A reflection on my knitted Shawls so far | 3 years of knitting shawls | Heather & Hops Podcast

hello and welcome to headline hops hello and welcome to heather and hops hello and welcome to heather and hops my name is kat or catherine and i'm a knitter based in halford in united kingdom this is my little space on the internet where i've documented my knitting journey from project one through to now where we have cultivated a kind of knitting community of makers and creatives that tend to be more towards the mindful side of things um so if you're new welcome it's really lovely to welcome you into this space thank you for taking some time to try a new channel uh if you've been here before it's really lovely to welcome you back as kind of always i'm really still very humbled by this community and the support and you know care that i feel like i receive and hopefully get to offer out in return um so just just one little note i've this is now the third time i've sat down to record once in the garden it was very peaceful and the build has started if you're new here i have been at home for nearly three and a half years um it's an illness and basically ever since that there's been a building site opposite so i've not had very much peace for a long time and i got very excited that some of the scaffolding had come down and there was next to no noise i started recording and of course there was noise builders started to put the radio on started to shout at each other the crane started moving the saw started going i say sores i don't know it's some sort of noisy electrical tool so i came inside and i don't know what happened but most of the footage got deleted um um and then that that recording was interrupted very sweetly by alex who i really wanted to have a nice chat with but sadly we've got some more crappy news so we don't currently have apparently working cut lots of things all gone wrong but anyway all that to say it's been one of those mornings where i thought it was all going to be a really nice relaxing day and things have gone a bit wrong i have a very comforting cup of spring darjeeling which is a tea that i used to get very excited for year on out and then for a few years i kind of didn't taste quite as special for some reason but this year was particularly nice so i thought i'd have a nice enjoyable soothing cup of tea and we'll start to slow things down a bit today i wanted to talk about shawls which is a bit different for me i haven't knitted hundreds of shawls since i started knitting i've been knitting for almost three years now and i think i'm averaging about three a year so one every four months and i just thought it would be interesting to to for me to reflect but also to maybe share with new and knitters or experienced knitters that maybe haven't delved into shawnetting my experience is what i've enjoyed wearing maybe what i haven't what's held up what i enjoy knitting clarity like things like that if i can i'm just going to bring this closer and then in the same breath also have knitters if you're a more experienced knitter yourself and you've got a you know a history with shawls perhaps you can dive into the comments and share your journey i know that from personal experience i did a video talking about my needle choices and preferences so far and what i've experienced and that created a lot of conversation not just between myself and you but you and other viewers which i just think is really quite amazing and if we can learn from each other in this way i just think it's great so yeah hopefully this whilst it's a slightly different format i really enjoy doing them doing this sort of style on jumpers and garments that i've knitted and i hope to do a round a year three round up very soon but obviously not until the end of september so i might get one or two more probably one more garment in in there potentially i'm not rushing anything at the moment like i said i've kind of found my joy i found my flow of what i enjoy knitting and even colors so let's start with the first one the first shawl i ever knitted i don't have with me and this isn't one that i've given away this is one that i've worn really quite a lot and the reason i don't have it is actually because i left it at a friend's house we a few months back had a you know a gathering of four of us in the garden and i i know that it gets quite cold in the evenings so when we you know if we're planning to go away or if we're going to see a friend i will often maybe over prepare but you know two months ago was june and it should be warm in the evening but i still took a shawl and i even took an empty hot water bottle so that i could fill it up the worst case but all that to say that shawl is actually at my friend's house still and i should really make the effort uh to go and collect that because i miss it i miss it so that shaw was uh the grain shawl by 10 candidates and it's a free pattern available to all that's very clearly written and is very easy to knit so if you maybe you're here and you're not in it and you've just stumbled you know on a big youtube tangent that that happens quite often to us um when alex is in control of youtube anyway we go from uh searching ancient harps all the way through um uh what did we end up on uh on like a yodeling country musician who's amazing called nick's shoulders if you're interested in something off-kilter that was a really good youtube tangent anyway the yarn i used to knit the shawl was very special to me because i used black at all which was one of black yarns birthday yarn so i think every year they release a kind of limited edition birthday yarn but that was used to knit my very first ever jumper which in hindsight is quite bold to use a really beautiful yarn and do color work in your first ever jumper but i'm all for this if you're gonna love working with the yarn you really love the pattern you're gonna put the effort in to make something you love and i did and i had a bit left so i thought i want to put this into something and i was fairly new at knitting and i still didn't really know what i could do and what i couldn't but the grain shawl it was quite clear that you could add as many rows of a color as you wanted you could knit every row in a different color if you really enjoyed weaving in ends or wanted it to have sort of a fringe and then i used some kate davies yarn kate davies is one of the knitters that really drew me into the knitting world i very different journey to her from memory now this was a while ago and i didn't i really want to read her book but from my understanding she suffered with a stroke and had to re-learn to use the whole left side of her body which is quite a challenge and imagine going from being a knitter to so no i didn't have the stroke and now i didn't have to relearn my body but i had to relearn how i live because i wasn't able to do the things i loved to use my body i was out all the time i was teaching yoga and personal training among other things and being unable to do anything i had to figure out a new way to use my body so through kind of serendipity i learnt in it and that's thanked davey so the show to me is very special and i'm thinking i might actually go and collect this show and gift it and it will be gifted to someone who will not expect it um who won't be watching here but the first time they saw it were really taken back by it so i believe that it kind of it should go to her and i'm going to treat myself to using some very very beautiful yarn that was hand spun for me and knit myself unusual that will be a a little bit larger than this maybe and just as special so it'll be really nice to give something that means so much to me away so that shows held up really well it you know like i've said it's beautiful it will be a beautiful gift um even even in nearly three years of where it's held up really great and i wish i had it to do some close-ups and if i get it back this week i will try and pop it some footage in before um but yeah all that to say very simple pattern if you are looking to learn to knit um i really do recommend that as a good place to start you can finish it whenever you're ready you can make it as big as you want and if you're an experienced knitter that is after regatta project this is a really good one to go for um and whilst i was saying if you are a newer knitter and you're not sure what garter means so you really have two basic stitches in knitting a knit stitch and a purl stitch if you are knitting garter if you're knitting flat so you're working back and forth across stitches you'll do all all the stitches you do will be knit so there's no thinking involved if you were to do the same in the round you'd have to knit one entire round and then purl one and tie it around so it's it's a really great starting project all that to say lots of practice in the knit stitch um the second one i want to talk about is i believe the second one i knitted and again this was i was very new when i started to knit this one and it i've got to say it doesn't look like very much here and that's because it it wasn't this is the futuble by orlain olayin sushi olansouk i'm not quite sure on the pronunciation and this yarn is beautiful this was one of the fancy hand well i think it was my first fancy foray into indy hand-dyed yarn and this is spectrum fibers amethyst on both the oh i think it was her high twist bfl base and her mohair so it's really sumptuous it is beautiful because of the high twist you do get quite a decent stitch definition and because of the mohair you get a beautiful halo um it's a beautiful tonal again this has lasted very well but as you'll be able to tell it's more of a shawlette um i actually do think it's quite practical because it's mohair and it's so small you can really get like tuck it into coats and what i've tended to do is this is a hair clip i perch i can't remember where i got it from it you know it's not fancy um but i would really like a wooden shawl pin eventually but yes this is quite good for me um but this was only due to new knitting impatience and really not knowing um you know the practicalities of knitting ashore this i might not knit a shawl this small ever again or i might and before i finish talking about the pattern how i solved this and i'm not going to put this over my braids because they're already wild enough what i did was i cast on a set i can't remember how many stitches this was and i made myself a little cowl to put underneath the shawl so in the winter and it when it's really really cold i have this amazingly warm thin layer that i can either use on its own or with this and have the most coziest warm neck and i'm almost tempted to come up with a kind of pattern set myself of something like this i would do the shawl maybe slightly bigger but i just think this is a really practical for me in that they're both quite lightweight you can put this in your bag and it doesn't take up you know it doesn't take up very much space unlike some of the other shores which you'll get to see um like that's really quite you know and i didn't use up too much yarn either so yeah this is how i negated a very early on mistake or lack of patience when it came to knitting but this the pattern itself is a gorgeous pattern it's very simple very straightforward and quite easily easy easily adjusted so it has some gorgeous textures to it that are very simple if you're an experienced knitter this will be a doddle to you for someone who was as new as i was it was a little bit more challenging and that is to do with the fact that i don't know that you'll be able to tell but when i started knitting all of my purl stitches were twisted which is fine you can negate that i learnt to untwist things and all kinds of fun but yeah if you are looking for a really nice simple shawl pattern that is clearly written this pattern is free you could probably get away with knitting at this at many different gauges um i think it suggested sport weight but i i used fingering and four ply which actually in hindsight's probably very good um but yeah great a great another great starting out short if you're sort of starting to delve into shawls but remembering that if you do want something that is a real shawl that's going to snuggle like cover all of your shoulders do it a lot bigger than the and then the size that i've done it's cute it's nice but it definitely should really be a bit bigger unless you you are more after but you can just about tie it um but it's much more comfortable with the shawl pin on it and yeah fun fun it's really quite nice to reflect on these so thank you so much if you are here um i'm gonna fold this i'm gonna try and be good i have a shawl drawer now let's this is another one of my hmm this one i definitely did very wrong and i've been trying to palm this off on someone for quite some time we'll ignore we'll talk about the pattern is the melted mirage i believe by stephen west and what i talk about is nothing to do with a pattern because i went totally off-piste with this by about a thousand miles so sp the pattern itself is very clearly written stephen is brilliant he writes very clear patterns very beautiful patterns and um knitted how it should be the shawl would have been more beautiful and etc however i don't like how this has lasted at all um it just looks like a towel to me like i kept catching i've caught it way too many times and it just looks a little bit raggedy and i think my my two cents if you don't like mohair then ignore me for 100 but if you do like mohair i would be inclined to use a mohair base and i would also not use singles i don't know why i use singles anyway um they just don't hold up for me and my toddler behavior obviously they look beautiful and you're getting but yeah if that's if if like scrumptious merino's your jam definitely use it i would never say don't use it but superwash merino singles are not something that i can use because i am way too hard wearing i would actually really love to knit this in maybe not a brushed alpaca but a more alpaca based yarn with a little bit of a fuzz in different colors for the contrast on this side and then some natural yarns fading in different colors on this side or something even more fun just like one solid and then that'll pack of it all that to say i really don't think this yarn has held up well and i don't really like it i might use this as a fabric for something for little audrey or i don't know any anything any suggestions would be most welcome but yes the melted mirage is a beautiful pattern and i would recommend anyone to knit it for funsies but definitely spend a bit more time looking at yarn and making a more conscious thoughtful decision because this is something that i don't love and there you go uh right so with this yarn i also knitted a uphill by caitlyn french which is a believe another free pattern and i will put pictures on the screen for you who's just double checking to see what i used and it looks like i must have not used i must have used this yarn and then purchased another full skein after so that i could make the shawl so i knitted a shawl for alex's mum in this yarn too and it was beautiful i was really chuffed with it and again this is another thing in hindsight i probably should have knitted it a bit bigger for for her um if if claire washes it i think it will grow and it will be bigger but i'm not sure if i ever explained how to so maybe next time i see claire i'll try and get that and see how that's going but from memory it was a very nice pattern to work it was very clear it was another free pattern um and a bit more fun there was a bit more face work and a little bit more texture to it so i can't really talk very much on that but yeah that was actually knitted from november the 29th 2018 to november the 12th 2018 so really i reckon i should have put another week's work into it and it would have been the perfect size so that's quite important i think for me i realized now that already that a really small shawlette is quite useful if you're happy to pin it and you want something small but i might be inclined to tune it cows instead which is where i did end up going i've got a cow that i love um or i want a really big sumptuous oversized that i can throw around me i'm gonna try and take measurements from my grain shawl and what i will do when i'm knitting my hand spun is if i can aim to get those measurements plus a couple of inches and the way i might check that is to go through my fabric stash and just check um by measuring my grain shawl adding a few inches trying to get a piece of fabric that i don't have to cut and then wrapping it and just seeing i think that will be a really nice way of me not getting a full extent because i don't really have stretchy fabric in my stash or fabric pantry um i don't have very much fabric um or but yeah that's what i'm gonna do so the next one this is much better um i'm gonna hit pause quickly i didn't realize that i'd waffle this much um so this one is more fun this is the texture time by stephen west of west knits and this was a really fun project for me to knit i i lengthened it out i let the process take me quite some time i used some yarns that are aren't available i use some some yarns that are from my wool pantry and because they're club colorways um and i've really enjoyed the process of learning different techniques using different techniques in a different way um and here it is this is this was one that i finished um one christmas day it was like a finished as a christmas gift to myself i was doing the cast off so if you are an experienced knitter and you want a challenge texture times one of them it's not it's not too strenuous it's just there's quite a lot of it and there's a few different techniques so you've got the central section you've got some fun lacy eyelets you've got latvian braids which are one of my favorites but i've never used them on a shawl i've used them on cuffs of mittens you've got some fun sort of almost like shale and then you've got these big eyelets and you've got so many textures and different yarn choices i would love to see this in a completely natural palette and i think that might be something that i do because whilst actually these colors are quite good for me maybe i don't know i am i mean look at this isn't it this is more where my heart really lays so this item might be gifted eventually i'm not quite sure i feel like my uncle should have it because whilst i was knitting it that christmas he kept going on about it he's like wow wow i can't well maybe you'd wear it um mom dad if you're here do you think jared would want it this has a lot of work that has gone into it and yes whilst i love it i do imagine myself wanting to re-knit it eventually uh not anytime soon but in more woolly wool um and yarn that really makes my heart sing cause this is okay some of this was my own hand died some of it was um dyed by a company uh and it was their young club uh and some of it was just commercial and i just think if you've been here for a while you know kind of more where i'm heading um i'm sat here kind of looking around because on my table is my boss giver knitted in yarn that it's a project pattern by lovely marina knitted in the most local yarn i've ever held and then to my right i've got some beautiful yarn from telespin which is a norwegian lambswool and mohair um and then some 100 british woolly wool and then behind me i've got some peruvian highland which is gorgeous yarn by fixed game this is some handspun which is for a very special project and some evering belle by whistlebear that's kind of more where i'm going and actually both of these i would be inclined to use some whistlebear mohair for and the chevy at marsh would be great for this oh alice i'm not gonna do that yet i don't need to knit that again yet so yeah the texture time's a lot of fun if you are more of a wanting more of a challenging knit i do recommend and if you want something big this is huge um and it has it continues to grow um but it definitely does the trick i wore this with my eastern jacket by emily foden in winter this year mostly all my other two items which i'll show you shortly but i did wear this a bit and it was plenty warm enough i didn't actually have anything other than a thermal layer icelandic jumper eastman jacket and this for basically the entire winter i didn't need it was so mild that i didn't need a full you know a traditional coat as such so yeah a lot of fun if you have an aversion to ends look away but stephen has this technique where you twizzle things to stop you having to weave them in and [Music] i've got to say it worked i ended up tying them in knots and i think if this was a more woolly russet yarn you wouldn't have needed to but they did kind of untwizzle so i did use that technique a lot of fun would love to knit again don't need to spend money on yarn for knitting it again um the next one is one that i've really loved knitting and this is the sujana shaw by zandi peters this is a much better size for not having to carry too much weight around and might be the more more of the size that many are used to you can wear these in so many different ways it goes around many times if you need it to um but this is beautiful it was from a pom-pom magazine um got it here i think i think it was winter 2018. the one with the beautiful noregon pattern on the front and i believe just it the yeah based on victorian influences mostly so it's really beautiful and very apt so two colors of fingering weight yarn and i opted to add mohair i think it yeah um the purple you can see here is undercover otter in the purple skies colorway i think and the mohair was something that i custom dyed for myself and then it is a gray base on i think it was a high twist that i just dyed and then a commercial mohair of drops kid silk really loved knitting this um i do really like the colors still but i'm not sure again these are the most me colors now i've really kind of settled into i'm more and more settling into a color palette um which is kind of becoming more and more clear as to what i'm really drawn to and at the start of the year i did myself mood boards on kind of spring summer autumn and winter and photographed actually items i own and what i thought i wore most and i think i can go in and update my spring and summer ones now and be a bit more accurate and what i've already noticed is this more darker colors the things i'm really drawn to i like i do like pastels but kind of dirty pastels that's my kind of favorite and natural colors and again usually the dirtier versions if that makes sense and what i mean is like more yeah just muted and a bit muggy um kind of these and i do like a pop of red and a pop of a brighter more sort of piney green so this beautiful as it is maybe doesn't fit in so this probably since it is special should be gifted to someone um oh hey little mai oh you can't you can't sit on there i'm gonna say hi oh you can't say hi just briefly sweet girl oh i'm gonna have to swap memory cards okay hopefully it's just one of those days the memory card ran out um anyway this one is particularly special to me this is a shawl that i first knitted for myself um for our wedding in september last year i knitted it in a very different color palette the first time around and that was because they were the sort of colors that i imagined that i would wear when we got married and that version ended up being a gift to my mother because i love her very much and i wanted to give her something that i'd i'd kind of put notes of her and i don't know that she'd notice and it's a bit like but the the there was a telespin color in there which hopefully you'll see and it's like a burgundy and it always reminded me of her hair growing up like there was it's like darker it's a lot darker actually when you look at it closely when you're a bit further away it's just like a burgundy but it's a beautiful color and i kept that kind of burgundy in the second version um but i'm not sensitive to yarns particularly and that is quite a soft shawl and i felt like that would be perfect for my mum but when i shared it so many very kind people like yourself said that they would love the pattern um and i ended up taking notes and that's something that i've got much better with now but in the past i didn't so this was very lucky that i had um so i got to knit it a second time because i wanted to check it as i went and initially i wanted to use some sorry i have to apologize this sticks to the poof that i'm sat on the the footstool ones that need sanding because i use chalk paint on it on my mom's recommendation but it means that this is like velcro i wanted to use uh um something like cintiqua's yarn or something naturally dyed however it would have cost an a small fortune to do and really i wanted something non-superwash and rustic because that is where we've kind of figured out with the exception of maybe mohair and some fancy like fancy non-superwash bases this is where my heart lays these colors are just about right i could have gone maybe darker with the gray but i really wanted the there to be quite a high contrast in the color work um so i used jameson and smith and i could not be happier i love this short so much um now i use this uh like an old shale pattern because scotland i use thistles because scotland but the idea with this one you should actually i'm hoping to release it fairly soon i might i might save it for our one year anniversary so sort of the fifth of september um but i've i've included empty charts so that it can become your own adventure sure but we'll talk more about that when that time comes but this for me is a really good size it is big it does squish down into something a lot smaller than what i'm showing you really but it's like taking a jumper only you can use it as a blanket um you can wrap me and alex fit in this just about like when it's really cold in the winter we were sitting with our hand-knitted blanket on our legs with this around us and we were so snug um but yeah i'm really happy with this this is on the bigger side of things this is probably as big as i'd ever need or think is sort of practical any bigger and it really does probably become a bit cumbersome and a bit unnecessary for the uk but yeah i actually enjoyed this when we went recently for a big walk unintentionally when we were in scotland um alex was like you should take this and i was like i don't know i'll be fine and this basically saved me um because when we started the walk it was actually really quite hot but as it got higher it wasn't actually cold but the wind was a bit intense so this kept me warm and then it did get really cold and i put on all my layers in this saved me saved me made me nice and thirsty but yes i love this one this is probably my favorite in that it means so much to me you know i gifted one to my mom and i think my mom's hair now actually goes with the shawl background color in hindsight she's got this lovely like honeyed ashy color it's really hard to describe and it picks out those that i don't have that i've got this chocolate brown and grey um so yeah and i won't talk too much about this one either because this is another one of my own ones because i've i never knitted a scarf um and i wanted to knit a wrap slash scarf that was perfect for me and that gave me joy and i ended up coming up with the spring intentions and i'll put the original some photos of the original and this was special in many many ways i again i won't go too much about it but the yarn i used was yarn that i had dyed myself using plant matter from one of the favorite places that we go to called windy hollow so that meant a lot to me and then i knitted this project more intentionally than i knitted really ever i was very thoughtful about i swatched which doesn't happen so i was thoughtful about how many stitches i cast on i was thoughtful about how i wanted to knit it and i wanted it to be very relaxing very intuitive while holding a bit of attention so i didn't want everything to be just rib or just stocking it i wanted to interest so i came up with textures and then i started matching textures to different practices for myself and then that became a project that i get ended up sharing and we did a knit along um for seven weeks from spring this year and this was the this was my second sample in the yarn that we ended up releasing kits for which is wild and this is whistlebear's cheviot marsh which is a beautiful base it's i personally don't find it i find it very soft some people would consider this rustic um i love the stitch definition it gives this palette is weird to me i don't know really what i think it was my um mood board actually inspired these colors in hindsight they they were very much colors that showed on my spring mood board and i always put it on and i'm like oh yeah weirdly this colors look good on me i think at least like like weird because they're not i think they're all colors i use separately but i have never put together um and it can be worn in lots of different ways you just have it big i am chuffed with it really i really like this item this is probably my second favorite these two are my favorite shoes that i own and wear the most this one is a bit more or it's less cumbersome so it is a bit smaller you can wear it in quite a few ways but it doesn't hang down the back or anything um yeah i really like this one i would knit something this size and shape again definitely um and yeah audrey is at the door beckoning me and i should go and let her in quickly because we could have one or two more interruptions huh you're a naughty little tinker you're interrupting again um so yeah i i will be knitting marshalls i'm quite looking forward to knitting my handspun one with these thoughts in my mind i do think this this um communicating and chatting in this way really helps if you have any thoughts i would really be very glad to hear them like what is there there's many different shapeshields and i haven't tried that many really rectangular triangular obscure crescented um what do you find best i know that everyone has different preferences some people like really thin long ones so you can wrap it around a couple of times and then tie it some just like a square some just don't see the used and want cowls i do really like a cowl i've got to say for ease and for how small they are if i want to wear you know coats that have got a higher neck a shawl can be a bit of a problem yeah do let me know i am you know ever so grateful for you spending a bit of time with me i hope that this does find you well maybe inspired a little bit maybe maybe completely baffled as to why anyone would know sure let me know um it's really nice to sit here i almost don't want to leave because then i have got a whole world of things to do let's stay and hang out let's be calm and sit for a little bit longer i'm kidding i really best get on and i hope that whatever you're up to you are enjoying yourself maybe you're making maybe you're not if you're not i hope that you get to do some making in the near future whether that's knitting sewing spinning painting your house something something fun please please please be kind to each other send hugs to those that need it i know there's a few out there at the moment that need a bit more a bit more cuddles um i hope that you don't have any car works um oh dear uh um yes look after each other be kind to yourself and love fiercely and i will see you again very soon hopefully [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] you enjoying that audrey is watching the bees on my lavender [Music] you

Channel: Heather and Hops Knitting

Views: 6,182

Rating: 4.9488492 out of 5

Keywords: knitting, knitter, knitting podcast, knitting vlog, slow fashion, handmade, hand dyed yarn, yarn, wool, knittin, knitting podcast 2021, english knitting podcast, knitting podcast uk, podcast tricot, knit podcast, tricot podcast, UK knitting podcast, uk knitter, cosy knitting, english knitter, relaxing knitting, natural wool, non superwash, knitting design, indie design, texture time, stephen west, shawls, knitted shawl, shawl knitting

Id: _Ti8HE1FQ1g

Length: 46min 43sec (2803 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 18 2021