Planning ahead for spring making, a finished shawl and a false start

As a maker of objects and garments, I try to embrace an intentional approach to dressing. I value quality over quantity, and I am inspired by the timeless elegance of simplicity and by natural materials that age well. My ultimate goal is to have a few things that I love immensely and wear a lot.

If I'm making something new, I want to make sure I will use it, that I will love it, but in reality that's not as easy as it sounds. There's often a tension between what I feel like making and what I feel like wearing. I like to knit with colourful yarn, and frequently crave to knit in colours that don't suit me well.

So I want to think more before I start making something. And find a way to bridge what I love to wear with what my hands want to make. To make sure that if I make something new, it will match with what I already have.

What I am making

I finally finished my Satellite shawl. It's huge, it's soft and so lovely.

I like patterns where I can understand what I am doing well enough to not need to consult the pattern every ten minutes. If I understand the recipe and don't need to consult the pattern at all, like this shawl, it's even better.

On the other extreme of this shawl was casting on the Utopia pullover by Elena Solier Jansà. This pattern has you do lace, cables and short rows at the same time. It's genius, but it took me hours to understand what I was doing, and I made too many mistakes, so I frogged it. I will return to it one day.

The most difficult part was not understanding the lace pattern repeat and having to follow one row of the chart for the front and a different row for the back. It was hard for me to keep my place, know where I was in the project, and check that I had the right number of stitches on.

Book of the week

Everyday Patterns by Lotta Jansdotter

Lotta Jansdotter is a designer, artist, author, and teacher. She wrote numerous books on lifestyle, travel, and sewing, she collaborates with various brands, furniture designers, museums, and makers.

There are many things that make this book interesting to me: the idea that you can make seven pieces of clothing that could be part of a capsule wardrobe, the simplicity of the designs, the way they encourage you to make your own decisions. I also like the hand-drawn sketches, the beautiful models in the book, who happen to be the author's friends and family members, and the interviews with them on their personal style. It's such a lovely idea.

May your days be filled with mindful moments. Until next time, be present.

Sky