Tomorrow is the first day ‘back at work’ for many people after a Christmas break and New year holiday that seems to have lasted for about a month. Last year, January 2010, it would have been the first day back for me, too. Back to a job I used to do, at one time full-time, then increasingly part-time for 16 years in all (which amazes me – my daughter wasn’t even born when I started working there!), until in October, I left. 2011 is therefore the year in which I have a great opportunity to really focus on what I love best: designing.
Still, it feels odd. Maybe I’ll eventually get used to this feeling. The feeling of…freedom. Yes, but with freedom comes a portion of anxiety, or at least, in my case, coming from a family in which anxiety was an Olympic sport, it does. My beloved dad was, to me, perfect. I loved him totally. And yet, oh my, his anxiety levels were amazing. Every new situation, every plan that was made – let’s not even go to plans that were altered – filled him with a level of concern that must have been unbearable. For example, if he had to go somewhere he’d never driven before, there would be map-searching, note-taking (long hand directions for the passenger to hold, plus a handy note book size reference sheet that he’d Sellotape to the steering wheel. I’m not joking). And then, we’d set off on the Dry Run.
The Dry Run was made a day or so before the Real Run and just as you imagine, it’s a practice. Yes, we’d practice driving to, say, Cheadle, from Flixton in Greater Manchester where we lived. Then the next day, we’d do the Real Run in order to have tea with somebody or other. Later, when we lived in the Midlands, we’d practice driving from Wellingborough to, say, Oxford. Where dad’s sister, my lovely aunty Florence, lived. That soon became a safe run because we did it so often. Until the day They built a new by-pass. Oh dear. A Dry Run was organised.
I grew up loving the Dry Runs because we did them together! I was the instruction holder in the passenger seat of the pale blue Anglia. I was the one who taped the short-hand notes to dad’s steering wheel, I was the one with change for the ‘phone box so we could ring home (‘Don’t answer, Jean, it’ll be me and Al, letting you know we’re 30 minutes from home, let it ring three times. Then put the kettle on 25 minutes later, love’).
Some years later, attending a friend’s wedding in unfamiliar country, and staying over for a few days, I found myself organising a Dry Run to the wedding venue, notes in hand, family bemused, slightly irritated: ‘Mum? aren’t we going here tomorrow?’ ‘Yes, it’s our Dry Run today’. Oh my God, I was turning into dad…
Cutting the cord that attached me to my old – often loved, sometimes hated – job of 16 years, did make me very anxious. I’m coming out of it now. After all, I’ve been having a Dry Run at designing for long enough. I think even my dad would say: ‘Al, off you go, and don’t forget your notes love.’
So, I’m going to show you some of my notes. Like many knitters, I keep a note book in my knitting bag, and this note book is where I make sketches of things I might design, I write down all my references, tensions, I staple in ball-bands, lengths of yarns, small swatches of knitting, photos, entire patterns I’m designing will first of all be written out long-hand in these books. From here, I type them up and add the first typed draft to the note book for modification by me as I work and evolve the design.
Stack of design note books
As I look through my old books, I can hardly recall some of the ideas or swatches, but I can recall the people with whom I worked, or whom I taught (or who taught me). Because I get knitters I meet and work with to write any notes I need, some have added pattern notes, or even in one case, examined a bit of crochet I did but that I could no longer remember anything about (I’m crochet-phobic, but I’m getting help) and she wrote it all out for me, perfect! So the books are better than diaries.
So, these are my maps, they show me where I’ve been, as in this tiny swatch that became a stole in my book:
…and they also show me where I am going, such as this sketch for a new design that I did today:
This will be knitted in Rowan Hand Knit DK Cotton, in Ecru, and I will also use large crystal beads. The baby is due in January (eek) and we know he is a boy, he is the very special Grandson of my friend Hilary, and so I promised Hilary a modern heirloom knit that will also be practical. The design will feature hearts that will be knitted in lace AND beads (may as well start him young!), and also have texture from cables and moss stitch.
I am really looking forward to knitting this and once it’s done and handed over, I’ll prepare it as a kit, too. It will look ‘hard’ but, like all my knitting, it will really be quite easy.
I’ve been planning this in my head on several long cycle rides recently. When my hands or feet are so numb they hurt in the cold (despite eleventy-five layers, yes), I distract myself from the agony by imaginary knitting or planning. That’s what I used to do in meetings too, by the way – what do you do? And that is when I planned this blanket, cycling through the beauty of Somerset’s levels on bitter late December and early January days.
It will be cast on tomorrow, the first day back at work for many people, including me. This is what I do now. I’ve done the dry run, tick; I’ve got a note book, tick; change for the ‘phone box…? Yes dad, I have, thanks.
So, these are my maps, they show me where I’ve been, as in this tiny swatch that became a stole in my book:
…and they also show me where I am going, such as this sketch for a new design that I did today:
This will be knitted in Rowan Hand Knit DK Cotton, in Ecru, and I will also use large crystal beads. The baby is due in January (eek) and we know he is a boy, he is the very special Grandson of my friend Hilary, and so I promised Hilary a modern heirloom knit that will also be practical. The design will feature hearts that will be knitted in lace AND beads (may as well start him young!), and also have texture from cables and moss stitch.
I am really looking forward to knitting this and once it’s done and handed over, I’ll prepare it as a kit, too. It will look ‘hard’ but, like all my knitting, it will really be quite easy.
I’ve been planning this in my head on several long cycle rides recently. When my hands or feet are so numb they hurt in the cold (despite eleventy-five layers, yes), I distract myself from the agony by imaginary knitting or planning. That’s what I used to do in meetings too, by the way – what do you do? And that is when I planned this blanket, cycling through the beauty of Somerset’s levels on bitter late December and early January days.
It will be cast on tomorrow, the first day back at work for many people, including me. This is what I do now. I’ve done the dry run, tick; I’ve got a note book, tick; change for the ‘phone box…? Yes dad, I have, thanks.
My dad used to do dry runs too! Reading this reminded me of when I was little. Love your stack of knitting notebooks by the way!