spring into knitting

Another incredibly busy few weeks has seen me teaching knitting all over the place. This bank holiday weekend brought me to my favourite place of all; West Dean College in Sussex and it just so happened to be my favourite time of year to visit too; the lambs were gambolling all over the front fields, ducklings paddled in the pond and spring flowers bloomed everywhere. The food was divine as usual, using all the local spring produce and of course, as with any time of the year, the company was excellent.

I had a rather more art based collective of students than usual, which led to an interesting, fun and inspirational weekend, fuelled by very different creative personalities. We also had a Kiwi taking a stop gap travelling the world and an Oz based Brit, making us a very cosmopolitan group, which also added interest to the colours chosen, as the ladies who saw the sun a little more often were more daring in their palettes than those of us more used to wet, grey days!

Most of the experimental pieces made at the weekend looked like they should have been at the bottom of the sea, as part of some great, vibrantly coloured coral reef - perhaps it was the antipodean influence. Whatever it was, it made a typically grey bank holiday weekend much brighter and the oddly shaped jewels, beads, flowers and art pieces all served to inspire and intrigue.

This weekend, there were two other jewellery craft courses occuring at the same time as mine, a felt making workshop run by Heather Belcher and a polymer clay workshop with Carol Blackburn. Both looked like great fun and I always enjoy watching Heather's industrial carder at work. She also had fabulous colours on display in her unspun wool hanks, it seems that, just like me, she cannot resist a rainbow! I wish we had all realised beforehand we were all doing jewellery at the same time as our students could have bartered over each others colourful and unusual beads, creating a truly unique necklace out of it.

Next time at West Dean, after my taster days teaching beginners knitting and beginners crochet, I shall be doing a vintage fashion and knitting patterns inspired course. Keep an eye out for more details soon.

spring/summer collection

It's up! you can find the new collection as an ebook on Ravelry. Sorry it took so long. Now onwards and upwards with the Autumn/Winter 09/10 collection...such is the non-stop life of a knitter and all that.

work in progress

I have been a busy little bee of late and so I thought I would give you a sneak preview of some of the bits and pieces I have been working on this week...


...ends, ends and more ends....

Oh how I detest weaving in ends, the only carrots which keep me going are the huge satisfaction of a neat and tidy project at the end of it and the gorgeous little nest of colour made by all the snipped scraps of yarn. Sometimes I have to photograph it; these little piles of joy are often almost as exciting to me as the project. Likewise the back of an embroidery, intarsia or Fair Isle piece.


My knitting - hands off!
These are some kits I have been sewing for the Kioskiosk day - 26th of July, don't forget!
I have a bit of a conveyor belt of these going, they are so fun and cute to do with the multicoloured embroidered words. I will be doing a few of my crochet kits too and they will include enough yarn and some needles/hooks to make a simple pattern, ideal for beginners. At the moment I am thinking there will be a baby's hat pattern, some floral corsages and perhaps some little fingerless gloves or mittens.


Finally, I have been knitting this jumper since way back in March, but other things have barred its progress. However, I did manage to finish it last week. It is a beautiful 4ply merino/cashmere mix and I have knitted the sleeves as a 4ply, but doubled the yarn for the aran body to make a dk weight as a contrast. It is for the long awaited Spring/Summer collection and therefore I am swiftily writing the pattern this week so I can release it into the world and create a whole s/s '09 booklet of patterns.
Then it will be straight onto the Autumn/Winter collection. Ah, a knitter's work is never done....

spring/summer 2009

Finally I have managed to get the bulk of the project I have been working on for ages finished and on the website. I decided at the beginning of this year that a collection of my own monty patterns would be a perfect vehicle to present a more fashion forward, trend led collection of garments. Being an independent designer, working to my own deadlines, instead of that of a publisher, I can create high trend designs more quickly than when I write books. It is fair to say that even though we have vast amounts of beautiful, classic and contemporary knitting patterns around, there are fewer publications which cater for each traditional season of the fashion world. However, I have tried to keep the patterns wearable and classic, as nobody wants to spend time knitting a garment which is unwearable by the next season.

The patterns and inspiraton can be seen in full on my website, where they will be available to buy shortly. In the meantime, you can buy them from my montyknits shop on Ravelry.

If you don't knit, but want to own a one-off, bespoke garment, contact me and I shall be happy to hand make you the garment of your choice to your measurements.

I am hoping to have my timetable sorted sufficiently to have a new set of patterns based around the Autumn/Winter 2009/10 catwalks out by the beginning of October, so watch this space for an exciting capsule collection based around a British Countryside theme!

west dean spring weekend

Last weekend I was teaching at the lovely West Dean College in Sussex and spring had most definitely sprung; gorgeous little lambs were bounding over the fields, bluebells were blooming in carpets under the blossoming trees and a family of fluffy ducklings had taken up residence in the courtyard. Ah, bliss! The ladies on the course must have been inspired by all this new growth as they produced some beautiful pieces in bright spring colours and floral shapes.
I got a chance to experiment with some wire (above) which proved most effective, everybody who tried it agreed, if a little hard to work with. I am surprised we all managed to survive the weekend with our fingers and eyesight in tact, although there were a few yarn based injuries, including some rather strange bruised fingers....!

This is just some of the yarn and materials I brought to inspire:

and here are some examples of what was created: