Fair Isle Design Process WIP

I've recently bought some new colours in beautiful Jamieson and Smith Shetland wool (to add to my growing collection) and got to thinking that there must be a better way to organise the colours to help me when I'm coming up with new Fair Isle jewellery designs. So, inspired by the fab Attic24, I bought myself some Dolly Pegs (took me right back to childhood!) and spent a therapeutic afternoon watching Netflix and winding yarn onto the pegs to act as my "shade card"!

I'm finding it much easier to plan colour stories, working out what colours go well together and in which order with the yarn on the pegs than it was to place the whole balls of wool next to each other

These are the lovely new colours I've just chosen- really Spring like! I'm starting to go through the Jamieson and Smith shade card to label the pegs with their relevant shade number, to make it easier when I come to order more yarn

I'm having a lot of fun playing with different colour combinations and looking forward to knitting them into new Fair Isle jewellery pieces

I think this idea works really well in terms of making custom pieces too, because the customer can come up with their own colour scheme from this selection

If you're a regular reader you will know that I have been planning my Fair Isle designs using knitter's graph paper, but for the latest few pieces I have just picked up the yarn and needles and worked in a free form whatever comes out of my head type of way, to try a less regimented way of working and just have fun with the colours. I tried to felt this particular piece but sadly it didn't work

I've decided not to make the rectangular Shetland wool brooches any more and instead I'm focusing on square Fair Isle brooches, as I think you can fit more pattern onto the square shape

With such a large range of colours there is a lot of scope for many and varied designs. I love this really girly colour scheme, which again I knitted in a "free form" style.

I'll be sure to share my new designs with you as I continue to have fun playing with the colours!

WIP Harris Tweed Button Brooches

Sharing my latest work in progress- I've added some new colours of Harris Tweed into my Harris Tweed Button Brooch range and I'm busy making these to add to my Etsy shop soon. I wanted to add some more autumnal colours to the range and I'm now busy choosing which upcycled fabrics to add to them, Watch this space!

You can check out the knitted and Harris Tweed brooches in my current range here

WIP- New Fair Isle Jewellery #2

The Fair Isle practice continues here at Louise Dawson Design! As you may know, I have previously hand knitted a fair isle jewellery collection in Shetland wool. I loved using the Jaimesons 4ply to make these, but I'd like to make more complex designs and I've now chosen to make a new range using Susan Crawford Fenella 2ply.  In this post I shared with you the start of some Fair Isle brooch designs in this beautiful 2ply British wool

I used one of the knitted samples to make a round brooch using a cover button but I thought that this hid the fair isle design too much, so I've knitted the same design and made it up as a small square brooch. I'm much happier with this, I think there is more scope for trying out different designs within this shape.

I'm so enjoying making up my own fair isle designs using knitter's graph paper and coloured pencils!

I'm trying out lots of colour ways to find out what works too. I've just ordered a few more colours in the Fenella to add in too- it's such a beautiful yarn, I find it hard to resist!

I'll continue to share my fair isle progress- I'm aiming to create a whole new fair isle collection

WIP- New Fair Isle Jewellery

I thought I'd show you a little look behind the scenes at what I'm working on at the moment! I'm already thinking of Winter designs and adding to my Fair Isle Jewellery range that you can find in my Etsy Shop. I made these pieces using 4ply Shetland wool, which is beautiful and is traditionally used for Fair Isle Designs. However, due to the small scale of the jewellery pieces I felt I couldn't knit as detailed pieces as I would have liked, so for the new designs I'm using a 2ply yarn!

Working out some new designs on knitters graph paper

A friend told me about Susan Crawford Vintage yarns and the Fenella two ply. The colours are inspired by a vintage colour pallette and it's a British grown, spun and dyed yarn too- soo lovely! I've just got a small selection of colours to use at the moment but I'm sure I'll be investing in more of the range!

At the moment I'm just experimenting to see what works. It's more tricky than I thought to select colours that work together in the pattern and It's quite a challenge to fit lots of Fair Isle detail into such a tiny piece. As you can see, once I've used the knitted rectangle to cover the button some of the Fair Isle detail is lost, so I will be working on this!

It's fascinating to see the stitches on the page come to life in knitted form and I'm really enjoying the experimentation. I'll share more as this project progresses!

Tartan and Leather Button Brooches and Rings. #WIP

A little look at what is going on behind the scenes today- some work in progress! This is something I've wanted to try for a while- combining off-cuts of traditional Scottish wool Tartan with stitched leather pieces to make Button Brooches and Rings. I'm adding a Rose Gold coloured Swarovski Crystal to them too.

I'll be adding these to the Etsy Shop soon (still practicing with my camera) so I'll be sure to show you when they are all finished!