I've Made Some Moroccan Fedoras

I'm back again. I hope I can be of some distraction to you all in this time of uncertainty. Perhaps I can inspire you to pick up your knitting needles again, sit down in a cozy chair, turn off the news, put on a good movie or two and experiment with some colorful knitting.

Today, I want to share my newest Moroccan Fedora from the new World Knits PDF Collection available on my website here or on Ravelry here. 

This hat is one of the four different featured designs from this creative and colorful pattern. It is called the "Pillbox Cap" and it is a rather quick knit. Here is my reticent model Julia wearing it.

Here's another view.

And a closeup of the embroidery I added. 

You can see a short video of me steaming it here. 

I have been going through some of my textile books recently looking for inspiration for some new tea towel fabric designs. One of my most favorite books is called Silk and Cotton Textiles from the Central Asia That Was by Susan Meller (2013, Abrams). It is available on Amazon now for a very good price if this kind of book is your jazz. 

Susan Meller is an amazingly accomplished textile collector and author. I have all three of her inspiring books in my library and turn to them constantly for inspiration. You can check out her website here. The riches of Silk and Cotton Textiles is astounding. There are essays by collectors, beautiful photos of embroidered, handwoven fabrics including ikats, a large selection of period photos from the early 1900's and so much more. I purchased this book when it was first published at $60. Now, as with all "old" books, the price has diminished into paperback pricing. If you are inspired by these kinds of fabrics and books and color ranges, I highly suggest you add it to your library. 

In my last pass through this tome, I stumbled upon pages of incredible handmade, embroidered hats worn by tribes in Central Asia. I couldn't believe the similarity in shape of many of these children's hats to my Pillbox Hat design. The intricacy of the embroidery on the hats was amazing and many could be used as your own inspiration for a Fedora or two using my Moroccan Fedora PDF Pattern as a base for your own design. 

In all of The World Knits Collection PDF Downloads, I include empty charts so that you can design your own project. There are also extra charts to try out which are not featured on any of the sample projects. 

My goal has always been to inspire knitters to create their very own designs. I really enjoy seeing what others have done using my patterns as "jumping off" points for their own color combinations, motifs, charts and designs. That is one of the most rewarding parts of being an author and teacher. For me, there is no right or wrong way to do things and I love to see how folks turn an idea into their own. 

So, here's what I challenge you to do during this crazy time in history... step out of your comfort zone and try a new pattern. Draw your own chart. Combine new and different colors. And send me photos of your successes or failures! As I see it, there are NO FAILURES - ONLY LEARNING EXPERIENCES FOR A FUTURE SUCCESS.  

Thank you Susan Meller for all the work you have put into your books and collections. They are priceless. 

The Moroccan Fedora PDF Pattern is available 
on my website here or 
on Ravelry here. 
Stay safe and well everyone and as Elizabeth said.... Knit On!

BTW, Meg Swansen emailed me recently to let me know that she has gotten her hands on 10 copies of Anatolian Knitting that I recently blogged about HERE. You can purchase on the Schoolhouse Press Website. 

Introducing The World Knits Collection By Kristin Nicholas

In my life, January is for catching up on projects that I never have enough time for -- projects that take a lot of intense concentration and hours and hours of work. Last January, I built myself a new website using the Big Cartel platform. It was a ton of work and I learned a lot. 

This January I have been tackling another enormous project. It is finally done and I can tell you all about it. For those of you who have been following me for years, you probably know me as a knitwear designer. I worked for Classic Elite Yarns as the Creative Director for 16 years. CEY closed up shop in 2018. I wrote about that here. 

Back in the 1990's I developed a range of patterns and kits for Classic Elite Yarns. It ran over 4 years and was super popular. There were four new booklets and kits each fall season and they were sold in LYS. The booklets were packed in wicker baskets with six assorted colors of yarn and then shrink-wrapped. They were sold exclusively through local yarn stores. This was before the internet, before Ravelry and before so much in the yarn industry began to change. There was no such thing as an indie dyer or designer back then (there were probably those folks but those names had not yet been coined). 

I called the collection of these 16 patterns The World Knits Collection. They were inspired by my love of traditional cultures, costumes, and handknit, handmade, embroidered folk costumes. You can see the little booklets that I wrote and produced in the photo below. 

I would write and knit the first sample of the project (sometimes I knit them all depending on the project and time I had). Then I would find talented knitters to make the rest of the samples. Each little booklet had several versions of the projects in it. I would give the knitters the Tapestry Wool/Mohair yarn in the colors I knew would work nicely together. They got a typed out pattern and many charts that they could pick from for their project. They would make the project I needed and put their own spin on it if they felt like it. The projects would come back to CEY and we would photograph them. The projects would travel to trade shows and then find their way back to the knitters. 

I met the most amazing knitters through this project - many who became friends who I miss. I have sadly lost track of most of them now since I haven't been as involved with the knitting world for several years. These 16 World Knits Collection booklets really helped to cement my place as a knitwear designer in the industry. Several of the projects morphed into projects in my two most recent knitting books Kristin Knits (2006) and Color By Kristin (2009).

Over the years, the industry has changed so much. The little booklets were stashed in knitter's homes or thrown away. Knitters don't buy books so much anymore so all my designs have been locked away in my books that people don't read or reference anymore. My books are still in print but they are basically just taking up space in publishers' warehouses. It really is a very sad situation.

This past fall, I was able to purchase the rights to my World Knits Collection. I then had the opportunity to publish them on my own. But finding the time to do that was impossible with all the stuff I had on my plate with my pottery and our farm before Christmas. I decided to take January to get these things in order and so I have. 

I'm sure some of you still have these booklets or perhaps knit from them in the past. I'm hoping I can inspire some newer knitters to try projects from the World Knits Collection. Over the next few weeks I will be introducing each one here on my blog. The patterns will only be available as PDF Downloads, not printed. You can print them out yourself though. 

If you can and are interested, please help me spread the word in your knitting world. All the patterns are available for sale on my Ravelry store and on my website HERE as digital PDF downloads.  

Book Review - Henry Wilson's Floral Patterns Of India

This past January when we were starved for color here in western Massachusetts, I discovered the book Floral Patterns Of India via the Quintessence blog. I am not sure how I missed this one as it was published in 2016. It was written and photographed by the very talented Henry Wilson. The book is beautifully presented and was published by Thames and Hudson. It has a silky fabric bright blue colored spine. The paper is very thick and has a somewhat matte but not too matte finish. It is 272 pages long - full of incredible photographs, patterns and color. There is so much inspiration in here that it was hard to pick just a few pages to photograph. 

Floral Patterns of India is jam packed with colorful photos from India. There are photos of places, people, buildings, interiors, and fabrics. Besides the beautiful photos, there are many words to read - a plus for someone who likes to read - besides look at photos. Read books? Do people do that anymore? Sure people read on their screens but do they crack open a book or do they just scroll, scroll, scroll. I do - although not as much as I should. Floral Patterns of India is split into 6 Chapters: Introduction, Repeat Patterns, Borders and Bands, Floral Panels, Ornamental Scenes, and The Drawing Process. 

Look at these crazy goats! 

Throughout the book, there are photos of interiors and exteriors. Here are a few of my favorites. 

Henry Wilson was definitely inspired by the colors, shapes, and patterns of India. So much so that he took the motifs from many of the interiors and then made one color illustrations which are shown opposite the interior it was featured in. For artists, needleworkers, knitters, surface designers, these illustrations are great jumping off points for their own work. At the very back of the book, Henry explains his process and reason for the drawings that accompany many of the photos. They were all done completely by hand without the use of a computer. He cites a tracing paper, ruler, pens, protractor, compass and erasers as his tools. This really blows my mind because they all look to be so accurate as to have been done with the use of a computer. Amazing. Henry cites a book called Jeypore Portfolio of Architectural Details from 1890 as his inspiration - besides all the handmade beauty that he photographed in India. 

Here is the author Henry Wilson. I found this photo on the Thames and Hudson website. Behind him is his wallpaper line called Sariskar that he designed for Osborne and Little. I love these wallpapers.  

Henry Wilson was an incredibly talented photographer who fell in love with India. He wrote seven books on India including Floral Patterns of India which I am sharing here. Unfortunately Henry died in May of 2017 when hit by a car while he was riding his bicycle  in London where he lived. You can see photos of Henry's incredible house here. Check out all there is to learn on his website here. Such an incredible legacy he left but it is so sad he was taken from the world so early. 

Creative Retreat #1 2018- Day Two - Ceramic Tile Painting

On Day Two, we did Ceramic Tile Painting. Oh wow - what beautiful work the students did. 

Maureen came to this same Retreat last year and brought her friend Betsy with her this year. Here are Maureen’s tiles. She is thinking of making either a table top with them or using them as a centerpiece for a table. I can’t wait to see these fired. 

Betsy is a water color artist and so we all were looking forward to seeing how she handled the ceramic glazes. She came with her source material and had her tiles planned out. Can you believe how beautiful her tiles are? 

Mariana grew up in Finland and shared her interesting life with all of us. She hadn’t painted since her days in school. He design idea came from a Scandinavian napkin. At first she struggled with the glazes and painting but by the end of the day she was adding details like a pro. Won’t these tiles make gorgeous coasters? 

Here are the finished tiles. Now I will fire them once to set the glaze. Then I will add a gloss glaze to them and fire them a second time. 

In less than two weeks, I am hosting the second Creative Retreat of 2018. We are doing Furniture Painting and Fabric Printing. I have quite a few students for that retreat. Hopefully The Farmer will be a little more mobile and be feeling better. I’m looking forward to sharing another weekend in my studio with wonderful women.

Today's Big Adventure - Facebook Live with Kim's Upholstery

My friends Kim and Bill Chagnon have an on-line Upholstery Teaching Site called Kim's Upholstery. They have hundreds of videos on their YouTube site and 44,000 subscribers! Their on-line teaching site trains people to do upholstery themselves and to build a business. 

Kim and Bill are also professional upholsterers. I met them a few years ago through our mutual friend potter Lucy Fagella. Kim and I were in an evening pottery class together for one session. When I was working on my new book, I hired Kim to make a slipcover out of fabric I designed. This is the chair she covered for me in my yellow Bloomsbury inspired roses and diamonds linen/cotton that is also available on my Spoonflower shop here. 

I also hired Kim and Bill to recover my favorite chair with the fabric that I hand-stamped with a paisley design. That chair is on the cover of my new book Crafting A Patterned Home which you can buy on my website here. They delivered the chair the day of the photoshoot - I love the way it turned out. And Kim and Bill were so thrilled that their work was on the cover of the book. 

Kim and Bill are always looking for promotional ideas. They have so much energy and so many ideas. They are such a team. Kim is the Creative person and teaching personality. Bill is the behind the scenes person - he films all the videos, does all the editing and website stuff. He is amazing. If I had a Bill I could produce so much more but alas, I have a Farmer who has sheep and is too busy to help me with anything. 

Kim and Bill have always been trying to get me to promote my business but the time was not quite right. Now with the launch of my new book Crafting A Patterned Home I agreed to film a Facebook Live demo for them. This is the first time I have done a Facebook Live event and it was a lot of fun. I demonstrated how I printed the fabric for the chair that Kim and Bill upholstered for the cover of the book. 

Today at 12:30 we went live. It was a dicey day - on my way to their studio, my brakes started spewing black smoke and smelling really awful. I drove slow and made it there just in time to go live. It was fun seeing the questions that would pop up on the screen that Bill and Kim read. People popped in and out of the live feed. Kim told me that lots of folks watch their FB Live posts on their lunch breaks. The cool thing is that at the same time that the FB Live video is being live streamed, they are also capturing video. It is then uploaded to their YouTube channel so that you all can watch it. So - here you go - Kim and Kristin live. It is an hour long and there are some funny parts. It was fun to do and we may cook up some other ideas to help promote the book and promote Kim's great Learn Upholstery subscription website and my new book Crafting A Patterned Home. I'm in guys - just let me know. 

You can follow Kim on Instagram here. You can find her on Facebook here. And you can subscribe to her YouTube channel here. She also teaches on the Craftsy website - a class called a Custom Fit Slipcovers: Couches and Sofas. Thanks so much Kim and Bill for giving me this opportunity. 

You can still order signed copies of Crafting A Patterned Home on my website. I'll throw in free shipping and some free goodies. Thanks so much for your support. And welcome to those new to the blog. I hope you find it interesting and fun. 

Winter Work - New Fabric Designs from Kristin Nicholas with Spoonflower

I'm not sure if you noticed but I was a bit absent from this blog during the winter months. The reason for that was that I was trying to better my skills by really working on surface pattern design using my MacBook Pro, Adobe Illustrator and Procreate (on an iPad). It was super time consuming with hours spent looking at my computer screen. I made a lot of patterns and now I feel much more confident that I can design more surface patterns in the future. 

So here is the cool thing - at least I think it is cool. You all know about my new book Crafting A Patterned Home. It is packed with 35 projects that you can make yourself. Techniques include painting, fabric printing, stamping, knitting, crochet, sewing, ceramics and embroidery. There are a whole mess of projects that feature fabric printing with blocks. 

I am realistic and I know that not everyone is going want to spend time printing fabric themselves but they also might the look of hand printed and handpainted fabric. During the winter months I translated many of the hand printed fabrics into digital files. It took a whole mess of time but I did it. I scanned handprinted images and then brought them into Illustrator and built repeat files.

I uploaded those files to Spoonflower and now all of the designs that are featured in my new book Crafting A Patterned Home are now available as fabric, wallpaper, and gift wrap. There are almost 30 different types of fabric that you can order these designs on. All have been tested to make sure they print correctly.

Many of the handprinted designs translated into digital repeat files

Here is what the collection looks like on their website. 

Spoonflower prints fabrics, wallpaper and gift wrap. Here are a couple of screenshots showing my designs as wallpaper in their "room setting."

This is the handpainted wallpaper that is featured on the cover of the book.

This is the wallpaper version of the fabric featured on the chair in the kitchen.

Spoonflower also has a sister company called Roostery. They will take any of my fabric designs and make them into all kinds of products - table linens, bed sheets, duvet covers, pillows, throw blankets and more. It really is pretty amazing. I can't say that Roostery is very easy to navigate for my surface design patterns. I have to work harder on figuring that out. But here is their version of my block print tablecloth on a cotton sateen fabric. This project was featured in my kitchen and I hand stamped all the cotton canvas fabric. 

It really is amazing what technology is making available to us. If you can figure out the computer programs, etc. 

You can check out all my fabric designs on Spoonflower on my shop here. 
This is the link to only the fabrics from Crafting A Patterned Home. 

If you were to order any of the products, I highly suggest getting a sample piece before committing to lots of yardage. I order a sample of each design to check it before making it for sale. Each fabric or paper will print slightly different. 

Books, Before and After DIY + The Power Of Paint

Photo by Rikki Snyder

Thanks everyone for all the orders for my new book Crafting A Patterned Home. I'm up to 209 copies sold - only 291 copies to meet my goal. That sounds pretty impossible but I will keep my fingers crossed and hope the word starts spreading. I'll be packing more orders this weekend and getting them out to all of you who will be ordering over the weekend. Here is the link to order directly from me. You will receive some exclusive freebies and I offer Free Shipping. 

The other day, a reader commented that she would like to see some decorating DIY here on my blog. Considering my new book Crafting A Patterned Home is full of all kinds of DIY on walls, fabrics, ceramics, and more, it sounded like a great idea. Lots of the work I have done in our farmhouse was done many years ago - before the days of digital photography and blogs. I did a little digging and found some before photos that I can share with you all. This is the first of 3 posts with some befores and afters. 

For today's post, I'm heading to New Jersey - to my Great Aunt Jennie's house at 1 Locust Ave. Aunt Jennie was everything a kid could want in a Great Aunt. She was kind and loving. She always welcomed us with open arms and a giant hug and a kiss. She usually had one of those old-fashioned aprons on - the kind that pretty much covered up whatever she was wearing in the front and back - like the header page on this blog all about Apron History! (Whoever knew there was a blog on apron history - fascinating.) She wore dark black leather shoes and her gray hair had a tinge of blue in it. Uncle Harry was always sitting in "his chair" watching the television. We were frequently invited for Sunday dinner. But the thing my sisters and I remember most was the sideboard in the dining room. On it there was an orange lidded dish and inside there was always some kind of candy or chocolate. We girls always bee-lined there. 

Dinners were spent around the massive table in the small dining room. Next to the table there were 3! sideboards and a set of 6 chairs. The wood was a dark oak and there was odd hardware on all the heavily carved pieces. When you sat at the dinner table, you always tried to get a place away from the massive legs that were just plain in the way. But that was hard to do because the kitchen chairs were pulled into service and there would be 11 people jammed around the table. The room was small and I'm not sure how they fit all the furniture in the space. 

When Aunt Jennie passed away, her son - Uncle Don - although he was really my second cousin - had to break up Aunt Jennie's home. Noone in the immediate family wanted the dining set and he called an antique dealer who offered him $200 for it all. He knew we had just purchased our farmhouse and so he offered the dining set to me for the cost of moving it. It cost $698 to get it from NJ to western MA.

When the furniture arrived, I knew it was going to be perfect for this house. It was big and clunky and had a handmade quality to it. I couldn't fit it all in the dining room so I moved one of the sideboards to the living room. The sideboards offer lots of storage space - perfect for a farmhouse which doesn't have many closets. From what I can tell, the dining set was made in the 1920's or so in the southern US. They copied the style of English Jacobean furniture. 

Once I got the furniture in place, I realized I just couldn't live with the dark brown oak color. It just wasn't my thing and so I decided to paint it. I wanted to cover the brown oak and for the dining room, I wanted it to be almost black. I decided on a oil based wash of color which I did by adding turpentine to black oil paint. I brushed it on thinly so the grain would show through. It looks like this now. 

Photo by Rikki Snyder

Photo by Rikki Snyder

For the living room piece, I painted it with Benjamin Moore's Satin Impervo oil paint in a color that looks like Fire Engine Red. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the color. That piece looks like this now. I just love how it looks in contrast to the chartreuse walls. 

 

Photo by Rikki Snyder

So that is today's DIY story. If you find a piece of sturdy old furniture, don't turn it down because you don't like the color of the wood. Choose a color you like and then paint it. I didn't prime either of these pieces - I just put the oil paint directly on the wood. Both pieces have held up well although the dining room table could use a refresher coat of paint. It serves as my shipping table so it gets used quite a bit. Parts of it are getting worn and maybe one day I will get to re-doing it. For now, I just throw a tablecloth on it. 

I hope everyone is looking forward to a nice spring weekend. Here in western Massachusetts temperatures are still rather cold and raw and the spring rains are sprinkling the earth. The daffodils are starting to grow and blossoms will hopefully happen soon. All I see outside is the junk left from winter that needs to be picked up and hauled away - leaves, twigs, broken branches, the dog's treasures that she brings home from who knows where. 

Hop on over to my website to order a copy of Crafting A Patterned Home which is chock full of over 30 DIY projects. You can also order it on my Etsy shop here if you like to order on Etsy.

Creating in the Pottery Studio

I've been working on decorating pottery for my upcoming Holiday Open House on December 2/3. (Would love to see some of you.) I threw a lot of mugs and vases on my pottery wheel and made lots of slab platters and trays this summer and fall in my refurbished shed AKA The Little Pottery Studio. 

Throwing and building the pots is actually the easy part. Decorating them all is quite a process. Each piece I make is completely different. I look at the shape of each pot and then paint several motifs on each one. Each piece needs to be bisque fired and then gloss fired. There is a reason handmade pottery is expensive. It is extremely time consuming.

I might be able to cut the time down on each piece of pottery if I developed a couple patterns and then just repeated them over and over. It sounds like a good idea except that it just doesn't work for me. I would die of the boredom. I really enjoy making each piece different even if it isn't as efficient. It would drive my mind mentally mad if I had to repeat one design over and over again. I guess I have ADD but you probably knew that. For me the enjoyment of making pottery is to see how each piece turns out - the colors, the motifs, the shapes. 

My studio is in a shambles. No time to pick up and so much to do. That's the way it is in November. And we are hosting Thanksgiving! Yikes. 

Fabulous Creative Retreat - Part One

This past weekend six brave souls arrived at the farm bright and early Saturday morning. The subject of the day was Fabric Printing in the morning. The concept for the afternoon was to embellish the printed fabric with Crewel Embroidery. I taught this same class last year over two days but this year, I decided to condense it into one day.

We start each class with a Meet and Greet on our screened in porch. This gives everyone a chance to tell their Fiber Story and it breaks the ice so we all get to know each other. It is fun to hear each person's Fiber Journey and it also helps me to know where each student is compared to the subject at hand. This weekend I had three new students and three returnees - Julia calls them three-peaters. I feel so fortunate that students like the classes so much that they will travel back to the farm. I also love to see how their skills have changed over the years and feel fortunate that I can be a part of their burgeoning artistic lives. 

After the short Meet and Greet, we headed down to my studio and dove in. Each student came armed with ideas that they might like to translate into a printed fabric. This group barely needed any help deciding upon ideas and motifs. Each student made their own printing stamps. They learned about the different paints I use too. 

We got right into stamping. 

Stephanie has been here before. She came with a motif in mind and we decided that it would make a great block design if it repeated around a central axis. 

Darby was inspired by the coneflowers in her garden. She also came armed with the book How to Be a Wildflower by illustrator Katie Daisy - you can check out her website and Instagram.  

Maureen decided upon paisley and heart motifs.

Ruth is fond of the traditional pomegranate motif. She printed on a natural flax color fabric and it is interesting how the fibers showed through the paint. 

Marji chose a very bold and graphic op-art design that I unfortunately don't have an overall view of. Here is a close-up of her stitching. 

Carol is a Decorative Artist who specializes in painted furniture. She came with a sketchbook full of ideas and printed a graphic design that she is going to heavily decorate with embroidery. 

It was an awesome day and I am so proud of the work that the students accomplished. Here they are - proud as punch. 

My friend Cynthia took the photo of all of us. She kindly did most of the cooking for us and the lunches were fantastic. Too bad I didn't get a photo of the spread. Lamb koftas, chicken, tabbouleh, gazpacho, green salad, homemade hummus, frittatas, homegrown squash and veggies, brownies and bar cookies. I so appreciate her help and support. 

Stop back for more tomorrow to see Day Two - Ceramic Tile Painting!