The main things I want to concentrate on when designing my patterns is how the process of knitting the pattern will make the knitter feel. The unique selling point I am basing my designs on is the emphasis on how really complex patterns can help with depression and negative thinking, while simpler patterns can just help relax you and all stages in betwen. Taking into consideration the length of time I had for the module and how long it takes me to knit something of a reasonable size that would be suitable for the exhibition, I decided to make 2 items – one at either end of the scale. One super-complicated and one super simple.

I decided to start with a really complex pattern and was inspired by my tree peony. The colours I had been dyeing reminded me of it and I realised it would be a great basis for a design including some lovely unusual and complex textural stitches.

As I have written in the pattern introduction: The Peony Mandala Cushion pattern has been intentionally designed to be very complicated, meaning that total concentration is demanded and the mind is kept fully occupied, easing depression by blocking negative or over thinking. Stitch counting is necessary, unusual and unfamiliar stitches are included (requiring tutorials which I have provided in both written and video form – see YouTube video here) and frequent changes in stitch happen from bobbles to loops to welts to leaf lace – no getting comfortable with this pattern!

The Mandala is a circular figure representing the universe in Hindu and Buddhist symbolism.

In Jungian psychology a mandala as a symbol in a dream, representing the dreamer’s search for completeness and self-unity.

The finished cushion has a 26″ diameter – perfect for a summer garden floor cushion or a big squishy statement bed/sofa throw cushion.

From my decades of knitting experience I already had a few ideas of the stitches I wanted to use. For the cntre of the flower I wanted to use bobbles which are quite common but fiddly and loops which are quite unusual. The crochet chain loops incorporate a simple crochet chain, which some knitters will be unfamiliar with, and the thumb loops I remember from cardigans my mum knitted me as child in the 1970’s but you just don’t see these days. I found a vintage copyright free pattern for this stitch. I also knew I wanted to use welts to represent the un-furled dark centre petal and leaf lace for the outside, but the petals were a conundrum and took some experimenting and took a while to figure out.

The stitches are all existing stitches, going back hundreds of years in stitch libraries. It is incredibly difficult to come up with a brand new stitch that has never been done before – hand knitting has been around for so long and has historically been a much more commonly practiced craft that there is little left to discover.

It is, however, possible to come up with new combinations of stitches, making new patterns and new shapes. The maths is complicated – to make a flat circle you need to increase by 32 stitches every 4th row (starting with 8 and 16 increases on the 1st 2 x 4th rows!). You need to ensure any pattern repeats fit into the number of stitches you have per round and take into account these increases. Moving from one section to another section with different numbers of stitches in the respective repeats requires adjustments of the number of stitches evenly around with either increases or decreases. Pattern designing is not easy and I spent many an hour puzzling over graph paper and calculator!

As you can see, the finished pattern is 12 pages long and has a Youtube video tutorial to accompany it, showing all the stitches required in order to complete the pattern. Even for experienced knitters, sometimes it is very helpful to see the stitches being worked before attempting them yourself.

There was some concern over my recording the video in my garden looking unprofessional, but I wanted the daylight and the relaxing sounds of the birds in the background. I also wanted to be able to achieve consistancy, and whilst I could have used the recording equipment from university for this particular project, I would not have access to it going forward and so wanted to work something out that I could repeat for future videos after university. I do find the wind annoying though, so will look to invest in a fluffy microphone windscreen for future videos!

Overall I think it’s in-keeping with my theme of mental wellbeing, being out in the fresh air. It’s totally out of my comfort zone but I think with time I will become more comfortable with it and become less awkward!

The second pattern was designed to be the opposite – asimple, pattern that you don’t have to think about too much. The repetitive process of stitching creating a feeling of calm and peacefulness – perfect for daydreaming, meditation or allowing mental space to reflect on and resolve issues or make considered decisions. Or just keep your hands busy whilst watching TV!

My inspiration was a book I had been reading on repeat patterns:

I had wanted to design a tesselated triangle pattern based on the triangles on the cover of this book, but decided the only way to knit them would either be with short rows or intarsia, both of which are quite advanced stitches and so wouldn’t meet the brief.

I was stuck on the idea of triangles – I love knitting triangle shawls – they are my favourite thing to knit and they are so versatile to wear, but at a certain point when the rows get too long I get bored and put it down, moving on to something else. I wanted to design a pattern made up of mini shawls, keeping rows to around 150 stitches. I wanted to make the pattern versatile – not everyone loves triangle shawls as much as me! That’s why I decided to make it a pattern for the component tessellations – you can make as many as you need to and they could be stitched together in different ways to make a cushion, a bag, a long scarf, all sorts of things…use your imagination and make it your own. It allows for creativity as well as pattern following. I was also aware that my previous pattern used solid colour yarns except for the back and wanted to design something that would allow variegated yarns to shine.

I decided to keep to basic stitches, knit, purl, yarn overs and knit 2 togethers. A pattern beginners could follow and didn’t require a video tutorial. The eyelets formed by the yarn over, knit 2 together gives interest to the plain colour yarn, whilst the variegated yarn is stitched in plain stocking stitch – fancy stitches in variegated yarns get completely lost.

So these are the 2 extremes as I see them. Going forward I would like to have a rating system showing how complicated a pattern is and what feeling the pattern is intended to instigate. The problem is it’s not that simple – it depends on the knitters skill level too. The simplest of patterns to a beginner can require total concentration and the most complicated pattern in the world can be fairly simple to an expert (although the counting in lace patterns would still fully occupy the mind, so maybe it would still do the intended job!)

Another problem is that I find if I am angry, sometimes knitting makes me a hundred times worse! If I am knitting something simple then my mind fixates on what is angering me until I erupt and fling my knitting across the floor in a rage!

I would like to continue my research into pattern and how it affects our mental health – I think I may have only just scratched the surface and would liek to take these studies further.

The first step in the dyeing process is selecting my yarn bases. I decided to source my undyed yarn from Yarn Undyed over other suppliers because:

They have the best range, quality and prices (especially with the discounts given to business accounts).

They only stock wool from reputable, ethical farms with high standards of animal welfare, ensuring the sheep have not been mulesed

Previous experience has been very positive – they send free samples of yarns upon request before buying full skeins. Excellent fast and friendly service.

Once I had ordered my samples I selected my range of bases assessed on price, texture, diversity and personal preference and placed my first order of 75 skeins! (at this point I had forgotten to take into account any disappointing outcomes and the yarn I would need to use in my pattern designs! The fast and friendly service that had swayed me to use Yarn Undyed paid off in the week before deadline!)

Choosing dyes:

There are many producers of acid dyes. I wanted to ensure that sustainability was central to the ethos of the supplier I chose. Whilst Jaquard are probably the best known producers of acid dyes, they are based in California and I wanted to support UK businesses and minimise my carbon footprint and so selected Colourcraft.

About ColourCraft

Established in 1978, we are a UK family run business specialising in the manufacture and distribution of a wide range of high quality, environmentally friendly, non toxic, water based, innovative products. We are market leaders in the supply of art materials and products for textile design including fabric dyes, fabric paints and printing systems.

Each range is carefully monitored from formulation to production by our Technical Director and staff to ensure excellent, professional results. Because we manufacture in house we can ensure that full technical back up is available. We also source products from other leading manufacturers. We will only work with companies who have a reputation for supplying goods of the finest quality. They are selected with great care bearing in mind that an important part of our vision is to maintain a policy of social, economic and environmental responsibility.

The dye process.

Here is my dyeing set up: As I am only a small scale dyer, dyeing to order I can use my kitchen and a few pans and utensils set aside specifically for dyeing (ensuring they are not used for food!)

I made a short video to show my dye process:

https://youtu.be/HERUbgXbpxk

I have set up my YouTube channel and intend to share video tutorials for patterns here. The dye process one is here for assessment purposes as WordPress won’t allow me to sharevideos over 5 minutes unless a pay to upgrade!

The finished yarn:

There are various methods of dyeing yarn: In a large, shallow pan on a stove, in a deep stock pot on a stove, wrapped in cling film in the microwave, specialist dye pots. I am using the first 2 methods as I don’t have a spare microwave, the cling film is an unnecessary use of plastic and I don’t wish to purchase specialist dye pots just yet…maybe in the future if the demand is there.

There are also several techniques:

solid/semi solid – mix the dye in a deep stock pot with enough water for the yarn to move freely, then submerge the yarn in the dye, warm until the dye is mostly absorbed into the yarn and the water is almost boiling and then add the acid (vinegar). For a semi solid colour with dark and light areas, add the acid before the yarn. This will make the colour strike fast in some places, giving variations of darker and lighter areas.

Variegated yarns – see video above. In a large shallow pan, put enough water to cover the bottom of the pan so the yarn won’t burn, but it doesn’t completely cover the yarn – it’s only partially submerged. Maybe half a centimeter. soak the yarn in an acid/water solution for 20 mins and spread out in the pan. Dot pre-mixed dyes around the yarn (I use a meat syringe, but you can use squeezy bottles or just dollop teaspoons of the dye, but this may not saturate the yarn all the way through and you night need to flip it over and dye the other side! Heat until water is simmering and runs clear. For a more sublte variegated yarn you can do this in a stock pot with water just covering the yarn. The dye will disperse in the water and will blend more, so this should only be done with colours that blend well – blue and orange for example will create a horrible brown in places.

Speckles – prepare yarn as above, pre-soaked in the dilute acid in a shallow pan with just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan. Turn the heat on and sprinkle the dried dye powder onto your yarn, either pinching whilst wearing rubber gloves or sprinkling through a tea strainer. This works better on some yarns than others – on some the speckles will strike immediately giving hard dots, on others the dots spread and give a more subtle effect.

Dip-Dyeing – this is more effective with natural dyes as the yarn takes on the dye more slowly, but if you’re quick you can do it with the acid dyes too. Quickly dip the yarn to give a light shade, then dip maybe 3/4 of the yarn again for a few seconds or until you can see a darker shade forming. Then dip only half for the same amount of time so it gets even darker and finally the last 1/4, giving an ombre effect.

Overdyeing – this was an experiment/happy accident! I dyed a skein using the orange, light orchid, periwinkle and mint green and it looked horrible – I forgot to adjust the dye recipes and the colours came out far too strong and just didn’t go well. Part of me knows that someone somewhere would have loved it, but I wondered what would happen if I overdyed it with black – would it completely cover these already rich, saturated colours and obliterate them, or not? I mixed a 1g black solution and re-dyed using the solid colour method & got this gorgeous oilslick effect! I have tried a few times now and this is totally repeatable and my favourite colourway by far.

Whilst I loved the name Edafedd and the link to my Welsh heritage, it has become apparent that I am going to have to change the name as I cannot pronounce it! After saying it out loud in front of a couple of Welsh speakers, who both said “no…it’s Ed-ahhh-veth” and I could not tell the difference between what I said and what they said I decided it was time to change it. Other issues I had perceived were whether anyone else would be able to pronounce it, and if they can’t pronounce it would they remember it? And on the other side of the fence, what if people assumed that I spoke Welsh and were disappointed to discover I only know about 20 words (and probably don’t pronounce any of them correctly!)

After much consideration I came up with Antidote Yarns and Designs. It’s in-keeping with my ethos that knitting is good for mental wellbeing and is the Antidote to the stresses of modern life. It would also come high up in any alphabetical listing!

Whilst looking around Wonderwool Wales I looked at how others ahd branded with their logos and labels etc…

A lot of the logos were quite dull. I guess it means it doesn’t upstage the yarn, but I decided I wanted something bright and bold that stood out from the crowd. A few had luggage labels with stickers on, which I guess is cheaper but it looks it, so I definitely want bands. I also don’t like the stickers. I get that it means you can order bands in bulk and then just put the individual information on the sticker, and it also means you don’t have to glue the bands, but I will be printing my own and think they will look much sleeker fully printed, no sticker. Loved the boxed mini skeins – will look into doing this at a later date & designing a suitable pattern!

I had a look at some logo creation sites and drafted a few possibilities:

I do like them, but I am very conscious that because they are generic, someone, somewhere is likely to have the same thing, or something very similar. I really like the pink and yellow together – always been a favourite colour combination of mine and it’s bold and will stand out!

I decided as my business is all about the hand made I really needed to make my own logo. I had a couple of ideas – continuous line drawing (to represent the yarn) but this has been done a lot, watercolour painting of a skein of yarn but again this has been done a lot and wouldn’t achieve the bold stand-out logo I am looking for. So I decided on a lino print.

From this I was able to digitise the image and change the colours to the pink and yellow I liked, make it circular and add the Company name and slogan.

I made a note of the yellow and pink codes so that I can keep all my social media and branding consistent. I am happy with it – it’s bright, cheerful and draws attention.