunning don’t you think? The lovely thoughtful shading of the yellow and the caramel colour, to make a peachy effect, right next to the hard cold greys… and then the soft blush of green near the cuff.

Also going for it with a first-time stranded colourwork project is Kaliknit, who’s using the Knitting Sheaths as her inspiration source, and who decided to utilise a traditional Fair Isle pattern in her design, in order to get the hang of how you make a fantastic pattern using just two colours per round. Top pro-tip there I think: try an existing pattern out to give you confidence with designing your own! I love the way the reds are shaded one into the other throughout her designs…

…Tabusn is also knitting from the Shetland Knitting Sheaths as her inspiration source, and has picked a beautiful palette from yarns local to her.

We have started knitting some very similar motifs from looking at our shared inspiration source, and I think that is lovely; a kind of knitted equivalent of finishing each other’s sentences, and – as she puts it – some patterns are super obvious.

I love the big watercolour charts that HappyLucky has been making; what a clever and swift way of filling in charts, and what lovely objects the charts are, painted like that.

There is a lot of creative fun in this #knitsonikmittsalong and I have to say a massive thank you to everyone joining in – you are what makes this sort of collective swatching/mittsmaking endeavour really great!

And in lieu of the super awesome video of my dreams that I was planning to make, I leave you this offering instead; a time-lapse video of my #knitsonikmittsalong process set to the sounds of sheep and seabirds at Sumburgh Head in Shetland, and an accordion phrase from my eulogy to Shetland. I’m going to try and treat the technical set-back of my video-making endeavours like I treat my swatches… the mistakes are all part of the learning, and they only help it to be better the next time around.

Thanks for listening and watching and #knitsonikmittsalonging!
YOURS IN MITTSALONGS,
FX