Foglie Nascoste - Colour Moves

Good morning everyone! Today is a big day for me as my first knitting book Colour Moves has just been launched and you can preorder it here! Colour Moves is the first title to be published under Kate Davies Designs’ not-for-profit Make // Mark imprint. Together with the book launch, I am introducing Foglie Nascoste the first pattern of Colour Moves collection!

©Tom Barr

I am an Italian/British wall painting and stone conservator who has always been attracted by art, colour, textiles and crafts in general, as well as by photography and maths. I've found this broad combination of interests to be very useful in my work, as well as in my knitting, which I've always found absorbing, since being a young child who was completely fascinated by how a single thread could become a complete garment. When I was 7, I asked my mum to teach me, and she did so in the English "throwing" style. From the beginning, I loved the idea of creating textiles to exactly suit one's taste, and knitting has been my go-to hobby throughout my life.

I moved to the UK in 2008, and feel very lucky that my conservation work has allowed me to connect so meaningfully with Britain's rich cultural heritage, and collaborate with so many wonderful and welcoming institutions. Working at places like William Morris's Red House in Bexleyheath has allowed me to develop a deep understanding of the important history of British applied arts, as well as their links to Italian decorative traditions, which always feel familiar and close to me. I love walking, and though I enjoy city life, I find the rural landscapes of England, Wales and Scotland very inspiring. I've broadened my horizons in so many different ways since moving to the UK, and the landscape of my knitting has greatly expanded too! Through English books, the internet, my local knitting club, and personal friends, I have gradually become a designer of patterns whose knitting brain now "thinks" in English. I'm proud of my bi-lingual, bi-cultural perspective, which is a unique part of who I am as a person, and as a hand-knit designer too.

Since I was very young, I've drawn huge amounts of inspiration from the decorative arts, and have always loved ancient geometric mosaics and Medieval wall painting in particular. I find many areas of confluence between figurative art and textile design, and often draw on such connections in my knitting, where I'm particularly inspired by repetitive, graphic patterns and motifs.

Like many visual people, I often find that I "think" in pattern, and I'm continually fascinated by the bold and playful effects that can be achieved by the rhythmic repetition of simple, graphic motifs.

Graphic patterns, repetitive motifs, and simple shapes tend to provide the conceptual "frame" of my design work, but it is always colour that makes my patterns spring to life, and develop their own particular vitality. Patterns and motifs create the rhythm of my work, but truly - colour makes it move! You'll hopefully see this vital interplay between pattern and colour in many designs in this collection, but it's perhaps easiest to perceive in the Foglie Nascoste (Hidden Leaves) tam and gloves. Here, simply experimenting with the "foreground" and "background" shades I'd used to define a familiar floral motif allowed a completely different pattern to appear. With a simple shift in colour, from behind the flowers emerged the hidden leaves. 

©Tom Barr

The name of my collection -  Colour Moves -  is intended to capture that doubled-sense of rhythm and feeling, motion and emotion that I often experience when working with pattern. I hope this is something that those who knit my designs are able to feel as well.

©Tom Barr

So how did I happen to create the Colour Moves collection? Well, I've been developing and self-publishing my own patterns in a rather ad-hoc fashion since 2015. Then, at the start of 2019, I decided to take part in KDD's annual competition, in which designers were invited to submit pattern ideas for gloves, mitts and mittens. One of my submissions -- Blue Interference - was then chosen by Kate Davies and Jeanette Sloan to be published in their Warm Hands collection: a beautiful book of patterns created by talented designers from many different backgrounds all over the world. I felt really encouraged by having my work selected, and the experience of developing a pattern for Warm Hands helped me to gain confidence in my work, pushing me to experiment with design ideas, to give shape to several concepts I'd had stored in my mind for a long time, and to generate bold ideas for new patterns to take forward. The response of my fellow knitters in the Warm Hands competition and KDD Ravelry group was very enabling and positive, and a personal conversation with Kate finally encouraged me to take the first steps, with her help, towards publishing my own collection of original accessory designs.

When Kate explained to me the purpose of Make / Mark  - a scheme to support the development and publication of the work of new and emerging creative talent - I felt very excited and extremely honoured to be the first designer whose work would appear under this new imprint. But that initial excitement was nothing compared to the deeply rewarding process of seeing my book take shape over the weeks and months that followed, with the support of Kate and her wonderful team. I've knitted many different samples; I've learned how to work to a style template and develop charts that are easy to read and follow. I've considered aspects of pattern and book design I'd never thought about before, such as how a glove eventually gets to fit on a printed page, and what kinds of images and information might be necessary to support a set of clear instructions.

I can’t thank enough all the people that have supported me in various ways during the preparation of this book. First of all to Kate for whom I feel great admiration; to Melanie Patton, who always handles my many yarn shipments with kind efficiency; to Tom Barr, for his wonderful photographic and graphic design skills; to Sam Kilday, for his help in the studio and with styling, to KDD's fantastic models, Jane Hunter (who you can admire here wearing the Foglie Nascoste set) and Fenella Pole (in Colour Moves cover), and to technical editor Frauke Urban, with whom it is always a pleasure to work.

A big thank you also to Claire Leach for moderating and managing the KDD&co forum on Ravelry!

And finally, I would like to thank my all family and friends that have encouraged me throughout the process. In particular, I must express warm gratitude to my mum, to whom I am dedicating this book, not merely to fulfil a familiar Italian stereotype, but because she has always been (and remains) my biggest fan and supporter throughout my life. Thank you, mum.

In Colour Moves collection you'll find 17 individual accessory designs, in two beautiful (and very different) KDD yarns: fingering-weight Milarrochy Tweed and Aran-weight Àrd-Thìr. 

I've loved developing the Colour Moves collection and my final wish is for these patterns to bring joy to you and many other knitters!

Thank you

Claudia

Yarn notes

Fingering woollen yarn, 100m / 109yds per 25g, WPI = 14, in seven shades.

Yarn used for the sample: Kate Davies Designs Milarrochy Tweed (70% Wool; 30% Mohair; 100m / 109yds per 25g ball). For tam: Stockiemuir (26gr), Garth (9gr), Buckthorn (3gr), Tarbet (3gr), Ardlui (3gr), Gloamin’ (3gr). For mitts: Stockiemuir (17gr), Garth (8gr), Buckthorn (4gr), Tarbet (4gr), Ardlui (4gr), Gloamin’ (4gr).

Colour Moves is on Ravelry too.