One week until Yarnadelic Remixes 0.1 launches!

I wanted to let you know that the huge project on which I’ve been working with my friend Muriel for several years is launching a week today, with the release of the first pattern in our Yarnadelic Remixes 0.1 collection: Wondrous Waltz (coming 3rd April, only in The KNITSONIK School).

Like all the designs in Yarnadelic Remixes 0.1, this matching hat and mitts set bear patterns taken from the rhythms and pitches of music. Not just any music, but the music that inspired the very yarns used to knit the design: Wondrous Place by Jeff Lewis and Bill Giant, first recorded by Jimmy Jones then popularised by Billy Fury; and Waltz by Fatima. Hence, Wondrous Waltz.

To find these shapes, we first had to create punch-cards for our componiums (programmable music boxes), then work with the resulting patterns to find ideas that would work with the rhythms of knit.

The rich journey of ideas from song to yarn to punch-cards to knitting charts and then finally to knitted objects is a rich and joyous adventure through patterns, sounds and play. Telling the story of that journey and making the process transparent involves lots of media and sound. Knitting the patterns, we think, is much more fun when you can hear them as well, and understand a bit about how they work. For these reasons, Yarnadelic Remixes 0.1 needs a multimedia home where we can share playlists, essays, knitting patterns and lots of fun video content which is why the project is launching exclusively in The KNITSONIK School.

Discount Super Savers!*

From now until April 3rd you can sign up to the club at the discounted earlybird price of £36. Newsletter subscriber can add an additional 10% discount** to that price, making this the most affordable time to access this media-rich project.

The main reason for incentivising early sign-ups is this: if you sign up now, you are part of the first group of people to experience this project and you get to experience everything in community with everyone else who has signed up to Yarnadelic Remixes 0.1. There’s nothing quite like the buzz of being part of a club where you are discovering everything together, with fellow knitters and listeners. Also, you might like to know that our friends at John Arbon Textiles have offered folks who sign up to Yarnadelic Remixes 0.1 a 15% discount on yarn purchases from that range through September 2023.

You can find all the information about the course here in the KNITSONIK School though I’ve added some of it below, so you can read about it right here on the KNITSONIK blog.

The Soul of Yarnadelic Remixes 0.1

Do you love knitting, music, and sharing these things with your friends? Did you ever spend joyful afternoons learning new techniques, making mixtapes, or writing about your favourite new knits or sounds?

Do you need more mischief, inspiration and geekiness in your life? More playlists, tunes and charming music box fun to accompany you during your knitting time? If the answer is “yes” then join us – Felix/KNITSONIK & Muriel/Labistrake – for Yarnadelic Remixes 0.1.

This project is our love letter to tunes, textiles, patterns and play. It combines our creative practices in a pattern collection that comes with our music box versions of popular songs; playlists; videos; notes; essays and a big old stack of fun.

By the end you’ll know more about programmable music boxes and the songs that inspired John Arbon Textiles’ Yarnadelic Yarn range. You’ll also have an amazing collection of music-inspired handknits, each decorated in a different design that speaks to the patterns and rhythms of music in the colourful language of knit.

When you sign up to Yarnadelic Remixes 0.1, you’ll continue the collaborative soul of our work together as you bring your own creativity to knitting our patterns, listening to our sounds, reading our notes, and remixing our designs on your needles.

The Content of Yarnadelic Remixes 0.1

When you sign up to Yarnadelic Remixes 0.1 you’ll get:

• Six accessory patterns, each inspired by music and featuring a different technique (see Publishing Schedule below).
• Tutorial videos demonstrating the techniques used.
• Inspiring videos explaining the musical concept of each design plus the background to the special creative commission, Woman Blue: Elevate produced by Lorna Hamilton-Brown RCA, MBE as part of this project.
• Essays exploring some of the rich creative contexts surrounding the songs that inspired us.
• Playlists so you can hear the creative process that led to each design and so you’ve something to listen to as you knit!
• Audio downloads of our special music-box remixes of the songs behind the Yarnadelic yarn range by John Arbon Textiles.

The project’s home will be on Teachable in The KNITSONIK School. This enables everyone who signs up to receive Patterns, Tutorials, Creative Video Content, Essays, Playlists and Audio Downloads together in one place.

The Publishing Schedule for Yarnadelic Remixes 0.1

This is a proudly disabled-led and content-rich project with many moving parts. To allow time to absorb, explore and knit each design in the collection, each of the patterns plus its supportive content will be published monthly as a fat, multimedia chapter of dreams, between April – August 2023.

Without giving too much away – we want each design to have its glorious reveal as this project unfolds! – this is the forthcoming release schedule:

April 2023 – Wondrous Waltz
Double-Knit fabric and marled ribbing; patterns that run in and out of sync; the wonderful artist Fatima and the creative milieu surrounding her 2018 release, And Yet It’s All Love (featuring the Waltz that forms one half of this design’s name).

May 2023 – Woman In All The Blues
Big Holes technique; making marled gradients; a feminist exploration of the history of Blues music and Judy Roderick’s recording of the song Woman Blue; the story behind the powerful machine-knit artwork, Woman Blue: Elevate by Lorna Hamilton-Brown RCA, MBE.

June 2023 – Beadism
Beading with a crochet hook; using beads as notes; minimalism and minimalist patterns in music and knitting; notating Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s Music for a Found Harmonium for knitted fabric

July 2023 – Looking for a Stranded Harmonium
Stranded colourwork; an alternative music box version of Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s Music for a Found Harmonium using shading sequences to speak to ideas of left and right handed-ness for wearing mitts and playing music.

August 2023 – Shuffle Mode Shawl
Making Magic Balls; stranded colourwork and steeking; experiencing snippets of songs and patterns as if encountering them via shuffle mode.

Sign up by April 3rd 2023 to get the best value for your money

Signing up by April 3rd means you get access to the content first and with your fellow Yarnadelic Remixers! From now through August 2023, we will be building and uploading content, so everything’s arriving fresh and excited on a brand new wave of creativity. If you like the sound of this project, now is definitely the best time to sign up to our wondrous music box shenanigans of joy. I’ve been editing and creating videos all week and both Muriel and I are unbelievably excited to be on the cusp of unleashing this project on the world.

See you there?

YOURS IN KNITTING + SOUND + SEVEN MORE SLEEPS TO GO…
Felix

Knitwear Photography

Stylist: Kupa Matondo
Model: Faith Makawa
Makeup: Belle-Amie Kaldjob
Photography: Felicity (Felix) Ford, KNITSONIK LTD.

*one of my favourite lyrics from this excellent ’90s song I Think No, by Whale
**the mailing list subscriber discount cannot be applied retrospectively; it must be applied at the Teachable checkout; for guidance on how and where please see this helpful Teachable Student Guide.