JMW Turner’s paintings of sunsets are beautiful, and their stunning colours might very well reflect the effects of volcanic activity, according to Smithsonian Magazine. While the background colours differ from one painting to another, as the sun sets over land or water, rosy apricots, yellows, and creamy whites feature in almost all his sunset landscapes. […]
In 1890-91, Claude Monet painted a series of landscapes featuring haystacks in the French countryside. In this series, Monet explored light and atmosphere, showing similar subjects across the seasons, at different times of day and in all kinds of weather. The overall triangular shape of this shawl, as well as the chevron lace pattern in […]
The words on my socks, Be Nice, Be Kind are blurry because of the self-striping yarn I used for contrast. I almost re-knit them but then realized that because 2020 was a big blur, the look is appropriate. The design on the legs is meant to represent the ups and downs of the year and […]
One of the things I love best about knitting is the creative opportunities that we have with every single project. Variations can be small, or they can be big. We can switch out the colour or the texture of the yarn and make a pattern our own. If a pattern has a cable we don’t […]
Pops of colour in knitting can only mean one thing – bobbles. I made Bali Pops with randomly placed bobbles using yarn that reminded me of the batik fabrics I used for patchwork quilting. In the second pair, Raspberry Seeds Socks, the bobbles are sedately lined and down the fronts and backs and the colour […]
The Bee Stitch is simple to knit, and it creates a lovely, textured fabric that traps air and helps insulate—perfect for blankets. Here, it is knit in Universal Wool Pop, a round, multi-plied yarn that is smooth and soft, with great stitch definition. The bamboo, wool and polyamide fibres in the yarn take dye differently, […]
I love colour. Neutrals, not so much, but they have a very important role in our colourful world. There’s a saying that without the dark we could not appreciate the light, and so it is with colour: without neutrals, colours would be harder to appreciate. Read more in our Issue 56. Designed by Cynthia MacDougall […]
Although I knit these socks from the top down, they are best described as a tree from the ground up. Toe The black yarn is the rich soil for the roots. Foot Two shades of brown look like the bark of the trunk with the words on the sole scratched in. Heel and Turn The […]
There are many ways to depict trees in our knitting. Some are figurative and others are more representative. Almost every knitting tradition – from airy, open Estonian lace to dense Aran cables have tree or leaf designs. Gansey and Cornish knit-purl designs have numerous patterns for knit-purl conical trees. Aran knitting has cable designs that […]
All knitters use knitting needles, determining their favourite from a choice of double points, straight needles and circular needles. There is also a decision to be made between wood, bamboo, plastic and metal needles. But not all knitters use stitch markers, even though these little loops can be very helpful. Stitch markers can be small […]