"Carnival" hand knitted tra...
The Tangled Palette£75.00
“Sunshine on a rainy day”
Colour inspires me.
I love anything colourful - rainbows (obviously), the ever changing hues of trees throughout the year, the wondrous variety of flowers, the subtle shades seen in the feathers on a pigeon, the sky, clouds, colourful market stalls and every year I am delighted by the first glimpses of golden yellow rapeseed in the spring, then blazing fields of poppies in the summer, the infinite shades of green in the landscape and the depths of blue and turquoise in the sea. I could go on.
....and let me loose in a yarn shop - I'll be there for hours, squishing and drooling, trying to decide, changing my mind when I spot something new, wanting one of everything!
I remember visiting the "wool shop" (as it was colloquially known) with my mam ("mother" to non-northerners) as a child. While she was looking at knitting or crochet patterns (and gossiping to the lady in the shop), I used to occupy myself by looking at the multi coloured yarns on the shelves - that were organised into square cubes - and still recall not only the feel but the particular crinkly sound of the plastic bags in which the new balls were stored.
If only my mam could see me now - she would be stunned! She tried several times to teach me to knit but I just couldn't. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I realised I COULD knit, I just couldn't knit the way that my mam did. I still don't know how she could knit the way she did (although I know that others do it like this too); she used to have the needles tucked under her arms - just weird, mam! I eventually taught myself, with the help of the Reader's Digest Book of Needlecrafts - no Google or YouTube back then.
Scoot on a few years, I have a small daughter, a BA in Art and English and a cat. Knitting is definitely something on the back burner although an encounter with the artist and designer, Kaffe Fassett taught me that this humble pursuit does not have to be boring; in fact, I think seeing the way he worked revolutionised my knitting practise.
However, life was taking over - work and family life meant that I found it impossible to be creative as well, although I made up for it on the interior decorating front. Not until I was diagnosed with MS (multiple sclerosis) in 2008, when I finished paid employment, was I able return to creating. Even then, it has been a very long and very winding road that has led me to delicately plant the seeds of The Tangled Palette. I have worked and exhibited as a painter and portrait artist (mainly in coloured pencils) but always knitting in the background.
THEN.......and here comes the biggy....... September 2023, my partner of almost fifteen years was diagnosed with an inoperable pancreatic tumour; at the same time, I contracted the dreaded covid which, in turn, brought on a nasty MS relapse that put me in hospital for a week. 2024 was a Leap Year and keeping with tradition, I proposed to my Alan on 29th February. We were married on 16th April and five weeks later, I was widowed. I have to say all of this miserable stuff to give context to my current position; this is why I previously said that the road to this point has been a long and arduous one really. For the first three months after Al died, I couldn't function very much at all - eating, dressing, simple things were all enormous, often impossible tasks and the subsequent months have been a very bumpy ride.
But now it's 2026 (which will probably fly by) and although I haven't drawn or painted for two years, it was knitting that I returned to first, a few months ago. At the turn of the new year, I realised that it's yarn - colours, textures and creating with them that motivates me. I don't know why it's taken me so long to arrive at this realisation? Maybe I knew before but thought it had to be supressed as a "hobby". This is more than a hobby - it's a way of life!
So The Tangled Palette was born.
Watch this space, as they say.
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