Holli and I met my first year in Vancouver, as the current president of the West Coast Knitter's Guild, it is a thrill to know her. Her designs are exceptional design work...gush, gush and you must check out her designs.
www.beeskneesknits.ca
My head is still swimming from our conversations yesterday as I consider taking the business in a new direction by letting my designs be set free for others to knit....Staggering, exciting and a bit scary all at the same time.
Here is a picture of Holli in one of my designs on our afternoon impromptu photo shoot.
This design has seen several reworks. The first one was a commission for an acorn hat. That hat was a delight to make. I knit it in a lovely South American wool/alpaca blend, nice and chunky on 6mm needles. Basically I used an exaggerated tam and then gave it the extra pooch and nub at the top. Because of adding the flaps, I felt it needed a bit more balance and crocheted a few little acorns to add to the ties on the flaps.....voila...
I love the deeper rim with the seed stitch. The additional texture is more "acorn like". Now this is how I've always approached design. So here's the acorn......what's next? What have I learned from that shape and wear can I take it next.
The next hat was a play on the shape, deeper rim, more beret, no flaps.
As much as I enjoyed the look of this hat, the top was too much of a flying saucer to me, too floppy. Version three (which is Holli's hat is the fulled version of the hat above. Shrinking the hat was an amazing effect. The top which was too out of control shrunk and became a lovely fabric and the rim (which was in a wool acrylic blend) stayed the same, actually became softer, which is a lovely feature considering this is what will be on the forehead.
Having such a great fabric on the top was an invitation to a bit of embroidery in the rim yarn to balance the design and tie it all together.
I'm not finished with this design yet. It will probably be similar in design, but now I'll do a bit of colour work which may impact the shaping somewhat.....Stay tuned. Since this will not be one of my jury pieces, I think I'll pop it up on Etsy.
Here are a few more views of a hat I truly enjoyed designing. The rest of the afternoon will be dedicated to designing a matching (sort of) scarflette.
It's been a while since I've allowed myself the luxury of free form play.
