After the Frenzy

It's been a few weeks now since my first design kits were launched by Renaissance Dyeing at Knit Nation 2010 in London. I believe the whole event was a huge success and many people are still settling down and gazing fondly at all the wool they bought and wondering what projects will be good enough to use it on. That's the nice thing about a kit, I suppose. It spares you the agony of wishing you'd made something else with that special skein.
I found the design process was less traumatic than I thought it would be but I also thought it might be an idea to make up some designs and kits for tams that many people have said they loved before designing anything new.
I've used Renaissance Dyeing wool to make up a couple of tams and am working on the patterns for them. So they should be available before too long. This first will be this Pink and Gold Tam in colours most suitable for the northern hemisphere autumn fast approaching.

Urban Troubadour 2

Here is a design that will also be launched at Knit Nation this month. This is one I test knitted for Mary Lena Lynx in Belgium. It's the second of two colourways. This one is softer and brighter than the first - more feminine, Mary Lena says. The wool is all dyed with natural dyes by Renaissance Dyeing and the colours are really lovely. It will be going to live in the Blue Mountains when it returns from London.
And here are the original colours -

Bug Socks

We have a small flock of Wiltshire sheep. They are the darlings of lifestyle block owners because they don't need shearing. They either don't grow much wool or they shed it themselves all over the place. I chose them because of their hardiness and the fact that they don't need drenching. However, I do like sheep to have useable wool so I have them shorn and this year I decided to experiment with the wool. They don't have a great deal of fleece and what they have is rather coarse but open and springy. It's very easy to spin and looks fine when it's washed. These socks are test to see how it stands up to hard wear. I expect socks are not the best use for it but we'll see. It has to be better than some of the commercial sock yarns I've tried that go to holes if you walk to the letterbox.

The bug patterns are Estonian from Nancy Bush's book of Estonian Folk Knitting, but the sock pattern is a basic generic design. the dyes are cochineal (bugs), eucalyptus and onion skins.

Yellow Roses

I realise I haven't added the other colourway for the Roman de la Rose Socks. This is the brunettes' version. The socks look rather nice with yellow roses but I wasn't too sure about making a matching tam because so much yellow in the centre might not be very successful. Anyway, both sock colours and the tam will be available from Renaissance Dyeing from the 29th July or thereabouts. I know Andie is taking them to Knit Nation then.

Roman de la Rose Socks

I had quite a lot of wool left over after I made the tam so naturally I made some matching socks. These will also be available as a kit from Renaissance Dyeing from July this year. They will be on display at Knit Nation 2010 if you happen to live in England. There are going to be several gorgeous designs on display at Renaissance Dyeing all using Andie's naturally dyed wools, some in lace weight, and mostly organically produced from a flock of Dorset sheep in France. The designers Andie has engaged come from all over the world and they have come up with some stunning work. Have a look at the website when you have a moment.

Roman de le Rose Tam

Here is the first design inspired by the beautiful naturally dyed wool from Renaissance Dyeing. As I said, the colours reminded me of medieval paintings and the story of the Romance of the Rose was what sprang to mind. I read the Chaucer translation at university and never forgot the image of the garden and its inhabitants. The tam is supposed to tell the story in wool, which is probably a bit ambitious but the colours certainly look right.

The kit for this design will be available from Renaissance Dyeing from July and the tam will be on display at Knit Nation 2010 in July along with some other marvellous creations using the Renaissance Dyeing wool from some very talented designers around the world.

Roman de la Rose

Andie from Renaissance Dyeing asked me if I could come up with a design using her beautiful naturally dyed and organic wool for KnitNation 2010 in July. she gave me a free hand to choose the colours and what I wanted to design. I chose a traditional group of colours dyed with woad, madder, indigo, weld and cutch. When I saw the colours she had produced with these dyes I was struck with their resemblance to the brilliant colours in medieval paintings. Hence the inspiration for my design.
Over the next few weeks more will be revealed.