Knitting with Wire - Mahliqa - Ep.114 - Fruity Knitting Podcast

[Music] [Music] welcome to fruity knitting i'm madeline and i'm andrea and this is episode 114 fruity knitting is a 90 minute program bringing you knitting inspiration from around the world as well as extra snippets of travel history and storytelling to add joy to your life and bring a smile to your face yes so today's feature interview is all about knitting with wire to create gorgeous jewelry this is an interview that andrew and i did in london back in january 2020 and soraya hossein is the designer behind malika and she makes exquisitely beautiful jewellery by knitting and crocheting with wire and her designs use lots of beads swarovski crystals and small amounts of luxury hand-dyed yarn and i bought a jewelry making kit from soraya at the edinburgh yarn festival back in 2019 and after talking together we both decided to do an interview which we are finally now presenting to you in august 2021 so some things do take quite a lot of time well mum gave me that kit recently to knit up which i have i'm wearing it right now as you might see and i'll tell you a bit about my experience of knitting with wire and we'll also show you some footage of me knitting the necklace from up close yeah and in this episode you're also going to meet another member of our australian family we're including a short 10 minute segment on how to get inspiration and how to combine colors and this segment features my older sister michaela who lives on a little island off the gold coast in australia so when michaela was in her 20s she did an art and design degree at rmit in melbourne and then she worked for a few years in the textile design industry and now she's teaching art and design to school kids and some of the concepts that she's teaching in the in the classroom i thought would really interest some of our viewers so we've put together a short 10 minute segment that i really hope inspires you and on top of that madeleine and i have brand new knitting projects to share with you as well as some general chit chat and a little bit of news so it's time for bring and brag because i've finished my shine mittens by sophia cameron they're so gorgeous yes i love them and i can't wait to wear them this winter um yeah so the first mitten throughout the first mitten i changed needle sizes a lot because i wasn't getting the correct gauge and it was because i was knitting the color work way too tightly so i made sure to write down the exact rows in which i changed needle sizes so that i could copy the same thing for the second mitten but despite doing that my left mitten so the second one ended up being wider than the first and i think with practice my overall tension just relaxed or something um but mum was so kind she soaked both mittens for 24 hours and then blocked them and stretched the right cuff to match the width of the left and i think she did a pretty good job yeah i think they're even now yes i don't think you can these are actually my first mittens and you can see the color works slightly lumpy bumpy but you don't notice it too much i think they look great yeah anyway i made these mittens to go particularly with my favorite dark blue winter coat i have my evil eye on them yes she always has it um but i i put on my coat despite the summer heat so i could model my mittens for you and we're going to show you some footage now they look stunning [Music] so we're going to move along now to under construction for an update on my bohus stickney project the wild apple this completely stunning design is by kirsten olsen and kirsten olsen was one of the main designers for bohus stickening in the 50s and 60s she's actually still alive and knitting and i think she lives in gothenburg which is on the west coast of sweden so this is one of her very earliest designs and i think she was really trying to create the most beautiful artistic design she could without a lot of thought as to how many knitters would actually be able to knit it because it's also called the masterpiece and it uses up to four colors in one row whereas traditional fair island stranded knitting only ever uses two colours so i'm going to stick it on so you can have a look what it's going to look like it's completely stunning isn't it that's beautiful so in total it uses 14 different colors in the yolk and 10 of those colors are different shades of green can you believe it green is my favorite color you all know that i can never get away from knitting green projects there's always some green in one of my projects mum's in paradise yes so i actually feel that when she was designing this she must have subconsciously had me in mind if i can be arrogant enough to say that okay so you can see that the the yolk is knitted top downwards and that's a construction for most of the bohus thickening designs and i've knitted about three quarters of my yolk and when i finished the depth of the yoke should be about 17 centimeters and i think i'm on track for doing that which is good and this design gives you an option of either doing a folded neck edge or a ribbed neck edge and i've chosen the folded neck edge because i just thought that was going to make it look less casual and even more elegant so to do that i'll take this off again i had to start with a uh start with stocking stitch for about a centimeter and a half and then i did a row of purl stitches and the rot and the purl stitches create a really lovely crisp folding line for when you take the the stocking stitch facing down afterwards and sew it behind but because i did my facing on such a fine needle gauge it's actually rolling forward quite tightly and in a way i quite like that rolled neck edge so i may even leave it like that but i won't make that decision until right till i finished everything and i can try it on and see here's a close-up picture of my yoke i told you that it uses up to four colors in a row i haven't been phased by that too much because in total there's only about four or five such rows but most of the rows do use three colors per row so the knitting is a lot slower than normal there's also the typical bohus thickening pearl stitches which you should be able to see quite clearly in the photo the purl stitches bring a little bit of color from the row below up into the new color on the row above and this makes the colors bleed or melt into each other more and you can see this effect particularly well when you view the pattern from more of a distance so not quite so close up as what i'm showing you in this photo it's a bit like looking at an impressionist painting so i'm really enjoying knitting this yolk it is so pleasurable like i said i'm not really daunted by the four colors in one row but i'm really daunted about the idea of knitting the rest of the stocking stitch body and sleeves on a 2.25 millimeter needle this is when i really wish i both had a knitting machine and knew how to use it because knitting these yolks is just such a pleasure and there's so many beautiful ones i would just love to knit these gorgeous yolks and then just whip up the body and sleeve on a knitting machine that would be the ideal combination you'd get through them in no time i know it'd be pretty expensive too so just to give you an idea the cuffs and the hem are going to be knitted on a two millimeter needle the body is 2.25 millimeters and i've been knitting the yoke on 2.5 millimeter but i do appreciate why knitting at such a fun this design at such a fine gauge is a good idea because it just it's it's so artistic and it just makes it even more beautiful and even more delicate so i'm quite happy to be doing that because in the long run i want this this jumper to look stunning and it's going to be an heirloom jumper so madeleine you can inherit it in about 30 years let me try it on you i think the colors will look really good on your hang on because something's pulling yeah see the colors go with her eyes you've got green eyes that's going to look stunning on you as well so it's going to sit more like that oh it's very soft it's super soft really soft and like vanilla silverberg said this yarn is only going to get better over time the angora just will fluff up and that means that all the colors will be blending even more so by the time you inherit it the jump is going to be at its peak like me i'm gonna be at my peak at 50. are you okay i plan on it so uh yeah so i'm going to definitely knit the sleeves a little bit longer for you so that they they fit you it's gorgeous isn't it i always ask mum to knit the sleeves longer because my arms are quite a bit longer than mom's and you know you have so many sometimes she's nice and gives them to me but then they'll be too short on the arms so that's always a great shame okay so as mum said this episode includes a very cool interview with saraya hossein from malika saraya designs knitted jewelry patterns made from wire yarn and crystals mum bought one of her kits recently and gave it to me to knit up this is the one i'm wearing it's called duality and it's one of her beginner friendly kits it's called duality because you can wear it as a necklace and also wrap it twice around your wrist to wear it as a bracelet this particular version with these colors is called lakeside so yeah it's stunning yeah the wire here it is it comes in this gorgeous gleaming copper color i love it and the crystals also come in different shades of copper and greeny blue so the necklace only has four stitches on each row because you knit the necklace this way and i used the cable cast on i didn't practice getting the correct gauge too much because i was worried about running out of wire and that's because you're not supposed to be yeah that was stupid there's heaps of wire left but it's not supposed to re-use the wire because it gets kinks and it wears out every time you undo and re-knit it yeah so that's the reason and you should make sure to knit more slowly and also really follow the pattern correctly the first time around this was difficult for me because i tend to drift off and i just rely on i'm picking my knitting and over time your gauge got neater and neater didn't it it did yes so practice practice don't worry about the wire and that was because you were pulling it tighter yeah and that's i figured that out in the end because i re-watched one of saraya's tutorials and i saw that she pulled it a lot tighter than i thought so that made my knitting look a bit neater i had to go as well and actually by the end your knitting was way neater than mine yeah that's interesting yeah okay so we did take some footage of to show you up close model and knitting it and you're going to give some tips as all the things that you've learned from based on my limited experience yeah of wire knitting firstly a fairly tight gauge looks neater but you also have to be careful not to make it too tight and getting this right was the main challenge for me if the stitches are too loose you look they look uneven but if they are too tight you have trouble inserting your needle into the stitch saraya inserts her needle in purlwise first to loosen the stitch before knitting it which was a really good tip and you can see me doing that as well i actually found it harder to count my rows with wire knitting than with wool knitting so for me it was really important to keep a close eye on the pattern and note down every row i did even though it meant i was constantly putting down my knitting to do so because i really wanted to avoid unpicking my knitting one thing i'm still trying to figure out is how to make the crystal beads point to the same direction on each row at the moment they're all pointing in slightly different directions and it would be nice to make them more uniform but on this necklace you can't really notice it unless you look really closely so it doesn't bother me too much putting the clasps on the end was a bit more fiddly and we were worried that if i messed up we wouldn't be able to correct it very nicely so mum took over i filmed her yeah because sometimes particularly right at the end if it's if you get a little bit of a loopy bit it's very hard to make that look neat so i just thought i'll i'll do it it does like i said kink very quickly so yeah there is a section of plane knitting at each end of the necklace with no crystals and these ends have to be sewn onto the clasp and chain fitting the cast off edge around the circle when you have done that you thread the wire back through the plane knitting to the nearest crystal because you have to secure the end tip so it doesn't scratch your neck you then wrap the wire through and around the crystal twice and snip the wire so the end hides inside the crystal so i found it very fun and interesting to do this project i've actually never made my own jewelry before so i think this is a really really cool way to do it and since i have so much wire left i might just make myself an extra pair of matching earrings as well and in general these make for great gifts look how good it looks doubled around as a bracelet yes it does it's gorgeous i'm so glad that you entered it up yup me too yeah it was very fun so saraya is offering fruity knitting patrons a 20 discount of all her products from her online store she has make it yourself kits like the necklace that madeleine made but she also has very beautiful ready-made jewelry if you don't want to make it yourself and there's some extra things available as well like stitch markers and different types of supplies so thank you very much to soraya so i've done well over 120 full feature interviews with many guests who are leaders in the industry and research through researching their work and talking to them i've learned a lot about how professional makers and artists work and then when we do our live events with our shetland patrons the patrons have an opportunity to ask the guests their own questions and that's been interesting for me as well because a lot of the questions that keep coming up are around the topics of how does the guest keep continuously getting inspiration and also how do they play with or combine colors and i think some people have the impression that inspiration is somehow magical it falls from the sky into the artist's head and then in a trance they produce a masterpiece i think that does happen regularly but only to the real geniuses of the world and that's a very small percentile of the population you'd probably be lucky to meet one in your lifetime but there are some real techniques that professional artisan makers use so that they can keep creating a lot of content to deadlines and it's similar with combining colors there are some basic formulas that you can use that i think would be particularly or especially helpful to those knitters or crafters who are really freezing up about the idea of playing with color or putting together sets of colors and like i said my sister michaela is teaching art and design to school kids and she's joining us now in the next segment that's coming up and she's going to show you how she teaches 12 and 13 year old school kids of very mixed abilities and even mixed interest in the subject how to get inspiration on any particular subject and then come up with a fairly good result in a fairly short time so i'm hoping that those of you who are struggling a bit with these concepts will feel a lot more confident after you see her talk about how she does this so that's coming up now i hope you enjoy it [Music] [Music] do [Music] hello my name's michaela i'm andrea's sister it's great to have andrea asked me to do a segment on fruity knitting i'm a secondary art and design teacher and i live in australia i've been teaching students from ages 12 to 18 art related subjects for over 10 years before that i was a textile designer and designed for bedland and fashion industries and i've also done some fine art painting and and digital print work as an art and design teacher i'm always thinking about how to inspire my students i want them to feel successful and really proud of what they achieve so i'm i try to come up with processes that will really support them in that i think back to when i was a child and what would have been some of the guidance and tips that i would have liked to have heard to help me on my art journey i had memories of being in school and in an art class and i really loved art and i remember the art teacher saying paint something from your imagination i really struggled to come up with something and i sat there with my blank table and nothing on the blackboard and just one or two masters paintings on the walls and and dirty paint brushes in the sink and just nothing came to mind it was a real struggle to be inspired but then when i was doing a textile design degree course in my 20s that it was then that i really learned that artists are nearly always inspired by something so artists will collect items around them favorite things it could be greeting cards it could be fabric samples it could be a special artwork photographs that they took uh maybe a quote from a book and they would assemble these things together and pin them up on a board and that would be their starting place for um coming up with a new painting a new project so when i'm doing planning now for my classes i'm always trying to provide these steps and inspiration to assist the students so i thought i'd share with you a project that i've done with my grade 8 students which you can see around me here and these are students that are about 13 years old 12 13 they may have done very little art in primary school and perhaps just a tiny bit in grade 7 and maybe they haven't even painted before but i decided to do a painting unit and i was thinking about an artist that would inspire them in a subject matter that they could relate to the artist that i chose was howard arkley born in australia in 1951 he became very famous for his pop art paintings where he took some photographs of suburban australian houses and he simplified these photographs into simple shapes and he painted them in very bright pop art inspired colors and he layered patterns over the top so he took these mundane images and transformed them into artworks that were really visually exciting so howard in his earlier years travelled to europe and he traveled to france and he loved the architecture there and the amazing wrought iron doorways that the churches and cathedrals would have and or have and when he came back to melbourne he sort of took a second look at australian architecture housing architecture which isn't that exciting but he said you know we do have our own um cultural aesthetic here and he started to be inspired by everything that he found around um an average house on the outside and on the inside of the house so for example he was inspired by a fly wire screen doors um all australian houses have a fly wise green door on the front in the back an essential item with all the flies that we have and that often have really lovely decorated wrought iron so they've got great patterns he was also inspired by driveway gates that also had metal strips in in various swirls and patterns he was inspired by the brickwork on the outside of houses and by the carpets designs and the decorated floral curtains and drapes and wallpapers and tablecloths and even doilies so this was the starting point for this project that i did with these students for the first lesson i introduced the students to howard arkly and we looked at examples of his paintings of interiors and exteriors of houses we looked at real estate websites and downloaded typical houses ranging from the 1950s up until present day i asked them to take photos of the exterior of their own home or of a house that they had lived in and if not they could use these real estate photos in the next class the students did a simple drawing on an a3 sheet of paper which matched the canvas board size that i had after they did their drawing i showed them how to transfer using carbon paper onto their canvas board so moving on to the painting process i showed the class a color palette like this and we talked about how colors that are close to each other on the color wheel are called harmonious colors and how they are related and they give a calm harmonious feeling because you can see that if you grab say this selection of colors they all share something in common so say from there to here all these colors have a tiny bit of red in them or from even here to here all of these colors will have some blue in them whether it's a lot or whether it's a little bit so i asked them that to paint their houses in a mostly warm selection of colors and to paint their background in mostly cool colors in the classroom setting i've got 22 students with not much space around the tables and carpet on the floor and one sink in the corner so you can imagine 22 students walking around armed with their paint brushes and paint on it looking for any excuse to move around the classroom and get more paint or clean their water containers so the temptation to accidentally paint someone's arm or face or leg is just too much for them it's irresistible so i have learnt just how easily it can get out of control so i set the classroom up beforehand um on the pallets that i put poured out for them for the warm colors i had like a lemon yellow a warm yellow bright pink different reds and some white and they were able to mix the colors and create different light and dark shades and different intensities of these colors and they painted each shape within the house a different warm color that was the goal they didn't always do that but that's the general gist of it when it came to painting the background areas i gave them blues and greens and white and they mixed up and mixed them up and tried to get light and dark tones some didn't but generally they didn't um then we used a selection of cardboard stencils and i've got some here they they were so easy to use and created a great result they would lay the stencil over the top of the artwork i'll take this one don't lay it like this over a section and then paint a contrasting colour over the top and then i just kept changing different patterns and did them in different areas some students did their own little pattern designs and i also had these stamps that would have been good to use but i didn't end up using them so the finishing touch was to use thick and thin black felt texture and they they really did it in the same style as the pop art cartoon style that the pop artists were using back then that howard arkley was using so that's a bit of an overview of how i structured a lesson which enabled all of the students to achieve a really great result any student that attended the class each week and put a little effort in could achieve this as you can see with these images it didn't really matter overall how good their painting was and how easy they found it or not just the process was what supported them and having that inspiration there and a subject matter that they could relate to there's a couple of key takeaways for all of us here today firstly inspiration and secondly in relation to colour so inspiration it's all around us take some time in your day-to-day life to look for interesting things around you and collect them such as images photos wrapping papers could be tissue box covers greeting cards could be coasters of a design that you like textiles and then look for connections between these things and group them with similarities and contrasts you might leave them on a table and keep rearranging them or you might pin them up on a board for example here are three lovely textiles that i bought when i was in peru and you can see just selecting these three that are very different pieces there is relationship between them there's similarities there's contrast in color and pattern and they could be a great inspiration for a color scheme so then in relation to color if you are fairly new with color and haven't had a lot of experience or don't know where to start get yourself a simple color wheel like this one and then look for three to five colors that are close together on the color wheel so harmonious color schemes are some of my favorite so if you could start with red and then look for colours either side and you could pick a few darker colours and then a couple of lighter tones and mid tones and arrange them together and i think you'll find they'll be quite uh relaxing easy on the eye you can do it in the blues as well or move around to the greens if you then want to go a little bit further something that i really like doing is getting your five colors harmonious colors get one of the center colors could be in the reds here then go directly opposite in the color wheel to greens so you've got like three different shades of greens here for example you could pick the light one the medium or the dark and by doing that you add in a complementary color or a contrasting color into your harmonious scheme and it will give a really nice pop and interest to your colour scheme so but in the end i think be willing to experiment trust your gut feeling and let your own creative individuality shine through i hope i've given you some really interesting and useful tips and ideas [Music] [Music] so welcome back i hope you found that inspiring and or helpful in some way i thought the kids artwork looked fantastic when you put them all as a group up on the wall very vibrant and my two favorite ones personal favorites are these two here and i particularly like the house on stilts that's a typical queensland weatherboard house i think the architecture looks very sweet very cute yeah that's because of all of the flooding so after seeing all of this use of color and combining colors i'm we're back to under construction and i'm going to show you my latest project which unfortunately is only in one color but it is a really pretty color this color here so this design i've shown you pictures of quite a few times in previous episodes it's a kim hargraves design and it comes from her book covet and it is this really beautiful wrap-around cardigan here called devote so it's a very simple stocking stitch design done in pieces and then sewn up and the recommended yarn is the rowan alpaca soft dk but i'm knitting my version in the john arbon devonian dk in the colorway called broken flower i've used the devonia yarn range quite a few times and i really love it you might remember andrew knitting madeleine this design here he did such a gorgeous job yeah this is also devonia dk and the color way for this is amber blaze it's really rich and beautiful isn't it one of my favorite cardigans it's actually the same color as the copper that you've yeah the copper wire yeah that's true yeah actually it would look stunning with that look at that beautiful okay so the devonia yarn range comes in dk weight and fingering weight and it's a blend of ex more blue face devin blueface lester and devin wensleydale and as john arvin likes to describe himself the ex more blue face gives the yarn a real oops the fleece the the ex more blue face fleece gives the yarn a real bouncy springing feel and the devin blue face leicester is a very fine fleece so it's going to make the the yarn very soft it's got a long staple so that's good for making it into a worsted yarn and it has a real sheen to it which is great when you're dyeing a color on that fleece and then the devon wensleydale fleece is also very fine and soft with a long staple but it has a golden kind of creamy hue to the fleece so when you're dyeing all the colors all the colors will have this golden hue as an underline as a sort of background or base to to all the shades which is gorgeous so as you can see i'm a good way towards finishing this design so the the back the back piece here the two fronts and the sleeves are all knitted flat if you hold that bit there with one hand you can sort of see they're all knitted flat and then sewn together which i've done already and then we have oh i'm gonna try it on so you can see what it looks like it smells gorgeous by the way yeah definitely so there's quite a lot of kim hargrave design features in this design the ribbing around the hem and cuffs starts off with some rows of fine garter stitch followed by some decorative holes before the actual two by two ribbing starts and all the increases at the side seams of the body and the sleeves are done with yarn overs which create little decorative holes on either side of the seams so i'm fitting it on over another jumper but you can get a bit of an idea of how it's going to look so it wraps around and it sits whoopsie i'm sitting on strings it sits pretty snug in your waist like this it's going to be really gorgeous at the moment the two front bits are looking a little bit sloppy but they will have a shawl collar sewn onto them so that should tighten them up a little bit so it's wrap around like i said and it's done up with two belts i've completed one of the belts here so that's the end of the belt you can see it goes down to a peak and the belts are knitted in garter stitch on the bias that means that the garter stitch is lying diagonally which makes it look flat but also gives it a really nice kind of stretch and the way she's achieved the diagonal is by increasing on one side and decreasing on the other side of every second row so yeah so i've done one belt i still have another belt to do and then we've got the two shawl collars which are mirror image of each other so they will be sewn on here and then going around that look around the back like that yeah so what what they're meant to do is have it it's joined together so i'm still knitting this one here they're meant to join with a seam at the back but what i'm going to do is just graft them so together at the back so there's no seam and as i said they get sewn down to these side bits here i'm actually playing yarn chicken at the moment because i'm really nervous that i'm not going to have enough yarn this is all the yarn i've got left and i have to finish off this side of the shore and knit another belt so that's a bit scary is there another color you might use no i just have to order some more yellow okay but it's coming on very well and i'll definitely have it finished next time you see me now before i forget i'd like to remind our shetland and mourinho patrons that the audio podcast for our live event with tina from free of fibres is available for you to listen to now you can find it on our patreon page and you'll be able to download it to your favorite podcast app via your private rss feed so that you can listen at your convenience and tina is offering all the fruity knitting patrons a 15 discount of all her yarn from her online store which is really fantastic so i'm sure after those of you who listen to the podcast that you'll be really inspired to look through her yarns so as our longer term viewers know life has been really tough for us since october last year a lot of the work i was doing for fruity knitting had to be put on hold while i was taking care of andrew and while we were trying to find a way for him to survive and it's been very difficult for me now to adjust to my new life without andrew because we were so close together for 25 years but i am really doing my best to keep fruity knitting going primarily because fruity knitting is my only source of income but also andrew really loved producing the show he was very proud of it he had a lot of plans for it and i know he'd be very happy that we're continuing on with it to be honest right now i'm actually just doing all my work on automatic i feel very numb but i do hope that over time some some of my genuine joy for doing this work will slowly come back particularly as my grief kind of gets a bit more manageable but madeleine and i are very grateful for the ongoing financial support of our patrons and our patrons are our only source of income so we do ask that if you are watching the show to please support our work by becoming a patron and you can do that by following the link that's on the screen or the live link that's in the description box below you can pick your level of support and it's easy and flexible so we thank you very much for doing that now what i'm leading on to is that i have run out of the backlog of material that i had and i desperately need to get out and do some more interviews so over the last few weeks i've been planning a trip to the uk particularly in the area of yorkshire but we'll also end up in london to do a series of interviews and i've got some great interviews lined up with some really exceptional guests so provided nothing goes wrong with covert there's no massive hiccups we should come back with some great content for you that should knock your socks off one guest in particular has been at the top of andrew's list for me to interview for a few years and he has finally agreed to an interview so i'm very grateful for that and i know andrew would be totally thrilled i just wish andrew was here to help me there is a tremendous amount of work that goes on behind the scenes i always do a lot of preparation for my interviews i do a lot of research by myself and then i worked together with the the guest and there's like whenever andrew and i used to go off and do a series of interviews that was usually around a festival we would be working crazy intense hours it's just really hard work and you're just going going going the whole time so you know i there's all the hours of driving you have to drive to the to the guests you've got the hours of setting up all your equipment and then doing all the filming and then packing up all your equipment afterwards and then you drive back to your hotel and in the evening you spend quite a long time a few hours going through all this precious footage and it's precious because of all of the hours that you've spent in preparation beforehand and the cost of travel and accommodation it's all tied up in this footage so you have to keep this footage safe so you have to go through and file it correctly so that you can find it later and then back it all up and just to give you an idea i'm taking hard disks of three terabytes with me so that we can back up this footage and keep it safe and then after you've done that you have to reformat all your cards and you have to recharge all the batteries up so they're ready for the next time so there's a ton of work that goes on behind the scenes and most of that andrew was doing so that i could just concentrate on organizing the guest and being in front of the camera with a guest now he's not here i have to do all of that i am taking madeline with me and she's been doing her best to teach herself some of the things that andrew was doing but i will still have to have my eye on it and do a lot of it myself and i will be doing all the driving so that actually means that to in order to get the same amount of work that andrew and i would do together it's going to take me over twice as long because i have to also make sure that i'm not working so crazily that i burn out because i'm still under the circumstances so it means that for the whole month of september there won't be an episode because i can't produce a good quality episode and do all of that work at the same time it's just way too much but i just wanted to let our patrons know i am not slacking okay i'm i will be working really hard to bring you back some great content that you will feel inspired by and learn a lot from it's going to be really good i'm super excited about this trip yeah heaps of good interviews coming up so madeleine i i don't want to ever promise anything that we can't deliver but hopefully madeleine just can do a couple of very basic very short extremely poorly edited vlogs just to check in with you travel vlogs and say and show a little bit of the behind the scenes and just say it so this is where we are right now and give you a bit of a peek without giving away too much content so i can't promise that because actually madeleine is studying full-time she's doing a psychology degree she's in her last year and when she's not helping me on this trip in september she should actually be writing up her thesis so you can see we're really really busy we're not slacking we're doing our best just bear that in mind patrons and we're very grateful of course to your for your support so hopefully she will put out some very basic a few very basic vlogs now i do do want to also say that at the beginning of august i took one week's holiday off and i went up to sweden to visit my good friend sophia camerbourne sophia's been on our show a couple of times already and this was my first time in sweden and i really enjoyed scandinavia i find scandinavia sweden but also scandinavia i find so peaceful she did all the driving but i just kept thinking there's no cars on the road it's such easy driving like i'm still freaking out of the german autobahns and how the porsches will just whizz past you at the speed of a space ship going by it's nuts it's really freaky for me so but i just so i found scandinavia just very relaxing and peaceful and sofia really looked after me she took me to some beautiful areas in her where she around where she lived and showed me some old ruins and some abbies and we did some swimming and some hiking and some knitting so during that time i just didn't want to do any work at all but we did end up taking a little bit of footage just to show off her latest hat design which is called between the lines and we took this footage on a pretty rainy day actually it was in the woods just outside her house and the rain is always or not the rain but a cloudy sky is always good for lighting but the rain did did make us a bit wet and certainly my knitting got wet and sticky but that was fun and her daughter sophia's daughter ella she did the filming she's very helpful and lovely so i've taken just a little snippet of that footing and i've edited it together with the charming voice of bing crosby singing an old classic for you so that's coming up now [Music] [Applause] beautiful dreamer wake unto me [Music] starlight and do drops are waiting for thee sounds of the rude world heard in the day loved by the moonlight have all [Music] list while i would be with soft melodies [Music] [Music] beautiful dreamers [Music] [Applause] i'm starting a new project now that also uses stranded knitting and i'm very excited about it last episode i teased mum because she and dad made the decision to just keep the two crochet animals in the background that were actually intended for my little cousins simba and leia well to make up for it mum gave me this book here and suggested that i find a patent in it for them myself this book is really great it's filled with classic jumpers and cardigans most of which use cables or a stranded colour work and the book is published by rowan and all the designs are made by martin's story by the way we have an interview with martin's story back in episode 72 if you're interested martin is one of the of the uk top designers he's a fantastic designer and he's also a really lovely person yeah well all the designs are made for children between the ages of six months and four years so they'll all be too small for simba who is seven and leia is already four years old and i basically think if i was to make them garments i want them to last at least two years so i decided to go for this gorgeous tote bag instead it's wonderful and i've met two different versions of them one for each girl and they can use them as their knitting bags if they want so here's a picture of the bag which is called folk bag and there's also a pattern for a matching scarf called folk scarf for now i think i'll only do two bags because by the time i'm finished i'm sure i'll be ready to knit something different the pattern uses the rowan felted tweed mum had some leftover colors in the yarn from previous projects which meant we only needed to buy the background color which is called clay so the pattern is written in pieces and sewn together but mum is rewriting it for me so i can knit all the color work in the round which will be a lot easier so in the original pattern all the dolls have red tops and green skirts or pants but because we have so many leftover colors in this fine tweed felted tweet we decided i could give the dolls different colored clothes on the top and bottom rows so these are the colors of the first bag all the dolls will have blue bottoms and either cherry red or pink tops yeah and these are the colors for the second bag yeah i need that um i think in this one all the dolls will have orangey red tops and either blue or green bottoms and for the hair and boots it's like playing with those paper dolls when you're a kid and you dress them up you can close on them yes i don't get to dress up my own dolls um for the for the blue hair and boots we didn't have any felted tweed left so we're just using some alistar or yarn that mum had left over so they should whip up pretty quickly as long as i don't make so many mistakes yeah the i think they're going to be 20 centimeters by 20 centimeters so the original pattern has 10 dolls in a row and i've made it so you're knitting 12 dolls yeah so it might be something like 30 centimeters by 20. yeah so simba and leia you can watch the progress of your very own knitting bags and think about which one of them you would like to have yes what color way so we have to say goodbye now thank you for spending time with us coming up is a great interview on knitting with wire or crocheting with wire and don't forget to watch right to the very end to see a little update on simba and leia's extreme knitting in the australian bush so we'll see you as soon as we can enjoy your knitting bye [Music] do so [Music] welcome to fruity knitting my guest today is the designer behind malika saraya hussain sereya makes exquisitely beautiful jewellery by knitting and crocheting with wire and typically her designs are really colorful she uses lots of beading schwaroski crystals and small amounts of luxury hand-dyed yarn and i was first introduced to saraya and her work during the edinburgh yarn festival so i've been really keen to interview her now for nearly a year so it's great to finally have this opportunity to do so so thank you for inviting us to your home here in north london and for coming on fruity knitting it's my pleasure good so you studied lauren you became a si and worked as a solicitor and then you became a full-time mum for your four kids who are now young adults um so as an introduction for the viewers can you just tell us how you learned your craft and how it developed to become a full-time business well my journey into the jewelry making really started with a it was a family holiday to south africa um around 2003 um we went to south africa and i discovered these women who were making handmade bracelets on the beach in durban very colorful you know really grabbed my attention um made and they were constructed of it's called memory wire which sort of it's a spiral that that spirals around your wrist i bought a few as gifts and brought them home and i was just quite intrigued by them and i thought well let me have a go at trying to make some of these myself so i went down that rabbit hole of buying all the materials and i and i made quite a few of these bracelets and started selling them so it was more sort of the beaded jewelry at that point um but it was just playing with the colors playing with the beads i read sort of breeding magazines and and books on on beaded jewelry and i started making a few pieces and that's how it really started um and i was selling them at sort of school fairs and you know craft fairs local fares um and then you came across knitting wire didn't you yeah then i uh i was in an art shop one day and i discovered this um this packet of wire and there were these all these sort of colors that are a packet of 20 colors and it had a reference to sort of knitting on the back of his packet and it was sort of like a light bulb moment and i thought oh you know this looks quite interesting let me sort of buy a few because you've been knitting all your life haven't you yeah i've been i mean that's my sort of go-to craft i've always knitted i think from the age of seven you know we were all taught in school to lit and um so i took this wire home and i started experimenting with it um and then again it was sort of that i must learn more about this so i looked into if they had been wire knitting before there was a few sort of books i'd found that were written by american women who'd who sort of you know made a few pieces with wire more sort of sculptural pieces and jewellery and then i think in 2010 i went out on a limb and i applied for one of the biggest mainstream knitting shows called the knitting stitching show you know it's been going for 30 years now and it's sort of the main one that everyone goes to in london um i secured a stand there and i thought right this is it i'm going to go for it i mean this is it's it's i've tested i've tested the pieces people like the look of it they seem to like to wear it um let me try and make this into a proper business and the response was pretty good wasn't it it was very good i mean at the show the very first show that i did i took ready to wear jewelry so it was very much you know you see the jewelry you like it you buy it but what i found was that people who came to visit me on the stand wanted to have a go you know they were saying well we're knitters you know how can we make this i mean how can you say that this is knitted they couldn't sort of it didn't compute well how can you knit and make jewelry um can you teach us you know do you have kits and so i thought well actually this is quite a good um revenue yeah and it's a it's another it's another product that i could bring to the market um and so the following year i brought um some very basic kits it was just bracelet making kits and i provided the wire i provided all the materials i provided like the instructions and i demonstrated as well so people were just absolutely amazed by it and it just really took off i mean because the show is geared towards crafters yeah people want to do it themselves people are there to find things that they can make themselves and so they were just really you know quite positive about it and i did very well on that that second year where i started with the kids and then um you were saying also that the tits out collective and edinburgh yarn festival most recently have really expanded you yeah so i think i've been i've been going in the uk for since 2010 um but it was very much the mainstream and i didn't really have an international audience um but when countess ablaze um she started her campaign which is called the tits collective um i really got and i and i took part and i i really got recognized internationally okay now you were born and raised here in london yes but your heritage is uh both persian and bangladeshi yes so i'm wondering how these three very different cultures may have influenced your designing for example do you feel like you've been really inspired by the very traditional and classical jewelry making of the asian cultures and also where do you think the british influence comes through well i grew up watching bollywood movies i mean you know we used to go to all night cinemas and watch these old indian movies and i was always so mesmerized by the outfits the the jewelry that they'd wear more so the the older style of jewelry and i grew up you know seeing gold jewelry and my mother's sort of old bits of jewellery this is an example isn't it yes so this is this is one of my my mother's earrings and it's it's a very traditional very simple sort of piece that people would buy and it's it's quite light yeah so not as expensive because the gold is is quite light it's very typical of what you'd get in what she used to wear and and this was in bangladesh so it's very typical of the jewellery there and what can you tell us about um what's the enameling called is it minikari how do you say it yes so um the persian influence is really the the techniques that the the old uh the old artisans used to use uh so there are two techniques that i'm quite drawn to and that's the filigree work which is um the process of gold wires being uh twisted and curled and soldered into place and my mother's earrings are an example of the filigree work and the second technique is called minikari which is a form of enameling and it's a way of adding color to gold work where you sort of put enamel within spaces that you've created with gold wire so those two processes have really influenced my designs and i think it has been sort of subliminal to begin with i didn't realize that they were quite influential in the way that i design um but when having researched the techniques i've seen how there are similarities in in the you know the traditional techniques brought over from uh to india from persia um and what i create what i end up creating in the shapes that i like to create now what about british influence does that come through in any way well i think the british influences more with the elegance elegant lines it's very clean it's not as you know in your face as some of these sort of asian jewelry can be it's it's very classical i think and it's quite symmetrical so i think that's more where the british influence comes in okay so we've got a lot of things here on the table and you do use a variety of materials so i thought if you could just go through and show us the materials that you use and just talk about why you've chosen to work with them well as i said with the um my influences with my asian influences i always get drawn to the gold wire so i use a lot of the gold this is gold plated copper wire so i use a lot of the gold wire i also use silver plated copper wires and then for the colour my love of colour i try and use the enameled wires and sometimes i actually add them together and i'll create sort of two tonal effects with the different colors but it's a way of injecting some color into my work because i don't i don't really like to stick to sort of monotone gold and silver i like to inject the color into it so i use 0.2 millimeter wires and up to 0.25 millimeter wires i don't really go for anything thicker um when you start trying to knit with with wire you'll find that it can be quite tough on your fingers um so you know the easier the thinner it's it's more flexible it's more you can manipulate it better and it doesn't hurt your fingers and you can knit for hours really with with that gauge i think anything above 0.25 millimeters and you'll give up and i know a lot of people have said oh i've tried wire knitting and no it's not for me and i said well it's probably because it was too thick you know so what what size needles do you knit with that and do you know what your actual gauge is roughly uh yeah roughly i mean it it varies according to the needle size so the needles i use are sort of from 0.25 up to no sorry from 2.25 up to 2.75 millimeter in the knitting needles and then in crochet when i crochet with the wire i use a two millimeter hook um and sometimes i go down to a 1.75 sometimes even smaller because i like the fineness that it creates when you when you use a smaller tool okay and what about the beading we've got some here in front of us yeah so the i i use um swarovski crystal in in a lot of the pieces i will always use the crystal in in most the pieces um i incorporate semi-precious stones as well so i've got sort of um some stones here um freshwater pearl as well and it depends on what i'm trying to create so when i get my design brief or if i have a client who wants a piece made to match something then i'll look at the colors and i'll i'll look at the style and i'll it depends on what i'm trying to create so and you also use luxury hand-dyed yarn tell us a bit about that that's actually quite a recent thing so that i introduced for uh edinburgh yarn festival yeah and this is one of the collaborations um i had with countess ablaze and she specially hand-dyed this yarn for me in in i called it my thistle colorway because i wanted a collection to bring to edinburgh um that was related to scotland and it's the national flower of scotland um so she created this specifically for me um and i made some mixed media pieces from that so i've i've incorporated the wire and the yarn into it into piece so this is yeah so that's a cuff that you would so this piece has been knitted with the wire incorporating the swarovski crystal and then i've i've created it yes i've created some cabling on the back and it's worn as a cuff it's called the window cuff okay and i've also made i think you can see there are some some earrings which again it incorporates the two techniques so you have the wire and that's crocheted and then you've got the hand-dyed yarn which also has the crystals running around the bottom so are you only using fingering weight i only use fingering weight because the beads need to be able to be threaded on so if it's too thick you will not be able to get the beads on and you don't want to use big beads because um they're heavy yeah so you want to keep the beads as small as possible and and therefore you need to use yarn that's thin enough for the beads to go on yeah but i can imagine you also don't want it to be too wobbly you want a fairly rigid structure don't you yeah so yeah so it's not like layers i wouldn't use lace i think lace it would just hang and it would it wouldn't as you say it wouldn't it wouldn't be rigid enough um so fingering is actually the ideal way to use and actually i think these merino singles is probably the best because it doesn't split um but you can use any any sort of fingering weight yarn yeah okay now i actually knew i've known for a while that you can knit with wire to create jewelry but i didn't know that you could actually also crochet yeah so do you find either crochet or knitting to be better suited for jewelry making with wire and like you're using both why do you use both well i find i mean i i i would identify myself as a knitter i've i've knitted for most of my life um i've only recently learned to crochet i think it's only been about 10 years since i've learned to crochet but i find that the two techniques are they lend themselves to different effects so with the knitting you can create quite straight shapes you can when you want to design something that's quite angular quite straight the knitting is is brilliant uh when it comes to more curved or circular shapes then then crochet is probably the best one to use because you have the one crochet hook you have one stitch that you're working at that time and so you it's sort of free form you can you can guide it to where you want to guide it so you've got more flexibility with crochet in a way i think so i think you can create more fluid shapes with with crochet whereas with knitting you're following a line and the only way you can create sort of fluidity is through decreasing or increasing stitches for example if i show you um those here the this was the uh piece that i created for tits out collective and this has been crocheted simply because i wanted to create the shape of the bosom and also to have a piece that went below it and the only way i could achieve that was to use crochet i don't think i could have done something like that if if it was sort of on on a straight piece of knitting okay okay so what are you using which stitch are you using with crochet is that a a single crochet or a double crochet it's it's double crochet well in english terms yes double crochet um and i only know the very basic stitches in for i know as much as i need to achieve what what i want to achieve so it's just something yeah so these are the earrings also again created using crochet as a technique yeah okay and with knitting are you using it looks like garter stitch this is knitted isn't it yeah it's knitted can i lift it up so that's actually knitted using short row shaping and it's the short row shaping that will make it spiral i haven't manipu i get asked this question so many times well how do you make it twist do you twist it yourself do you manipulate it it's actually so you're creating a fan on one edge and if you keep doing that it needs to go somewhere and then it starts to spiral and it will keep its shape so that's quite an interesting way of creating something three-dimensional yeah in knitting yeah it's really beautiful and i can see here just quickly show this one under here this is you can see that the garter stitch is actually like a really good flat canvas yeah too this was actually one of the very first pieces that i made uh way back in 2010 um and i've incorporated rose quartz and swarovski crystal it's it's a it's one of the very basic first shapes that i created so it's a straight piece of knitting um but quite effective it's beautiful now in 2017 you designed or created a full-length skirt yes and um and that was for an exit out of wool and wire and that was for an exhibition entitled wear wool meats i think that's right and since then you've designed a top to go with it and both garments are going to be worn and displayed in a fashion show and fog knitting live yes that's happening just in two weeks time and we're going to be there so i hope to get some footage of it so just tell us about creating that project i had a collaborative exhibition in 2017 it was with two other textile artists and my contribution was to produce a skirt i actually have a picture of it here although it's a in new york now so that that's the picture of the skirt and it was constructed by knitting panels i think there were 14 panels and i hand stitched them together and it incorporated yarn wire and the crystals and it was really documenting my journey and my transition from from yarn to wire it was designed surrounding my sort of concern for the environment um the design of the piece was really about the blackened earth that's been overworked you know over time and so the black yarn is the the blackened earth and then i go into sort of the black wire and then into the gunmetal wire and it's the crystals are meant to resemble twining um stems or vines coming up through the blackened earth to show that there's there's hope for versus renewal and new growth and the wire because of the fragility of the wire the story was that um there's although there's it's fragile and the earth is is quite fragile it still has the potential for new growth so it's so that was the story of the skirt um and also it was a skirt because we need to protect what surrounds us so i wanted it to be a sort of circular shape and it's going to be worn by somebody isn't it it is it is it's quite small but i'm sure it will fit somebody and it's going to be walking beyond the runway at vogue knitting live i submitted the skirt i mean the skirt took me three months to make you know way back in 2017. um i submitted it for the competition i made um a top to go with it so it's which is just a pretty short it's just a short crop top and i called it the earth crop top and again it was constructed similar technique in panels and then hand stitched together and then i had a set of jewelry to go with it and i think that one of the items will be in uh vogue the vogue knitting spring edition so that's quite exciting that's really exciting fantastic okay now some of our viewers will definitely want to try out knitting your designs so can you suggest which kits are good to start with and even give us a little uh mini lesson on the basics okay so this is quite a good kit to start with it's a straight piece of knitting it's garter stitch it's four stitches that you're working with and it's not so technical you don't have to really follow a lot of the instructions are not very difficult and it teaches you how to incorporate beads as well as you go along you can also finish it quite easily so you have pieces that you sew on at the end and everything is provided in the kit to make you know this really gorgeous uh choker which can also be worn as a bracelet um so that is quite a good one and there it is again in another colorway yeah the other one is actually probably at the brooch yes yeah so this is again a straight piece of knitting you're knitting a square piece and then you simply put it into the brooch frame and you get all the materials and all the pieces you need to complete and make this complete broach and you've done that as a thistle yeah so this was part of the uh edinburgh yarn festival it was part of the thistle collection what i'd say with when you start to knit with wire is you need to take things slowly don't i know it's it's it's knitting but don't treat it like regular knitting you want to take your time over each stitch um and the neater the the slower you are the neater your your work will be and the better finish you'll get so it's not a race you know you're only dealing with i mean there's only seven stitches here so you're only dealing with a few stitches at a time take your time over it and you'll create a really lovely result at the end also be very careful not to kink the wire you know any bends or kinks if you keep it stresses the wire and it creates a weak point and it can break so try to keep the wire as straight as possible i call it knitting with wire but what you're actually doing is shaping the wire with your knitting needle so it's like a shaping tool it's like any other jewelry tool you're using it to shape the material so you take your time over each stitch and you've already baited your wire haven't you yes so when when you start any piece of jewelry when it's it's incorporated the beads you would pre-thread everything you need to pre-thread before you cast on so i've pre-threaded all the crystals i need to to to make this piece and then i've started knitting so i've cast on the seven stitches here and this is one of these spiral necklaces this is um again it's one of the kits it's called the twel necklace kit and i think there's a finished one it's very beautiful at the front there okay so it's actually um it's the technique of short row shaping in this design and what i'm doing is and it's got you use garter stitch throughout with with all my projects when it when it's knitting rather than crochet you use garter stitch because you don't actually see stitch definition with wire what you're doing is you're creating the space between the wire so it's the mesh that you're creating and you're not going to see any stitch definition with with wire you're just going to see the mesh so it's always going to be garter stitch very simple stitch and then i i will knit and take my time and the other tip i would give is i always ease each stitch before i knit it so i ease the knit i ease the stitch by putting the needle in purl wise and then i'll knit the stitch and by easing the stitch you've just created that tiny lift and for you to get the needle in because sometimes if you're a tight knitter uh it can be difficult to get the needle in you know so it's it can be a struggle just ease it first and then it's so simple to knit it's quite fluid then if you ease and i tend to do that for every stitch because it's it makes it quicker because you're not struggling to get into each stitch and it also neatens the row below so that's that's a very handy tip it makes it more uniform yes it engages great and then you'd sort of carry on so this is um short row shaping which you know you're doing a few stitches and then you're turning and you're going back on those stitches and it's that simple technique that creates the lift at one end and then it starts to automatically spiral so i'm not manipulating this it will start after about 10 repeats it starts to twist and it will keep its shape it doesn't come out of shape because of the technique so that's really yeah that's really the knitting side of it and how long before you have to stick in one of these so the pattern will tell you where to do it with this particular design i'm adding it to the edge so the pattern will say right row one first stitch you're adding the crystal so what i do is i bring it up right to the top hold it up against the needle and then i knit that crystal in and that's in now it's incorporated into the work so it's very simple isn't it it is very simple and it's it's a bit like um if you look at a sort of fair isle or stranded color work the chart will tell you where to put the crystals in so when you get to the stitch where you want that color the crystal to come in you add you bring the crystal up and you knit it in so it's it's very similar to color work and it's very similar to sort of fair isle where you've got all your beads all waiting to be to be brought up okay let's see very quickly a little bit of crochet okay so this is actually a piece that i'm i've prepared to make some earrings and i've threaded them with these colors here you can see um and what i do when i crochet is i create a circle by chain so i'll sort of chain a few stitches and i'm using two strands of point two millimeter wire um to give me a ver sort of a slightly tonal look to it and then i will work within that circle start creating the shape of the earring and again take your time don't try and rush this and why can be quite temperamental in it it likes to curl up and and do its own thing so you have to sort of tame it well thanks so much for showing us that that's really really helpful and very very beautiful so just to finish off now can you tell us what are some of the things that you've done over the years that have really helped you grow both as a business and a designer well i actually went back to a formal study and i studied in hatton garden which is the heart of the jewellery quarter in london and i learnt the traditional manufacturing and design of jewellery and it was really useful i i learned silversmithing and you know soldering and the formal techniques and the tools that you use um but most importantly i got the insider knowledge um knowing where to go for for components knowing where to go to get processes done so that was really really useful for me and i think it's it's enhanced the way i approach things in my business and my contacts is it's increased my my contact list um also working i found recently i've been working in collaboration with um other yarn dyers and people within the industry and that helps to combat the loneliness sometimes when you're working for yourself and you're at home you're in a home studio you don't see people so it's good to collaborate um definitely and it helps you connect with the outer world and and you get access to a new sort of um audience or customers you do you do so you you're helping each other really yeah and you're promoting each other so that is that's that's been quite a good uh a significant um development in my business i've collaborated with quite a few people since cyf i also you know i i've run i've set up a knitting group locally and and that's been very good for support i think it's very important to give back to the local community but also to have some sort of support and feedback on new designs and things and feedback and i've met some wonderful people and some of them are designers themselves so it's um i think it's very important to share i think you know it's it's one thing to create things and and to create a business and have people admire it but i think you need to share information as well so that's great that's part of giving back and it also helps doesn't it it helps to share information that people sometimes think that you're giving your business away but actually it's a very good thing to do yeah i mean as well within the jewellery industry it's it's very well known that everyone is very tight-lipped about what they do they don't want to share their techniques but i don't think that's the right approach i think you should be able to it does enhance your your craft because you're learning as well when you share information people give you feedback and you can then go on and sometimes they'll say well i think that shape would be better for for for that whatever you know um bespoke design um and then it will make you think of different designs so sometimes someone else's input will will create another thought of a train of thought for you to think well let me just sort of try this design now um so you're not so closed i think you can be quite closed off if you if you're not willing to share and get feedback good okay well it's been really great to see your work and to see how you do it and to hear your story so thank you so much for sharing that with us my pleasure thank you thank you for coming let's say goodbye to the viewers bye [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Fruity Knitting

Views: 65,213

Rating: 4.9479828 out of 5

Keywords: Knitting

Id: jStbVcI_Tjc

Length: 85min 32sec (5132 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 27 2021