Lydia has been watching a lot of NPR’s Tiny Desk concerts and very much enjoyed the two most recent Cardi B and Cmat ones. Both full of energy and very feel good vibes!

On the subject of music, Lydia just started the new Barbara Kingsolver book Partita. It’s a book about a pianist and she loves that it has a playlist to listen to as you read, which Harper Books has kindly turned into a Spotify playlist.

In travel news, Lydia happened to be in Gloucester and visited the cathedral there. One of the highlights was this little guy who featured in a lot of the stained glass:

There was also some very old graffiti:

And just a lot of stuff to look at. Lydia particularly loved the painted stone and the tiles:

And lastly this stained glass window had charm quilt vibes:

Does this count as an autumnal drink? The studio we share with our pals has turned into a shrine to this Hazelnut flavoured coffee. Sorry to anyone out there who is a coffee purist but it’s pretty great being able to make coffee quickly in the morning and the hazelnut flavour isn’t too sweet, and is the perfect amount of nutty.

Meghan has been busy travelling to the German Alps to meet her newborn baby niece! She highly recommends the Alps, newborns, holding newborns, and making things for newborns. She riffed on the simple crochet blanket from Crochet How to make this very sugary sweet version with added scalloped border.

While travelling, Meghan also finally finished listening to all 12 hours of Wuthering Heights on audiobook. (Try to get a copy via your local library’s app if you can!) Needing to immediately de-brief this wild ride of a book that she hasn’t read since high school, she then listened to a 2017 episode of the BBC radio show/podcast In Our Time that discusses the it. It felt like an instant book club! Should she watch the Margot Robbie film adaptation now?!

Did you know we share our studio with one of the people behind AYFP (a.k.a. A Yarn and Fibre Publication)? They’ve recently released some very tempting reclaimed tees that are beautifully screen printed and right up our alley. You may also recognise some of the models if you swipe through…

Our studiomate Katie of AYFP also runs Fenwomen and Beadbinders. We’re pretty certain Out of Hand readers would enjoy both! Look out for Beadbinders’ publication, Handiwork, soon!

We are both very very excited about the upcoming Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant Exhibition at the Tate Britain in London and will be going to the press view on the 10th November so you can expect more on this next month!

Both of us are working on Collage Cardigans and having SO MUCH FUN. The Collage Cardi (which we have now dubbed Cardi C) is the next pattern we will be releasing by Picky Femme (designer of Dreamscape Vest and Scrappy Checkers). The pattern will be out in December and don’t worry, there’s no way we’ll let you miss it!

And we will leave you this week with this classic meme which Lydia loves and, we think, has a very important message.

xxx Lydia + Meghan

Basting

This week’s video is a long one (6.5 mins), it might be worth watching the whole thing through, and then you can work along with it, pausing when you need to. We have also added a breakdown of the steps and some stills below in case you need a few close ups.

The first thing you do when you’re basting is secure your backing (which should be nice and pressed), which I do by taping it to the floor. Remember you need to tape it so the wrong side of the fabric is facing you, the right side (the side that will be visible as the back when the quilt is finished) should be facing the floor (or whatever surface you’re using). Here’s part of my backing after I taped it down. You don’t need to pull it very taught! Just nice and flat.

Next you lay the batting on top and smooth it out so it’s also nice and flat, and once that’s done you can lay your quilt top in the centre of the batting, with the right side facing you (the seams against the batting). Again smooth carefully and straighten up seams. You will have about 4” of batting and backing sticking out around the quilt top. Here’s the same corner with batting and backing added:

Once you’re happy that your three layers of quilt sandwich are nice and smooth and in the right place, you can begin the actual basting! I’m using curved safety pins here, which is an easy way to do it. Starting in the middle of your quilt and working outwards, place pins at 2-4” intervals to secure the layers together. Usually I wait until all the pins have been pinned to actually close them, just in case I need to re-jig anything.

Here’s Bertie (Phaedra Clothing’s dog) checking my handiwork:

I think he found it satisfactory 🤩

Once you have enough pins, you can remove the dog and the tape and tada! You have a basted quilt.

Ready for you to start stitching next week!

So with our basting all done, that’s all for this week! Keep sharing your pics and queries in our chat, we love seeing all your projects.

Next week we will begin quilting, so have your tools at the ready! Just a reminder that our tutorials are going to be for hand quilting. If you plan to machine quilt that’s great and there are a lot of lovely tutorials to be found.

But for you hand quilters you will need your thread, needle, scissors, and a thimble. If you’re using fine thread and a smaller needle a needle threader is very useful so it’s worth having one of those too!

See you next week! xxx

Lydia + Meghan

Read more

This week we will be reaching an exciting quilt milestone… you’ll be sewing your rows together and once that’s done you will have a finished top! It’s also time to start thinking about and prepping your backing so that by next week you’re ready to baste your three quilt layers together. In pattern terms we will be finishing step 7 from the pattern, alon…

Read more

I got so excited about this tool that I wanted to know more about the people behind it, how it works, and what they have planned for the future. They were kind enough to answer my questions! Read on to hear from Oriana and Lars themselves.

Read more

Welcome back to the QAL! This week we are sewing our blocks together into rows, which is relatively quick so don’t worry if you are still finishing off your blocks! This week covers the first half of step 7 on page 18.

If you haven’t already, please do share your quilt-in-progress in our chat! There’s such a huge range of colour choices and lots of people who have chosen to use patterned fabrics too! We can’t wait to see everyone’s backing choices 👀 Speaking of backing, make sure you have it ready for next week! We won’t be basting until Week 5 but if you have any backing prep to do then next week is the time.

Squaring up your blocks

Our first task this week is checking that your blocks are the right size before you start to sew them together. As you’ll see from this video I have a relatively lax approach to this, but it’s worth doing to save future problems when you sew the blocks together. This video shows me squaring up a block (somewhat):

Pinning and sewing your blocks into rows

Next up is pinning your blocks ready to sew them, which is pretty much the same as pinning the halves. Just make sure that the blocks are facing the right way before you pin, use the layout on page 19 to check your rows are how they should be!

If you want to (and this is pretty helpful!) you can pop a few extra pins in your block to keep the whole thing stable while you sew. Here you can see the three pins that you saw me put in in that video (with arrows pointing towards them) along the side that’s going to be sewn (the long arrow indicates where the stitching will happen), and then two extra stabilising pins which are circled:

And then once you are happy with all your pins it’s time to… you guessed it… stitch!

Pressing your rows

And finally, as always, we press press press press press. The direction you press these seams will be important when you come to sew your rows together next week. You can reference step 7 again on page 18 to make sure you’re on the right (or left) path. And it’s worth labelling each row once you’ve pressed it just so you can make sure you’ve got the right amount of rows pressed in either direction! You can also reference page 19 for layouts for all the different sizes to be sure your rows are the right length.

And that’s all for this week, a little reprieve (if you’re making a smaller size) from some of our busier weeks, you deserve it.

Thanks for quilting along with us!!

xxx Lydia + Meghan

Did you even know one could ‘win’? We kind of did. Neither of us are super colourwork experts despite our many years in the biz, we left that to the pros. But, we’ve both caught the bug from working on Scrappy Checkers and the (forthcoming) Collage Cardigan and I hit a conundrum on the yoke of my cardigan project.

See the icy blue grid pattern on the left? It was not doing what I hoped it would be doing. It was already a bit of a low-contrast colour choice to make, but it was made worse by the blue kind of pulling back or receding into the yellow.

Read more

Welcome back! It’s been so fun seeing everyone’s colour choices and strips starting to come together. This week we will start turning those strips into blocks. If you don’t get all your blocks finished this week don’t worry! You will have time to do it next week too. This week covers pages 16 and 17 in your pattern, so have a read through of those before you get started.

Usually the most efficient way to make up blocks for a quilt is to sew all of the same type of seam, press them all, then move onto the next seam, press all of those etc. That way you aren’t moving constantly between the sewing machine and ironing board. So that’s the way I have organised this week, but!!! This doesn’t have to be about efficiency, work in whatever way suits you. We support chaos crafting here 🙏

Subcutting the strips

The first thing we will do this week is subcut our strips, meaning cutting them into smaller pieces. Take a look at the pattern, page 16, for the instructions on how many pieces you need and what size. Here’s a video of me subcutting strip 1 so you can see how that works:

Sewing and pressing pieces A+B and C+D

Once you have cut all the pieces you need, and you have them all ready to go, it’s time to start sewing them; reference step 4 on page 17 to see which pieces should be joined and which direction you need to press.

This is how I prepare pieces A and B to be sewn (the same applies to C and D!):

A little up close pic of ‘block lock’ or a nested seam ahead of the next video:

So, time to sew pieces C and D together (it’s the same for A and B). Once the pile of pieces is ready, I pick up the first two pieces that I am going to sew together, then put a pin in where the seams meet and ‘lock’, stitch the seam removing the pin as I come to it, and then reuse the pin again for the next set of pieces. This way I don’t have to pin everything beforehand, but if you’d rather do it like that go ahead!

Once all of those seams are sewn (those shown in step 4 of the pattern), it’s time to press them. The same step in your pattern shows which direction you will be pressing in.

Sewing and pressing the next set of seams to make your half blocks

Now onto the next seam and press (step 5), and once you’ve done this one you’ll really start to see the blocks come together! Again I would recommend pairing up the pieces ready to be sewn before taking them over to your sewing machine:

All set? Time to stitch:

And of course, it wouldn’t be quilt making if you didn’t have to press more things than you ever have before:

Sewing and pressing the last seam to finish your blocks!

The last seam in your block (step 6) joins the two halves together and tada! there it is. Very exciting. Here’s how I prep to sew at this stage:

Once you’re all set you can sew those seams:

And on to pressing, remember to reference step 6 to make sure you know how to press this one:

And there it is, your Kissing 9 Patch blocks should be coming together!! Another reminder that you don’t need to have all your blocks finished this week, you will definitely have time next week to do some. We hope this is all clear but if not please do ask any questions you have in our chat and please keep sharing all your colourways and WIP pics we love them so much!!

Next week we’ll be finishing off any remaining blocks, and sewing them into rows. You’ll have a quilt top in no time at all.

xxx Lydia + Meghan

We’ve been blessed with a fair few pop culture knitwear icons in recent memory; Mr Rogers and the cardigans knit by his mother, The Big Lebowski’s shawl collar Pendleton cardigan, Princess Diana and her sheep sweater and I’m a Luxury sweater, Kurt Cobain and his array of vintage knitwear. But perhaps the most prolific ambassador of the knitted garment is Angela Lansbury in her role as Jessica Fletcher in the 80s and 90s TV classic, Murder, She Wrote.

Like Lansbury’s character herself, the role of knitwear in the show is more than initially meets the eye. And in the thirty years since the show last aired in 1996, it feels like its fanbase has only grown larger and more passionate.

At least it feels that way for me, a Millennial and fervent Lansbury/J.B. Fletcher fan myself, who has plenty of friends who identify the same way. I’ve often wondered what it is exactly about the actress, the character, and the show that makes us love it so much, when many of us were just babies when it first aired. Of course, there’s an extra layer of fandom for knitters, with an absolute wealth of pullovers, vests, and cardigans to swoon over on the show.

To help me delve into the hows and whys of the show’s appeal, I reached out to two major Lansbury aficionados who both run fashion-oriented fan accounts of the show on Instagram.

Read more

Before we begin, a little housekeeping. Make sure you have ironed your fabric, you have checked your rotary cutter blade is nice and sharp (change it for a fresh one if not!), and checked whether you need to change your sewing machine needle too (you probably do). Thread your machine with the thread you want to use, check everything is working ok on some scrap fabric, and if you have any bobbin spares maybe wind an extra one ready!

We would also recommend making a cutting list before you start, making sure you know which of your colours corresponds to A, B, C and D in the pattern, and how many of each strip you need to cut in each fabric. Refer to pages 13 and 14 in your pattern for your cutting requirements depending on the size you are making and the width of your fabric.

Preparing the Fabric for Cutting

All set? Let’s go! Our first step this week is folding fabric ready to cut your WOF strips. It’s easier to cut these folded, since the width of the fabric is pretty long, but you need to fold carefully to get nice even strips. Before folding let’s just make sure we know about the grain of the fabric, since we will be talking about this a fair bit. If you are already grain-literate you can skip over this bit!

There are three main types of grain in woven fabric, straight grain, cross grain, and bias. The straight grain is parallel to the selvage, which is the edge of your fabric which hasn’t been cut. It’s tightly woven and sometimes has another colour in it, or a little fluffy bit sticking out. Straight grain is what was the warp when the fabric was woven.

Cross grain is perpendicular to the selvage, and is made up of weft threads and tends to have a little more give than straight grain. Bias is the diagonal, and is stretchy and drapey, and isn’t something we will be dealing with for this quilt!

For the purposes of what we are doing we will just be paying attention to the straight and cross grain. Ideally when you are folding and then cutting your fabric you will be doing it along either of these grain lines. You may not quite achieve this but it’s just useful to know what you are aiming for sometimes! Here’s a vid of me showing how to fold the fabric ready to cut your WOF strips:

If you need a different kind of visual you can refer to page 16 of our How to Make a Quilt zine, which is free with your quilt pattern (if you didn’t get yours let us know!) Just a little note that we wouldn’t recommend folding your fabric any more than we have - cutting through more than four layers at once is trickier and you’re more likely to end up with wonky strips.

Cutting the Fabric

Once you have folded your fabric it’s time to cut, so let’s go! The videos below show two ways of cutting with a quilter’s ruler, and cutting with a metal metre ruler in case that’s what you have to hand.

And that’s how it’s done! The strips all cut and ready to be sewn are very satisfying:

Sewing the Strips

So on to the sewing now. The next video shows how I would pin strips if that’s what you’d like to do before sewing them:

And on to sewing! Refer to page 15 of your pattern to see which strips should be sewn together. I like to label one of each of my strips once they are sewn by sticking a little masking or washi tape to them with writing on that so I know whether each strip is 1, 2, 3 or 4. This is handy for when you come to press them.

Pressing the Strips

Now all there is left to do this week is press our strips. The seams need to be pressed in different directions depending on which strip you are pressing, the instructions in the pattern (page 15) will show you. For this pattern I like to think of either pressing the seam towards the thinner strip or towards the thicker one.

Once all your strips are pressed you are done for the week! Great job. If you have a way of storing them without folding them (eg laid flat somewhere) then you might be glad of that next week, but if you do need to fold them just make sure to do it carefully so you have minimal pressing to do before you start next week.

Let us know if you have any questions at all and please do share WIP pics (tag us @pompommag and use #Kissing9PatchQAL if you’re on insta)! Join our chat on substack if you haven’t already, there’s already so much fun inspo there.

xxx Lydia + Meghan

It’s officially autumn folks! A very happy cosy knitting season to all of you 🍂 We’re here on the last Friday in September to give you our latest recs: all the things we’ve been loving and wanting to share this month.

Of course we recommend getting in on our Quilt Along - we’ve had SO many of you joining us already (yay!) and it’s not too late to take part! We officially kick off on Thursday 1 October, so gather your supplies and sew along with us! All levels are very welcome (Meghan herself is a beginner and will learn a lot).

And, if you’re suddenly feeling a cool autumn breeze on your neck, perhaps you need to knit yourself a cosy bandana this weekend? It’s also a great pattern for gift-knitting, if that’s your jam.

Now, without further ado, here are our cultural/foodie/knitting/nice things recs for the month! Enjoy.

Lydia just finished reading The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden and found it compelling, heartbreaking, and unlike anything she had read before. A big recommend!

Meghan needed an easy project for her commute to the Pom studio every morning and finally (finally!) cast on Ainur Berkimbayeva’s Lateralis socks from the 10th anniversary issue of Pom Pom. She’s been meaning to make this since the pattern was published in 2022 so never give up hope guys, eventually you will make the thing! (The stash yarn she’s using is even older…) Also. This pattern is so. clever. The socks are knit sideways flat, which somehow make them feel like they knit up faster than typical socks in the round. Maybe because there aren’t fiddly DPNs or magic loop to contend with (except for the toes and cuffs).

In that vein, because she can never knit socks fast enough to have enough for winter, Meghan was very happy to see these absolutely gorgeous naturally dyed ones, and is taking notes on colour for her next hand-knit pair. The naturally dyed ribbons look pretty irresistible too…

This broccoli and chickpea pasta has become a staple in Lydia’s house, easy to make it vegan if needed, and you can use any chickpeas and it’s still delish!

Lydia recommends this very enjoyable Welsh Folk Playlist from NTS for a lazy knitting morning.

How to make sure you start 2027 beautifully? Check out this calendar pre-order from printmaker Rosanna Morris.

Meghan recommends voting! She just sent off her absentee ballot to the U.S., where mid-term elections are coming up. If you’re a U.S. citizen, make sure your voter registration is up to date, and make plans to vote. Maybe make it a date with a friend and treat yourselves to lunch and some knitting time after. November might seem far away, but Election Day is only 6 weeks from today.

And finally, for music and light whimsy, check out Lydia’s new band’s delightful Instagram - full of powerful, beautiful singing, and cameos from various cute creatures. Is this band actually made up of pure of heart Disney princesses? You decide.

Happy weekend friends. We’ll see you here on Thursday for the first day of the Quilt Along!

xx

Meghan & Lydia

If you can believe it, the work pictured above is hand-knit. It’s part of a huge depiction of the artist David Shenton’s sideboard in his home, which he knit while sitting in front of the tv in the early 1980s. The piece is so big, it’s hard to capture in one photo. The scale, the detail, and the colours are so incredible that at first we doubted that it was actually made by hand. We were awed to find that it was.

Read more

How long will each week take?

We can only make rough estimates on this, it depends on a lot of factors! But here’s our best try for week by week, we have estimated extra time so that you have plenty set aside, and have also included which materials you’ll need for each stage.

Week 1: cutting your fabric into strips, and then sewing the strips together
Set aside 2 hours
You will need:

• Fabric for your quilt top

• Iron and ironing board

• Rotary cutter and mat

• Quilters ruler (or regular ruler if you don’t have a quilter’s one)

• Sewing machine and thread

Week 2: cutting your strips, then piecing your strips to make your finished blocks
Set aside 3 hours (if you want you can do some of this the following week if needed so don’t worry if you don’t get through them all!)
You will need:

• Iron and ironing board

• Rotary cutter and mat

• Quilters ruler (or regular ruler if you don’t have a quilter’s one)

• Sewing machine and thread

Week 3: sewing your blocks together into rows
Set aside 1 hour (and any additional time needed before this to finish week 2)
You will need:

• Sewing machine and thread

• Iron and ironing board

Week 4: sew rows together and get your backing ready
Set aside 1 hour for sewing rows together. For your backing the timing depends on whether you are using fabric bought specifically for your quilt or whether you are piecing a backing from scraps. Leave 1 hour if you are just using larger pieces of fabric bought for this purpose, and longer if you have lots of smaller pieces to use.
You will need:

• Fabric for your backing

• Sewing machine and thread

• Iron and ironing board

Week 5: baste your quilt
Set aside 2 hours (this is the estimate for pin basting).
You will need:

• Batting (cut to size)

• Finished and ironed quilt top and backing

• Basting pins

• Masking tape (not essential but can be useful!)

Week 6: quilting (sewing the three layers together)
Note that our estimate is based on quilting the design shown in the batting question below. If you decide you want to quilt a different design with more quilting lines / that you need to mark out, it will take longer.

Hand quilting: 4 hours (we really aren’t sure on this one!! It very much depends on your skill level but rest assured if it takes longer you can just finish up your quilt a little later). Luckily if you are hand quilting you can just do it in little bits in the evening so it’s hopefully more accessible.

NB: if you choose to machine quilt this will be much quicker, we won’t be including machine quilting tutorials but we can point you towards this if you choose to do it this way. It is much quicker than hand quilting so we absolutely understand if you’d like to!

You will need:

• Hand sewing needle

• Hand quilting thread (Gutermann does a good one)

• Needle threader and thimble (Lydia uses a leather thimble but any that is comfy for you will do!)

• Scissors

Week 7: extra time for quilting
Set aside 4 hours
You will need:

• Hand sewing needle

• Hand quilting thread

• Needle threader and thimble

• Scissors

Week 8: binding

Set aside 1 hour for machine sewing the first side of the binding and 2-3 hours for hand sewing the other (3-4 hours total)

• Fabric for your binding

• Iron and ironing board

• Sewing machine and thread

• Rotary cutter and mat

• All your hand sewing supplies

• Sewing/quilting clips (not essential but can be helpful! You can probably find something else around the house to use if you don’t have any.

What time are the sew alongs?

We will release each new step on a Thursday so that you can get cracking over the weekend. The videos will be pre-recorded so that everyone can come to them when they are ready that week, but we will be chit chatting and sharing progress throughout the week! We can’t wait to see everyone’s projects.

How can I chat and connect throughout the QAL?

Join us here on Substack! Sign up as a free or paid subscriber before the QAL begins and you will be invited to join our QAL chat.

What fabrics should I use?

We know some of you are a little concerned about using linen for a first project as linens can be a little trickier than cottons to sew with (not to mention pricier!), but we also think you should go for it and use them if you want to and you aren’t too much of a perfectionist (this is how Lydia gets around the unwieldiness of linen in her quilts)! But you are very new to quilting/sewing and want a safe bet then a quilting cotton like Kona Cotton will be an easier fabric to work with, and if you want to try linen but feel nervous about using it then a 50/50 cotton linen blend like Essex Linen is a nice one to use. Your local sewing shop will be able to help for sure! And remember you don’t need to prewash your fabrics.

What batting should I use?

This will depend on the finished result you would like, but if you want to hand stitch your quilt to the design below you will need a batting that allows you to quilt at least 5” apart. Other than that just think about whether you want a very squishy quilt (thicker batting) or less squishy (thinner) and what you’d like your batting to be made of (polyester, cotton, wool, bamboo… a blend!?). For the quilt in the pattern photography we used Bamboo Blend (50% Bamboo, 50% Cotton) batting, which you can stitch up to 8” apart.

And that’s all we have for now! Let us know if you have any other queries, but either way we can’t wait to get started on the 1st!

xxx Lydia + Meghan

We are so excited to announce our first ever QAL (quilt along!). If you've been wanting to try making a quilt for the first time, or if you just fancy some company while making, join us for FREE weekly tutorial videos and camaraderie from Lydia and Meghan (who will be making her second ever quilt!), and everyone else who is stitching along with us. The QAL will run over 8 weeks from 1st October until 26th November, all you need is a copy of the Kissing 9 Patch pattern!

Find the Kissing 9 Patch pattern here!

We will be making the smallest (crib/lap) size of the quilt so it will be achievable for new quilters (smaller than the throw size shown above), but of course you're welcome to make a larger size if you'd like to. The materials needed for the smallest size are shown below, and requirements for all sizes can be found in the pattern listing and of course in the pattern itself. Lydia will be using Merchant and Mills 185 Linen for hers, and Meghan will be using some stash linen in some very jazzy colours. The pattern includes colouring pages for all sizes so you can play around with colours before deciding on them.

It's worth noting that for the backing you can use stash fabrics pieced together; you just need the final dimensions to match the ones listed here for the batting, so no need to buy that fabric if you already have something you can use (old bedsheets work well if you’re wanting to be thrifty!). And you will most likely be able to make enough binding from leftovers from the quilt top, you will just end up with a multi-colour binding! So we will leave leave it up to you whether you want to buy extra for that.

Our quilt making plan is for for eight weeks of FREE tutorials, chats and excitement about colours and new skills. It'll go a little something like this:

week 1: cutting your fabric into strips, and then sewing the strips together
week 2: cutting your strips, then piecing your strips to make your finished blocks
week 3: sewing your blocks together into rows
week 4: sew rows together and get your backing ready
week 5: baste your quilt
week 6: quilting (sewing the three layers together)
week 7: extra time for quilting
week 8: binding

As well as fabric for the top and back of the quilt, and of course the batting, you will need a sewing machine, thread, and a rotary cutter and mat. If you have any questions please do ask away but don't forget there’s a wealth of information in the pattern. And don’t forget you also get a free copy of our How to Make a Quilt zine with any quilt pattern purchase so even if you race ahead of us you’ll have something to refer to while you are learning or honing your skills.

The QAL will be hosted here on Out of Hand for FREE (although there will be a bonus pattern for our paid subscribers 😜), so it’s open to all. If you don’t yet subscribe you can sign up to get free QAL updates straight to your inbox.

Subscribe now

We really hope you join us! It’s going to be a lot of fun, and what could be better than making something with your (soon to be) pals!

Meghan & Lydia xx

Update: find the answers to the Quilt Along frequently asked questions here!

Ritual Dyes is a dye studio and yarn shop in Portland, Oregon. Founder Rachel Bratcher and her team draw inspiration from nature, the Pacific Northwest, nostalgia, and the occult. We talked to Rachel and her colleague Avery about the brand’s sense of colour and how you can use what they’ve learned to hone your own sense of colour in your knitting and crochet projects.

Meghan: Hi guys, thanks so much for joining us! Ritual Dyes is both a yarn shop and an in-house hand-dye brand and we’ve always loved your sense of colour with both. And it got us thinking about how you go about helping customers with choosing colours for their projects. We have our own distinct sense of colour, but we’ve always tried to include other colour schemes outside of our wheelhouse so everyone can see themselves in patterns. But you still can’t really cover everyone’s taste in a couple of pattern samples. So what strategies do you use to help makers choose palettes for their projects?

Rachel: It’s a good question. It’s definitely, I would say, one of our most favourite parts of the job, helping people pick out their colour palettes. I’m a person that thinks about the finished product and how wearable is it going to be for you and whether it will fit into your wardrobe. A lot of times people pick up a colour that they’re already wearing and they go, “I’m already wearing it! I have to choose something totally different!” And I try to guide them into the idea that it’s okay that they’re already wearing it. That just means that they’ll actually use it. And you can kind of use that as a stepping stone to build the rest of the palette out if it’s a colourwork project or something.

Avery: I was going to say the same thing. We get comments all the time of people being like, “But I always choose this colour”.

Rachel: Yeah, because you wear it and you use it and you like it and you’re attracted to it! And those are all really positive things that we just want to help support. And I think that for people that are really desperately looking to step out of that and that’s a goal, we always try to encourage an accessory or something where it’s a little less of a commitment. Because we all want to play around and colour should be fun. But ultimately we want people to really use their knits and wear their knits and sometimes the best way to achieve that is when it really just fits into your regular routine and you’re not having to think about it too hard to put it together with your other clothes.

Avery: I feel like you can tell when people gravitate towards certain colours. They’ll be standing at the wall and pull out five or six colours that they like and those will already be creating a colour story for them. So then you just have to guide them into, “Okay, but which one speaks the best to you?”.

Meghan: You guys did a colour consult event, right?

Rachel: Yeah! We actually worked with a colour analyst and it was really fun.

Avery: It was really fun.

Rachel: I mean I think there were people who didn’t like the result and we had to temper it with this idea that what’s flattering for you... I don’t always choose what’s flattering for me. I choose what makes me feel something. But maybe you just don’t want it right here [motions to face].

Meghan: Did you both have your colours analyzed?

Rachel: She did a little mini consult for everyone that was working that day. So it wasn’t a full in-depth thing. But I mean, she told me cool colours were best for me and that was a little hard to swallow. And you can see it, but those are not necessarily all the colours that I’m attracted to. Some yes and some no, so you just have to kind of pick and choose. I think it was good information to have and I really enjoyed the concept and the experiment of it. It was fun.

Avery: I had an experience with someone who’s a customer, but she’s a colour analyst as her day job. And I didn’t know that until we were picking out yarn for a sweater she was making for her husband. She was choosing between all of these creams. And I was like, “What is making you decide on these certain things?” And she said, “I’m a colour analyst. I know his colours”. And then she started talking to me about mine. And she just looked at me and was like, “you’re neutral, on the cooler side”. And I was like… I don’t know if I subscribed to it. And then she started pulling down colours like two blues and she’s like, “Which blue do you like?” And I was like, “I would be more likely to wear this one.” She said, “Yeah, because that’s in your colour season”. She was saying that people, not always, but often, gravitate towards colours to wear that they look good in anyways, even if it’s a subconscious decision because they know they look good.

Rachel: That reminds me of when we first did our zodiac collection, which was so many years ago now, but people would often pick up their sign [without seeing the label] and they would say, “Oh my god, Aquarius, I’m an Aquarius!”.

Meghan: Yeah! I’m a Leo and my favourite colour is yellow. So…

Rachel: We did some deep diving on those colour stories and I think It was fun to see how true it was for a lot of people. We enjoyed it. It was satisfying.

Lydia: I mean, me and Meghan, when we were working in a knitting shop together, we had the exact same experience you were describing of people picking up the colours that they’re wearing all the time. And I remember when I first started working there, I would have a bit more of that mindset of, “Pick something new! Step out of your comfort zone”. But I soon realised that was not usually actually the best thing for people. I think you’re right. Guiding towards an accessory or, I don’t know, maybe a more gentle step outside your comfort zone, because otherwise you spend all this time making something and then it’s heartbreaking if you don’t actually wear it because the colour is one that just doesn’t work for you for whatever reason.

Rachel: Totally. And I think a lot of people that have that experience [of choosing a colour they are already wearing] think of it as a negative, which I think is pretty interesting. They want to be different. They want to be trying something new. But maybe not wholeheartedly.

Lydia: It’s nice though because it sounds like your strategy is helping people wear the thing that is going to make them feel the best and guiding them towards that.

Rachel: Right. And sometimes I think that is really just what you naturally gravitate towards, what you can just seamlessly plug into your existing wardrobe. You’re not a new person that needs new everything, it’s a little easier than that.

Meghan: Do you ever have customers who are really lost about what they should choose? I feel like that was a thing where Lydia and I worked where they just didn’t even know where to start. I guess in that case, you can just look at what they’re wearing and go from there.

Rachel: Yeah, do that or look through projects [on Ravelry] and just say, “What is jumping out to you about the thing you like?”.

Avery: That’s a big one. Pulling up Ravelry if they have a specific pattern in mind but you don’t know where to go. Looking at all the projects on there is huge. You can just scroll and see when they say, “I like this.” And then they’re usually all in a certain colour family.

Meghan: Visualising it a little bit. Yeah, that’s good advice. Sometimes even if it’s not the same project, I’ll look at something that uses the same or similar yarn and narrow it down by number of colours, especially if it’s a colourwork project or something. And then you can see what works together and what you’ll like.

Rachel: Right! I think a lot of people have to see it.

Meghan: Okay. Next question. So you guys have a really recognisable aesthetic. What do you think defines your colour palettes and how do you develop them?

Rachel: I think that one thing is really the very first precious six skeins that I came up with when I was working out of my house. Those are still colours that we use and that I still like. I think that we definitely are pulling a lot from nature and from where we live. That’s just endless inspiration. But I think there’s colours that I look at and I’m like, “This is a Ritual Dyes colour”. So there is something there and I don’t know if I can completely pinpoint it.

Avery: I feel like a Ritual Dyes colour is a colour that you can’t really define. They’re always a weird in-between. Layered. There’s a running joke where we’re developing a colour recipe for something and we’re like, “Okay, that but make it dirtier”.

Rachel: We do say that a lot. Dirty it up. Only because there is something a little bit more interesting and approachable about it. I do neutrals but there has to be something there that makes it a little more grabbing.

Meghan: I’m going to have to look at all your colours again and look for the dirty.

Rachel: It’s there! And then right before that was a bunch that were just a little brighter, a little more saturated.

Avery: I feel like we go from one colour that we’re looking for, we have an inspiration in mind, and then we reach that colour and we’re like, “Okay, good”, but it’s not quite there. We get to that and we’re like, “Okay, add in a weird unexpected dye that will just make it a little bit more complex”.

Meghan: I do think when we’re looking at your yarns for patterns, there are colours… there’s a reddy-orange and then there’s a purpley-pink there, and then there’s the kind of a purpley-blue. They’re not necessarily one colour. Two different people might call them two different things.

Rachel: Totally. That’s actually such a big thing. I’m really reluctant to spell out a description of a colour because people just see something, like everyone sees it a little bit differently, even within the staff. They’ll be like, “This is obviously a grey” and someone else is like, “That’s a blue”, “This is a brown”, “This is a purple”. And that’s kind of my favourite, when it’s not something that everyone can totally agree on. It’s really subjective.

Avery: I mean, all of our core colours like Chromite, Heartwood, Jewelweed, Quartzite, they’re all those in-between colours where you can’t really decide what it is.

Meghan: Quartzite was in [our book] Crochet How and I think one of us was calling it purple and one of us was calling it I don’t know, beige isn’t the right word, and then trying to explain to the publisher what colour it was so that they could get the photos right was really hard.

Rachel: We struggle with that too. Just capturing it, making it an accurate representation. It is hard.

Avery: I have to spend so much time in Lightroom doing these minute little adjustments to get it totally accurate.

Rachel: Yeah. It’s a fun game we like to play over here.

Meghan: So what colours do you come back to again and again when you knit for yourselves? Would you say those are your favourite colours, the colours that you knit with?

Rachel: For me I think that I definitely have some that I keep coming back to and combinations that I love over and over again, like Chestnut and Quartzite together is just never not a win for me when I see those two together. I love them together. We just added a new colour, Hickory, which is just the sort of darkest, nuttiest brown, which I love and I can’t get enough of. And then that just goes with so many things. There’s definitely some pairings that I just really like to see together. And then in our hand-dyed yarn, our core line, I feel like we all have ‘our’ colours.

Avery: Yeah we all have our colours. I feel like I’m always black, grey, slate blue. A really gross green.

Rachel: Chromite’s a real staple for us for sure. There was one we were really excited about which is this green, I think, neutrals plus for me. It’s always neutral but a little extra.

Avery: We did the Wine Club knit-along and we were all choosing our colours. It was so obvious afterwards being like, “Of course you picked that colour. Of course”.

Rachel: Yeah that was a good experiment. Everyone chose their colour and then everyone got exactly what they were supposed to get.

Avery: Even now we’re all planning these vests in the same yarn that we want to make. One of our co-workers, Rachel Sokol, made a vest in this yarn that we carry and we’re all, “Okay, now we’re all gonna make it, right?” And it was this thing where we all picked our colours and I was like, “Yeah, of course”.

Rachel: That’s why it’s fun to go on a deep dive and kind of analyse why you pick what you pick. But I would say neutrals with a little something.

Lydia: I feel like for me, whenever I think I’m breaking out of my colour routine, and I’m like, “There, I’ve chosen this new combo” everyone else is like, “No, that just looks like a Lydia combo”.

Meghan: People used to say “That’s such a Pom colour palette”. And we would be like, “Wait, what are you talking about?”

Lydia: Yeah, “we tried really hard to try something new on this one!”

Rachel: That’s funny. We are who we are for sure. There’s definitely some real pull to a palette which is fun to see.

Meghan: Okay. What are your favourite and/or most used neutrals and why?

Rachel: I am in this kind of committed zone of trying to just knit browns and greys.

Avery: You’re so committed! I feel like we’ve had a conversation recently about the fact that we all want to grow our staples. Because there are things that I reach for over and over and over again and I want everything that I make to be like that. And that ends up being a lot of neutrals.

Rachel: I know. And it sounds a little dull, but there’s so many versions of grey and so many versions of brown. And I mean, I think it’s pretty. When I first started dyeing, that was the colour that got me dyeing. I was trying to find a grey that didn’t lean blue. A brown based grey. Every grey that I saw had blue undertones. And that’s basically what set me off on my whole dyeing journey, trying to create a brown based grey. So, I still love that. If we’re talking about stuff that’s in the shop too, I still love those neutrals that are like heathered colours or just those natural blends of wool that are just three different browns.

Avery: I mean we’re all obsessed with an undyed wool where the sheep’s name is on the label. I also feel like everyone has a colour that kind of acts as a neutral for them even if it isn’t one. For a lot of people that could be a green or maroon or something like that and it’s neutral.

Meghan: Our neutral is pink.

Lydia: It’s a toss up between yellow or pink, isn’t it? But it probably is pink. I used to argue a lot that leopard print was a neutral. I would still say it is. And I used to have these gold boots and I was like, they’re neutral because gold is neutral.

Rachel: I agree with you. Yeah, it’s found in nature!

Meghan: Leopard is just all the neutrals in one. I feel like there are those greys or browns that look like certain animals. A mousy kind of grey is so nice.

Rachel: Yes!

Meghan: You don’t realise how many there are until you’re looking for the perfect shade and then you’re like, “No, this is not the right grey. I need eight more options of grey.”

Lydia: I also feel like there’s a shift back to warm neutrals at the moment. We had a cool neutrals phase, sort of millennial grey and I know everyone has their own personal taste but as a sort of general trend, we’re going back to beigey browns I think.

Rachel: I love that.

Lydia: Which I’m very up for because it’s pink adjacent.

Rachel: Yeah! And it works.

Avery: I think there is a big conversation about getting away from that millennial grey and treating colour like a neutral and an everyday kind of thing. So there’s something to be said for that too.

Meghan: Ok, so Lydia noticed that in all your different bases, you have different palettes, and some of them are more extensive than others. What’s the reasoning behind that decision?

Rachel: I think in all of our superwash lines or mohair, like Fae and Maiden, Priestess, they just take dyes so differently [to our other non-superwash yarns]. So we really get to have a lot of fun dyeing those colours and making them very elaborate and layered and they just take speckles differently. So we really do treat that as its own thing. Whereas the non-superwash wools, they don’t really like all that. And we still do want to create depth of colour but we can’t do it in the same way. So we have a different palette that lends itself better to that type of wool, we’ve just kind of leaned into that. And then for Undine, for our cotton linen, that’s like a whole other range because most of the time you’re thinking about warm weather makes [when you’re developing colours for a cotton/linen] and also cotton linen is a completely different dye process. So really, we’re working with different dyes and creating palettes that kind of speak to those.

Avery: I think the different actual, physical dye is a really good point. We had to completely rethink what our palette would look like for that [Undine] and think about, “Okay what do you want to wear in the summer? What do you want to wear in a warm weather knit garment compared to a wool garment?”

Rachel: Yeah, you might be pairing it with different pieces in your wardrobe that are lighter in colour. It just sort of tweaks some of the thinking behind how you’d actually end up with a garment in this fabric. And then we love projects that mix non-superwash with superwash wool. Especially colourwork projects and stuff. So in all of those colours you can find a pretty pairing. There is continuity across the line, but it’s not the same palette across the line, which I think for us is just ultimately more fun, more interesting, more specific to the nature of the product and the ultimate goals for what you’d make with it.

Meghan: Yeah, that just made me think, with some dyers you can choose almost any colours from the palettes and they’ll work together, which I think it’s true of your colours.

Rachel: Yes. Yeah, I think that’s true. It’s really easy to put things together because there’s a perspective that’s carried across the whole thing. There’s going to be a lot of crossover between our colours because of how we make things. There’s enough to compare or refer back to.

Meghan: What is your favourite part of the dyeing process? And what’s your least favourite part?

Rachel: I feel like my favourite part is when you have something in your mind and you’re really able to execute it. When it just comes out exactly how you envision. That’s probably my very favourite part. Just being able to compute something from your mind to the product is pretty satisfying. Least favourite I would say… contamination!?

Avery: I mean, I was going to say! Dyeing can be really temperamental and you get one little speck of dye on one utensil and it ends up in a different pot.

Rachel: Yeah, I would say contamination is probably… I mean those things [the contaminated skeins] don’t make it to market but they do wreak havoc in our little dye studio and that’s sad.

Avery: And there’s so many factors that go into what the final skein looks like even down to who the person dyeing it is, what temperature it is that day, what the water source is… there’s so many little factors that can change it and the dye lots.

Rachel: We will sometimes get the same sort of colour but it acts completely different or…

Avery: …you open a new jar and it’s different.

Rachel: So you have to rethink, you have to strategise, there’s a lot of things that need to be thought of and we consider it a challenge but it’s fun.

Avery: Rhodonite is one of those colours that has changed because it’s one of the original Ritual Dyes colours, but just because of changing circumstances and dyes and stuff, the colourway has changed a lot over the years. We pulled out one of the original skeins a few months ago and it was crazy to see that compared to one of the new ones.

Rachel: That is funny. A slow progression or just a natural shift towards something new.

Meghan: That’s what was great about hand-dyed yarn when we worked in the yarn shop. if a really great dye lot came in, we were like, “We’ve got to get a hold of that.”

Rachel: Yeah. “Do not delay!” It’s true.

Meghan: Why did you choose the name Ritual Dyes? Is the occult something you’ve always had an interest in? What part did it play in your life before you started Ritual Dyes?

Rachel: I think the reason the name came was because at the time, I started it [dyeing] in my kitchen and it was kind of my entry back to work. My kids were old enough to be at school at this point, just barely out the door at school, but enough that for several hours a day, I had that little time. And it was a creative outlet for me. It did feel like a little ritual to be able to just have this space and time to be creative and to experiment and to play. I was really playing in those early years and it was fun to have that sort of dedicated practice time. So it was a ritual and I am somebody who loves rituals. I have my little coffee every morning and just have those things throughout the day that I can kind of rely on. But I think that’s where the name came from. In terms of the connection to the occult and stuff, I would say it’s a little less witchy, a little bit more just about nature… and how everything is actually nature. And for me, nature is always a source of inspiration. We have an entire foraging club right now where it’s just plant after plant and so it’s so cool that there’s just endless inspiration.

Meghan: I feel like Norwich and Portland have similar interests.

Lydia: Yeah, there’s a lot of foraging that happens here in Norwich.

Meghan: In that vein, I also love the name Sacred Sheep [the yarn festival hosted by Ritual Dyes]. Sheep are important to us but it just gives the knitting community something that makes it sound important, sacred.

Rachel: Totally, and I think that is what it is, for us and for a lot of people. I definitely like honouring these little sheep that are out there in the wind, in the rain, and yeah, it’s a sacred practice and a sacred… like it’s just to give yourself that sort of time and commitment to sit down and to knit a sweater for three months for yourself.

Meghan: Definitely.

Lydia: And it is pretty magical, being able to.

Meghan: So many things you can do with string!

What do you think is the greatest influence on the colours that you surround yourself with? I think we know the answer to the question…

Rachel: I think because of my background of working in fashion and with colours directly I definitely see through to the end of the finished garment and how that’s going to wear and look and I start there. For me, that’s my starting point and I work backwards from there.

Meghan: I feel like I’m probably the opposite! I think a lot about how I’m going to be looking at the thing while I’m making it.

Rachel: Yeah, totally. I think I want to feel something too. I think nostalgia is always in our thing. There are certain colours that just really really make you feel a certain way and it’s kind of capturing something that is not really easy to define but I think it just makes you feel good and that’s nice. I like that part.

Meghan: Definitely. Well I think Lydia and I probably thought that you were going to say nature was the greatest influence.

Rachel: I say nature because it’s true! And also nature.

Meghan: Two more questions. Do you think you use different colours in your knits compared to, for example, when you’re decorating your home? Would you choose different types of colours for those two things?

Avery: I absolutely do. I actually have noticed this. I started sewing recently and I noticed that with sewing I’m constantly gravitating towards fabrics that I don’t think I would wear but I would use to make a little bag or… I made a [Christmas] tree skirt and it’s out of a fabric that I would have never picked for myself to wear. But I just had this vision of what it was, this really colourful plaid, kind of checker-y Fableism fabric that was stunning and I wanted to use it. I was like, “It would look so good in my house.”

Rachel: I think so, too. I feel like there’s a lot of crossover, but I do think I maybe use colour a little bit more boldly in my house. Which is fun to just be able to kind of… it doesn’t feel like a different person. It feels like me, but also there is room for a little bit more experimenting maybe and a little bit more like pops and stuff that I wouldn’t necessarily put together for my clothes. I think it’s the same but different.

Meghan: Totally. I bet your house is a great backdrop for the knits that you wear.

Rachel: They do all look good together!

Avery: I feel that way about gift knitting too, where with gifts I can use yarn that I wouldn’t necessarily pick for myself and have that fun. I mean this is why knitting for babies is so good. I love knitting for kids. And it’s usually fun yarn.

Meghan: Okay. Last question. You have a weekly crafting circle, which we wish we could join! Are there colour queries that you see coming up often in that space?

Rachel: Yeah, it’s such a fun group of people that come to crafting circle. And I think that one thing when you have everyone there with all the same or similar interests and you’re there for this specific purpose, it’s a very good place to test out colour ideas. You take it around the table and you get your little votes and ultimately I think that a lot of people, myself included, when doing this experiment of asking people what they think, you really already know and you’re just testing everybody but then you’re like, “No that’s wrong.” You already know what for yourself to be true but you still need to do that exercise to feel really sure about it.

Avery: Sometimes you go into it and you have no idea what you want and then somebody suggests one thing and you have a gut feeling where they’re wrong.

Meghan: It’s really helpful though. Sometimes I feel bad, having asked their opinion and then being like, “No.” But it’s actually a really helpful process.

Rachel: Yeah it is a helpful process. Which I’m happy to reciprocate for someone because I think it’s really useful to be able to try it out and just kind of figure out where you really are at with it.

Avery: I love when people are project planning at crafting circle, standing up from the table and they just get to go grab yarn off the wall and be like, ‘What about this?’

Rachel: It’s nice to have a consensus and just get that immediate feedback. And everyone’s working on such different projects every time. So, it’s also just ultimately so inspiring to see what everyone’s working on and yeah, it’s just endless inspiration just seeing all that. Similar to Sacred Sheep when you’re walking around and you’re getting to see everybody in their beautiful sweaters and you see one over and over again, and you’re like, [that will be my] “Next project.”

Meghan: Yes, definitely. Well, Thank you so much for doing this with us!

Rachel: Thank you for staying up late into the evening to chat!

Lydia: It’s been so lovely.

Thank you to Rachel and Avery for chatting with us! We are such big fans of their yarns, shop, and yarn festival, Sacred Sheep, which is taking place in November in Portland, Oregon. They have a wonderful Substack too! Find them at ritualdyes.substack.com

Ritual Dyes

➰ Yarn Dyer inspired by the Great PNW, nostalgia, daydreaming

LYDIA: Hi Anna! Thank you so much for agreeing to do this. My first question is about your making. You’re a knitter and sewist, and more recently you took up beading. Are there any other crafts you do?

ANNA: I used to do quite a lot of crochet, but I struggled because it really hurt my hands. I have joint problems and for some reason crochet really hurt so I learnt to knit. For me, knitting feels like it’s kind of ambidextrous, whereas crochet is just like, one hand and there seems to be more pressure on it? Or maybe it was the way I was holding the hook? But I did that (crochet) for a few years and then I was just like, I can’t hurt my hands anymore. It was repetitive strain or something.

L: Oh yeah, horrible. I’ve had that. From all the different crafts at various points.

A: Yeah, I’ve also had it once from knitting. And I had to take a couple of months off. And I was really sad about it.

L: Yeah, I got a repetitive strain injury in both of my elbows years ago and I couldn’t knit or sew or crochet for about six months.

A: It’s so horrible. And then you’re like, what do I do with my time? What do other people do with their time? They just sit?

L: I don’t think my casual knitting has ever quite recovered. I think I got out of the habit, and now if I’m watching TV or something…

A: You don’t immediately pick up a project?

L: Yeah! which is wild, because it was only six months out of all the years I’ve been knitting and it had such a big impact. So, of all those crafts we’ve mentioned (knitting, sewing, crochet) which did you learn first?

A: I taught myself how to sew first because I really wanted to be able to make my own clothes! No one in my family ever really sewed, but I was given a sewing machine, and then I just kind of taught myself and made it up as I went along. And I think when I started trying to learn I was around 13 maybe, and I didn’t really go online, I just sort of looked at my own clothes and tried to go backwards and figure out how they were made and what the shapes were like. And I actually didn’t start using an iron in my sewing until this year, I used to just press things with my teeth.

L: I feel like I had a similar approach (although I didn’t press things with my teeth) to knitting and crochet when I started learning. I just bought some random book from a cut price book shop and tried to teach myself from it. If there was information available online it didn’t occur to me to look online. My Granny did all of the crafty things, and my mum actually can but it didn’t really happen around me, it wasn’t something that came from immersion, and I didn’t think to ask them to teach me either.

A: Yeah I think my mum can as well, but it’s not a big part of her life. Whereas for me, as soon as I realised that I could make a thing myself I was like, well this is what I want to do all the time! And I still... I can’t fathom how people don’t want to be making stuff all the time. It’s crazy that some people just live their lives and they’re just never making stuff.

L: I know. It does... I mean, not to be too prescriptive for other people’s lives. But I do... It does feel kind of sad.

A: It feels really sad! I think the joy that you get from creating a thing is so unlike anything else. I don’t know… you get really affirmed in your own ability, and I think as you get further along in crafting, like being able to read patterns, being able to understand them, you almost learn a new language. And being able to understand this other language, and then realising that there was a point in time where you didn’t understand the language, and now it’s just second nature to you… It’s such a strange thing.

L: It is really wonderful. And when it is such a huge part of your life it is really hard to imagine how it couldn’t be. And it’s also hard to remember a time before it. But I suppose if you’re the kind of person that likes to make things. You were probably making other things even before you learned to sew?

Read more

We were both in awe of Emily Medhurst on Mastermind, with her specialist topic as TFL moquette, the tough (mostly wool) fabric used to upholster the seats on the London Underground. We also both love the TFL moquette patterned knitted vest she made and is wearing.

In food news, Meghan never wants to not be eating this creamy lemon asparagus gnocchi, summery and rich at the same time. And Lydia went home to Wales over the summer and came back with plenty of her favourite kind of Welsh Cakes, which you can of course buy in England, but not quite as easily as in Wales!

Our studio buddies have a budding beading business (bbb), Bead Binders, which we think you should all be keeping an eye on (go follow them on insta!). We’ve had a sneak peek of the gorgeous things they’ve been working on and can’t wait to see them out in the world.

We were both lucky enough to see Laura Moseley of Common Threads Press interview Alice Hattrick about their new book Fancy Work at OUTPOST gallery in Norwich. The book asks ‘what can a scrap of embroidery tell us about how to live?’, and sees Alice exploring the not entirely traceable May Morris, daughter of William Morris, exploring queer history, labour, and intimacy. We highly recommend getting or borrowing a copy, and the same goes for Alice Hattrick’s first book, Ill Feelings.

On the subject of books, Lydia just finished reading This Must Be The Place by Maggie O’Farrell and loved it. It tells the story of an unconventional marriage from various viewpoints across a long timespan in an impressive and artful way, as well as being very hard to put down. A great summer read, but she’s sure it would be gripping any time of year.

With the cooler weather approaching we’ve been thinking about autumnal makes and therefore autumnal yarns, and thought we’d share some faves!

1. Kelbourne Woolens Scout in Sunflower Heather - one of our favourite ever yellows

2. Fairmount Kinua ‘The Fuzzy’ in Pumpkin and Coral (with added fun ‘preview your palette’ feature now!)

3. Fiction Fiber ‘Is It Still Fall’; colourway collection (check out the corresponding zine too!)

4. West Wool Tandem in Moss - this stuff is so soft and wearable, Meghan has been living in the Gayle pullover knit in this yarn recently)

5. Manos del Uruguay Marla in Gold - alllll the autumn golds in one skein

6. Wild Star Fibers in Leaf Peeper - this is so pretty. Would be amazing in an autumnal Zigzag Bandana?!?!

7. West Yorkshire Spinners Morris - such a good ‘workhorse’ sweater yarn

8. Purl Soho Novella in Fall Dahlias - used in one of the samples of our Zigzag Bandana

   

   ---

   Like everyone, we’ve been devastated to lose such an iconic musician and human as Dolly Parton. As makers, one of the many things we loved about her was that she appreciated the love and effort that goes into handmade things. Proof:

A couple of other favourite Dolly moments:

Lydia’s favourite Dolly Parton song is Light of a Clear Blue Morning, followed closely by Wildflowers, and Meghan’s is Jolene of course, but Light of a Clear Blue Morning is also a huge fave. She also knows every word to the epic film Steel Magnolias which we suggest everyone watch in Dolly’s honour this weekend. Fun fact: We saw Dolly live together in Austin, Texas in 2016! What a dream.

Lydia is planning to listen again to Dolly Parton’s America, the Radiolab series featuring Dolly herself, tracing her career, music, and how it came to be that she was a uniting force for people of all walks of life, amongst so many other wonderful things.

That’s all from us this week,

xxx Lydia + Meghan

P.S. Please enjoy this gorgeous video of Lydia singing Wildflowers on the night of the summer solstice here in Norwich 💛

Meghan: We’ve had hand-drawn schematics in our magazine and then our books since our inception. I don’t remember our exact conversation where we made that decision, but I do remember it being a thing that readers consistently mentioned enjoying about our publications. Do you remember anything about doing those for the first time or what your drawing practice was like at that time?

Lydia: My memory is that I had doodled some illustrations showing how to pick up stitches for one of the patterns in our first issue - I think perhaps the Overbury Mitts? And I showed them to you and you were very nice about them and so I tried out drawing the schematics too… and since people really liked them I just kept doing it! At that point (when I did those first pom drawings) I had absolutely zero computer skills so there isn’t any chance I would have been able to do them any other way anyway haha. I think if you look at successive issues of Pom Pom you can see my style change a lot and I try all sorts of different things. At some point I even learned how to use the basics in photoshop!

I do remember really enjoying those first drawings, I think I still have them somewhere. I think the line drawing (without colour) worked really nicely and now I wonder if adding colour wasn’t as nice!? At that time, when I did those first drawings for Pom Pom, I just drew for fun. I never had any kind of formal education for drawing, so I think my style was quite naive. And like so many things that we did I didn’t have a huge amount of references or things to compare myself to so I didn’t feel as intimidated as perhaps I should have.

Read more

Happy Monday! We are so pleased to finally release our newest pattern, the Zigzag Bandana into the world ⚡️ It’s the perfect little bandana or scarf, chic and wearable, and with a little extra joy in the form of garter stitch chevron. The pattern includes video tutorials for all the techniques included, so don’t be put off if you’ve never tried a stitch pattern like this before. We’ve got you covered! You can head straight to check out the pattern now, and/or read on for more gorgeous pics by Salsabil Morrison and some extra pattern intel.

Remember if you are already a subscriber to Out of Hand you will receive an email with your download code for the pattern today! 💖

Zigzag Bandana Pattern

…and if you aren’t yet a subscriber maybe you’d like to join us? Not only will you get subscriber only posts but you will get all patterns we release during your subscription. Not too shabby.

Subscribe now

The Zigzag Bandana is knit from one tip to the other, and the pattern is written for two sizes - a little version and a slightly less little version. The little version is less wide than the bigger one. You can make these any length you wish, but we’ve included length dimensions as a suggestion. Once you complete the increase section at the beginning of the bandana, it’s very easy to memorise the stitch pattern and all wrong side rows are just plain knit stitches.

Between the two of us we’ve already made 8 versions(!) to show how well the pattern works in various yarns; summery cottons, fluffy mohair, sleek merino and silk, and so many others. Depending on what you choose, the Zigzag Bandana is the perfect accessory for warm evenings, or an extra bit of warmth for wintery days. It’s also a perfect way to use up smaller quantities of yarn, something we’ve both been very keen to do recently, and being able to use up different kinds of yarn is just a huge bonus! The only limit is what you want to wear.

Just as a little note, your gauge might vary according to the yarn you choose and your own personal tension, but we think if you’re happy with the fabric you’re making and you have enough yarn it doesn’t matter too much if your gauge matches the ones in the pattern. For example if you use a lightweight yarn (laceweight to sport-weight, and 5 mm / US 8 needles, your bandana will have a lighter, airier feel than if you use DK to worsted weight yarn. The thicker the yarn, the more dense, and potentially bigger your bandana will be. There are no wrong answers! Just your personal preference.

The pattern is quite addictive, so be warned! You might also have eight of these in your possession very soon. Which can only be an asset… a cute bandana for every day of the week with one to spare? Yes please!

And that’s all from us today, remember you can find the pattern here, or hold tight if you are subscriber and the code will be with you very soon!! (If you don’t receive the code by end of day today please do let us know and we will get it to you!).

Happy zigzag knitting ✌️

xxx Lydia + Meghan

This is the third and final part of our Craft Code Switching series. If you haven’t read the first two parts you can find them here and here. You don’t have to read them to make sense of this post, but it might be worth going back and taking a look if you have time!

Welcome back to Craft Code Switching! In the first part of this series, we talked about the idea that if we are multicraftual we can code switch between different crafts, choosing the right one for the job depending on each craft’s own strengths and best applications, much in the same way as someone might switch between different languages or registers depending on the situation or the person they are communicating with. In the second part, we talked about the structures of knitting and crochet; their similarities and differences, and what skills and techniques can be used for both of them. Now we will be applying a similar lens to quilt-making, and then zooming back out to look at all three crafts again. The main question I want to ask is what unites all of them, and how can we take lessons and inspiration from one craft and apply them to another.

But first, quilts! Quilt-making is very different from the yarn-based crafts we’ve looked at so far, for one very obvious reason: it lacks yarn. As I said previously, when you knit or crochet something you are creating the fabric from scratch as you go, using yarn, whereas when you make a quilt you are using pre-made fabrics.

Read more