Jane Ellison Jane Ellison was taught to knit by her mother when she was seven years old. However her key childhood memory is her Grandmother, who would always change a knitting pattern to suit her wants, even something seemingly insignificant such as changing the colour, created a dramatic new look. This instilled in her the belief and excitement that a knitting pattern was something you changed to make into a bespoke garment. She studied Fashion (textiles) specialising in Knitwear at college and is a freelance designer for many of the KFI lines. Her philosophy is she doesn’t ever want to create a difficult knitting pattern. It is important to Jane that knitters should find her patterns straight-forward and enjoy their knitting. To Jane, there are endless possibilities with knitting!
FALL/WINTER 2009
posted October 4, 2009
For this season I have designed three books, Noro Men, The Mirasol Accessories Collection Book 6 and The Mirasol Collection Book 7. There are a couple of first times for this season, my first men’s book for Noro and my first accessory book for Mirasol!
I was very excited to be designing my first men’s book for Noro. I enjoy designing for Noro lovers as well as for those who have yet to discover the joy that is knitting with Noro yarns.
In this collection of hand knits I have continued with the same philosophy I apply for all my books, this is to create patterns with no complicated abbreviations or techniques, just straight forward simple patterns.
This philosophy is particularly perfect for Noro Yarns as the simple garments let the beautiful colours shine through.
Noro is a self striping yarn and I played with this unique striping effect in my designs. I introduced a stripe pattern by using a solid colour like Cash Iroha or Retro with these self striping yarns. The result is a striped garment that mixes the random with the predictable.
In a few of the garments I knitted the same pattern in two different colourways to show how easy it is to choose your own colours or swap around the solid colour and the variegated.
This is one of the reasons why I love Noro Yarns, it's fabulous to see how a relatively small change creates an enormous difference!
I designed the range of the garments to fit from a teenager or young man ( this is the XXS size) up to the larger man (this is the L size). I styled them on a younger model and on an older model, to show how the same garment knitted in different colourways can suit a younger or older male.
(They also suit a female too as I have knitted up Montaro for myself!)
The Mirasol Accessories Collection Book 6 and The Mirasol Collection Book 7:
It's been amazing over the past few months to see the changes at the Mirasol Boarding House. To me building a house and putting in showers is so basic yet it has made such an enormous difference that has involved so many wonderful people, from the ones who physically built it brick by brick to those that brought the yarn.
I have learnt so much from seeing the photographs of the developments and from hearing the stories. It makes me feel very lucky to be involved and I feel my designing is doing something extra special.
My design process for both book 6 and 7 starts by playing with the yarn. I like my stitches to be easy to knit. For beginners there might be tricky moments, but once you have mastered the technique you'll be fine, as Becky, a student who wanted to learn about hand knitting found out. She told me she had only ever knitted and purled once before so the first time she had cabled was when knitting Loro (in book 7), she only asked one or two questions while knitting and successfully completed the hat in a week. I was so proud of how well she knitted, which is photographed in the book.
For Book 6 I limited myself to playing with one hank of yarn to see what I could produce from that extra hank of yarn that might have brought for a knitting project but wasn’t needed and was left wondering what to do with it.
Or maybe someone sees one of the Mirasol Yarns and would like to try it out so buy just one hank. Instead of knitting a tension swatch book 6 gives ideas and patterns to knit something to keep and treasure or give to a loved one as a precious gift.
I've also been talking to many people who would like to knit, either they used to or haven't picked up needles since they were children, but are a little hesitant to start with a garment. The patterns from Book 6 are perfect for them, as they can see a result quicker than a garment and practice all they need to start that first garment project!
After I have played with the yarn and stitch techniques then I think about the shapes of garments or accessories.
For each of the patterns in Book 6 and Book 7 I've included my thoughts on the design to share with the knitter. I like sharing knitting stories and techniques with other knitters. There is something lovely about sitting down with other knitters just chatting and watching different knitting styles. I've tried not to repeat myself with the words 'I love this design' but I do!
One of the reasons is because the yarns keep showing me something new. Like with Miski and Sulka, each shade is made up of many different colours. Every time I knit with them I see a new colour.
The Tupa has a twist that makes the silk shine through. The Qina is a classic favourite. The Hacho has a special fondness with me as it is made with 100% hand dyed merino but feels like cotton.
While the 2 new yarns add even more qualities to the Collection. The K'acha is a roving yarn hand painted in tone to tone colours made up of merino wool, suri alpaca and silk mulberry. While the Akapana is a thick and thin yarn plyed in 2 made of baby llama, merino wool and donegal in natural and multicolour kneps, depending on the shade. For example we used multicolour kneps on Navy Brights and natural kneps on Double Cream.
I hope everyone finds something that they enjoy knitting for themselves, a friend or a loved one!
Spring-Summer 2009
posted June 17, 2009
The Spring/Summer 2009 season saw the launch of my fifth book for the Mirasol Yarn Collection.
FALL/WINTER 2008-9
posted January 23, 2009
For this season I have designed four books, Noro Family, The Queensland Collection Book 9, The Mirasol Collection Book 3, and The Mirasol Children’s Collection Book 4. For me, each one has been a real joy to design for. Here are some of my thoughts of each of my books.
Noro Family: Designing with the Noro yarns is always exciting. It doesn’t matter how many times you knit with a Noro yarn or even if you know the colour sequence, (like Silk Garden 84 I feel I know this sequence very well!) it still surprises and intrigues me.
My current Noro addiction is the Blythe blanket I designed for Noro Family. It uses my new favourite technique, the slip stitch technique, and by using different shades of Noro it introduces me to a whole new love of Noro!
The Noro Family is as the name suggests a collection of designs for women, men and children. It is a combination of garments and accessories, so there is cardigans for a man, woman and a child. Though both the cardigans I designed for the man I would love to wear myself!
I hope that my book changes these thoughts, and whether you are one of the secret male knitters knitting for yourself, or a female knitting with friendship and love for a male relative, friend or spouse I hope you enjoy knitting one of my designs as much as I’ve enjoyed creating this book.
The garments are styled in the book to be fitted, however the sizes I have included range from a 34” to fit a young man or teenager to a 52” to fit the larger man. This means you can knit your chosen garment as styled in the book, to be fitted, or you may knit it to be a looser fit.
The Mirasol Yarn Collection supports the Mirasol Project, where a portion of every purchase is dedicated to the funding of a boarding house in the region of Puno. This season I produced 2 more books for the collection. Mirasol Book 3 is for women, men and children while Mirasol Book 4 is for children only from the age of 1 year old to 18 years old.
Mirasol Book 3: After the first season of the Mirasol Project last year it was overwhelming to see the response to the Mirasol Project from knitters and I was so excited to see how far the building had progressed. In this third book we see photographs of a finished building, which to me is amazing! It is also great that we can see the difference we are all making, just by doing a something we love.
I feel knitting is a very social activity (either visiting your local yarn store or through the internet community), as we can share all our garments and we will always learn something new from another knitter, and through the Mirasol Project it does feel like we are all knitting together.
The inspiration for my designs included the colourful yarns introduced this season, Qina, Tupa and Chirapa. Some of the designs use a technique that slips the stitches to create a finished effect that looks like fairisle or intarsia but actually does not involve any of the complicated techniques associated with colourwork. I love it as it is a very simple and easy technique that create a unique garment using a truly unique yarn.
Mirasol Children’s Collection Book 4: 2008 saw the Grand Opening of the Mirasol Centre. The children and their parents, as well as other guests, celebrated the opening with balloons, cakes and special gifts. It was with this very celebration in mind that I designed this collection of knits for people the same age as those who are benefiting from the project in the Peruvian highlands. The bright colours of the yarns I used evoke those that are central to Andean culture and give the garments the fun feel that any children wearing them will have.
For me, it has been a real treat to design for children. I love the idea of creating a knitted garment for the younger members of the family. They themselves are just as individual as the little persons they are being made for; knitted with love.
As always, my patterns are simple and easy to knit, so are perfect for those who are beginners, perhaps members of the younger generation, who may chose to knit their very first garment from this collection!