Knitting Journal - 2019

​In 2019, I decided to explore texture & colour in my knitting, recording this through a journal whilst being inspired by my home in the English countryside and the places that I have visited.

January 2019
​January is inspired by where I grew up, Oxford. My early life was based in the centre of the city; school, ballet, piano lessons, and clubs. From the age of 9 years, I was travelling on my own into 'town' and as I grew older, I would stop off to buy wool each week in between changing buses on my way home from school. In the 1980s, you could buy a ball of craft wool for 15p from Woolworths. I now live 30 minutes away in a beautiful, quaint market town, but Oxford will always be my home.

On one of my many visits to Oxford, whilst stepping out of Blackwell's bookshop, I took a photograph of the ‘Sheldonian Theatre’. I changed the photograph into a kaleidoscope image and used the colours camel, brown, blue, and grey in the sample.

I used ‘Basket Ribbed Stitch’ and 'Texture Tweed Stitch' in the sample. 

​February 2019
​February is inspired by a holiday taken in August 2018. My family visited 'The Jane Austen Museum' and 'Chawton House', in Chawton, Alton, Hampshire, England. Whilst I visited the museum and house, my husband went for a walk with our little dog through Chawton Woods. The house was owned by Edward Austen, and it is thought Jane Austen sat by the window and wrote her novels there. With this in mind, I decided to make this view into a sample.

The colours in the sample are: Black, Forest Green, Sea Green, and Tortilla Brown. The black represents the window panes, green is for the lawn and trees, and brown is for 'Chawton Church' & the stone driveway.
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​I used 'Garter Slip Stitch' in this sample. 

​March 2019
​March is inspired by a day visit in May 2018 to 'Hughenden Manor', Buckinghamshire, England. My family and I explored the house and gardens before sitting and eating our picnic overlooking the valley and church. 
Hughenden is owned by The National Trust and described as a red brick Victorian mansion, which was owned by the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, during the 1800s.

The colours in the sample are: Green, Pink, Yellow, and Coral. I wanted to depict not just the red brick of the mansion and church, but also incorporate the flowers seen in the walled garden and valley.

​I used 'Knot Stitch' in this sample. 

​April 2019
​April is inspired by an Easter Sunday visit in April 2019 to Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, England. My family and I walked around the gardens and through the forest walks with our little dog, enjoying the warmth of spring. It was a bright day, with a clear blue sky and a perfect ice cream day. Waddesdon Manor was owned by the Rothschild family until it was bequeathed in 1957 to The National Trust.

I wanted to incorporate the three dominant colours of blue, grey & green from the photographs taken and chose the ‘Garter Drop Stitch’ for the sample. The garter stitch represents the green shrubbery, and the dropped stitches were knitted in alternate rows of blue and grey to represent the house brick and blue sky. The colours in the sample are: Sage, Green, Cloud Grey, and Cerulean Blue.

​May 2019
​May is inspired by a holiday in May 2019 to Sandringham Royal Country Park, Norfolk, England. My husband and I, plus our little rescue dog Bella, love visiting Norfolk in the summer each year. Bella enjoys walking around the park and just enjoys sniffing everything. On this visit, the leaves and the ferns were only just starting to grow, but there is so much to see as the park comes to life. Sandringham is owned by HRH Queen Elizabeth II and has been in the family since 1862. The family traditionally spends Christmas at Sandringham.

In this sample, I wanted to incorporate the three dominant colours of the trees and ferns. The colours in the sample are: Brown, Green, and Orange.

I used 'Speckled Rib Stitch' in this sample and feel the combination of long stitches and bobble stitches gives the impression of the trees and country park floor.

​June 2019
​June is inspired by a day trip to Coughton Court, Alcester, Warwickshire, England. Inside the house, there are beautiful stained glass windows, and the colours are especially vibrant when the sun is shining through the windows. There are a couple of seats by the windows, so my daughter and I spent quite a while looking at the details in the stained glass. 

I used the basket of fruit and leaves motifs from the stained glass photograph to make a kaleidoscope pattern. I was delighted with the finished pattern, which highlights the detail in the stained glass window. In this sample, I wanted to incorporate the three dominant colours of the kaleidoscope photograph. The colours in the sample are: Brown, Yellow, and White.

I used 'Stocking Stitch Triangle Stitch', as I think the combination of garter stitch and stocking stitch gives texture for the fruit and leaves in the bowl.

​July 2019
​July is inspired by the wheat fields in a village where my family has lived for centuries. The parish registers started in 1538; my ancestors are on the first page. This beautiful village is called Deddington, in Oxfordshire, England, where my family still lives, and it is where I have run my ballet school for the last 21 years.

I created a kaleidoscope pattern from the photograph of the wheat, and a beautiful, detailed pattern emerged. This detail enabled me to identify the colours needed to make the sample: Brown, Light Brown, Cream, and Green.

In this sample, I wanted rows of untextured stocking stitch with a few added flecks of colours to reflect the shapes on the wheat stems. This was created using 'Dot Stitch' in the sample.

August 2019
​August is inspired by a day trip to the Canal Museum, Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire, England. The Canal Museum is situated on the Grand Union Canal.

I love traditional canal folk art, so I wanted to create a sample that represented the bright colours and brush strokes used in the patterns and motifs of this art form. In this sample, I wanted round textures in the knitted square to represent flowers, so I chose to knit 'Double Moss Stitch'.

The colours in this sample are: Red, Green, Yellow, and Pink.

​September 2019
​September is inspired by the butterflies from my garden in September. One warm Sunday afternoon, a large number of butterflies arrived and landed on a large shrub with gorgeous purple flowers. There were so many butterflies that my daughter and I had time to take lots of close-up photographs. The butterflies visited us for about a week and were mostly Tortoise Shell butterflies.

From one of the photographs, I made a kaleidoscope and based my colour choice on the finished image. The colours in the sample are: Purple, Orange, Brown, and White. In this sample, I wanted to depict the spots of the butterfly wings & the purple from the flowers.

​I used 'Box Stitch' in this sample. 

​October 2019
​October is inspired by a day trip to the open-air Avoncroft Museum of Buildings, Worcestershire, England. What a wonderful day we had with our little dog and a picnic. The buildings are all original, relocated, and rebuilt in the museum grounds.

I was really taken with the Victorian chimneys. The brickwork pattern around the chimney is ornate and textural, so I wanted to create a sample with this in mind. I wanted to show the diagonal pattern of the chimneys, so I knitted a sample in 'Diagonal Garter Stitch'.

The colours used in this sample are: Candy Red and Grey.

November 2019
​November is inspired by a day trip in August 2019 to Waterperry Gardens in Oxfordshire, England. My daughter and I had a wonderful morning viewing the gardens and seeing the many plants and their colours. It was a very, very hot day, so all the colours were vibrant, but I had to sit under the covered arch for quite a while to keep cool, as I'm not good with heat...

I put together a collage of the main colours that I wanted to use in this sample and made a kaleidoscope of this to use as a base for my design. The colours in the sample are: Blue, Green, Pink, and Lilac.

I used 'Fleck Stitch' in this sample. 

December 2019
​December is inspired by a day trip to Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is a great place to have long walks, or in the summer to have a picnic. I took photos during the Autumn of 2019 and was lucky to have a bright blue sky with orange, red & brown autumnal leaves all around the park. I made a kaleidoscope pattern and based my colours around this image.

The colours in the sample are: Blue, Light Blue, Orange, and Camel.

I used 'Moss Stitch' in this sample using alternate colours for each row.

This concludes my Knitting Journal - 2019
​Jo x

​©Joanna Cox Marshall ​