| The inspiration for this jacket was an Exhibition of Turkish Textiles
I saw in Berlin. There was no Catalogue or postcards but I carried away
a thrilling memory of colour, particularly the indigo blues and madder
reds.
I began my design by looking at motives and patterns used in carpets
but then abandoned the idea of attempting such a precise parallel. |
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I dyed a great deal of blue and red fleece, beginning with a mass of
indigo dyeing carried out of the Scarborough Summer School in Jenny Dean’s
Natural Dyeing Group. I then used weld, rhubarb root, and buckthorn bark
for yellows.
I spun the wool after combing on a Kineila wheel. It was not the best
of fleeces and there were times when I wished I’d chosen a better one.
But I had this beautiful deep blue wool from the Summer School. |
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The jacket was knitted to a structure I’d used before. I cast on, using
a temporary cast on, at the wrist. The sleeve was knitted in the round
with increases being made along the row at about every two inches intervals.
I varied the colour scheme slightly from side to side, keeping the tonal
values wherever possible.
At the armhole the stitches were cast on for the side, once again using
a temporary cast-on, so that later I could make a knitted seam. The join
at the back was another knitted seam. |
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| The last part was adding the borders, knitting downward
at the wrist, and picking up stitches round the waist and round the neck.
Because, when using handspun wool there may be a finite amount of some
colours, I always do the borders last. I very rarely use single rib, preferring
to make patterned bands linking with the main garment. |