John Arbon's woolen quest

Newtown House: Can you tell us how you got started in yarn and fibre?

John Arbon: Ohhhh, well, it originally started way back in the early 80’s when I studied print at the LCP (London College of Printing) and learnt about silk-screen printing on textiles. Later in life I set up a T-shirt printing company called Shirt State, printing band and festival T-shirts, etc. Got to the point where I wanted to know more about the textile I was printing rather than the actual printing. So I enrolled at DMU, or Leicester Poly as it was, and studied a degree in Textiles & Apparel and specialised in spinning and knitting. I then went on to start a Masters at Nottingham Trent University but only got as far as PGDip in Textiles & Fashion. I then went on to work in the knit industry in Leicester before quitting it all and followed a pipe dream of starting a textile business in the South West utilising alpaca fibre.

John at work

NH: We know that you, John, have been responsible for restoring the Mill's machinery, with much of it salvaged from other mills that had closed down. How many pieces of equipment have you restored to their full glory? Are there any more waiting in the wings? Do you have a favourite?

JA: Well, we have worked on about 8 -10 machines over the years to get them running — wouldn’t say full glory, more like running fine and looking a bit tatty! One day we will give them all a lick of paint and they will return to their full glory! Favourite-wise I love Butler, the sample ring spinner — it’s a thing of beauty and totally bulletproof. This machine will spin for another 50 years at least — built in 1968, which makes me older than Butler! Last machine I revamped was Piglet, our mini-skein winder. Quite proud of the way that one turned out, so it is time for me to revamp Gillian, our 120-year-old skein winder. 

NH: Tell us why it's been so important for you to ensure skills and equipment are maintained, and even revived? 

JA: The industry is becoming more and more generic with large machinery spinning large volumes of craft yarn, and consequently we tend to see the same old yarns and blends doing the circuit, albeit in different and interesting dye combinations. With our old small-volume machinery and gentle, slower production we are able to offer diversity, quality and a real love and understanding of what we produce. It is vital we pass these skills on, and the knowledge of fibre and its behaviour, so that for future generations we can continue to produce bespoke quality craft yarns.

NH: What's it like walking into the Mill each day and firing up the machines you've carefully restored?

JA: Once you’ve done it  a thousand times it becomes automatic, although there is always a bit of anxiety if a new noise suddenly occurs — a slight knocking or buzzing — but to hear those machines hum in harmony and whirl out the fantastic yarn is always special. The weirdest bit is when everything is switched off, and then there is this deafening silence!

NH: What's been the hardest thing about this, and what has been the greatest reward?

JA: Hardest thing …..too many over the years, but big ones have been putting machines together from a pile of components when you have never see the machine built — somewhat daunting. Breaking machines down and literally humping solid steel and cast down flights of stairs in old mills. Being told not to bother, and you’re wasting your time to have nothing but a few quid in the back and a dream that one day it will all work. Not much change there, then!

NH: What's the highlight of the last 20 years - if you can name one? 

JA: Getting this far without a breakdown and retaining all my fingers! Seriously, seeing like-minded people in the Mill team get involved and sharing mine and Juliet’s vision and passion but also seeing them take it to new levels beyond what we could do. Things are always growing and evolving, and we couldn’t do that without our team.

NH: What's ahead for the next 20 years?

JA: More please! More fantastic yarns, new blends, new breeds, exciting new colour combos, more patterns, new techniques creating new interesting and diverse yarns…..watch out, here we come!

Inspirations from vintage vinyl for Yarnadelic

NH: Anything else you’d like to add?

JA: I would just say this: There is nothing special about what me and Juliet have done. All it takes is the desire and will to do something you are passionate about and tried your damndest to do it well with style. To that end it would be great to see other such mills in the UK doing similar to what we have done rather than importing yarn into the UK. Let’s face it, we have a lot of sheep and a lot of yarn crafters here, plus we should be exporting unique yarns, not importing! 

Photos courtesy John Arbon Textiles

Cassandra Harada: A true thread person

Cassie in one of her own designs

Cassandra Harada is an American living in Tokyo, and it’s no stretch to say she can turn her hand to anything.

We first stumbled across Cassie on Instagram, where her profile caught our eye for its brevity and mingling of pursuits that sounded very, ah, familiar. “Knitter, Tailor, baker, Tri. 糸人です。A tiny champion for the world of handcraft, and mediocre athleticism.” (糸人です roughly translates into “I’m a thread person.”) Among the many things we adore about Cassie, this is one.

A triathlete who has a wool business, knits gorgeous sweaters at an amazing rate, lives in Japan, is learning bespoke tailoring under Japanese masters and bakes with earnestness on the regular? I had to know more. (Full disclosure: I used to compete in long-course triathlon, promoted those triathlons and finished my journalism career editing a multisport magazine.)

I shamelessly reached out to Cassie and our friendly online connection grew into a business one. And now we are so delighted to say that we have a small import quantity of glorious Harada Wool to offer to our customers, saving you the international freight from Japan and helping spread the joy of small-batch wool to this corner of the world. 

Of course we had to put together an interview with Cassie, who was as delightful as ever.

The Grey Fox Fair Isle project

Read on, and then please do give her a follow on Instagram at @cassandra_harada and check out her website at haradawool.com. While you’re wandering the interwebs, you can also read all about her collaboration with David Evans, also known as the Grey Fox (@greyfoxblog) on Instagram, on a gorgeous Fair Isle sweater she designed and knit for him in Jamieson’s Shetland wool (@jamiesonsofshetland), then sent across the world to him in the UK. (Spoiler: Of course it fit perfectly!!) She’s also working with Brycelands, a Tokyo and Hong Kong based menswear company that is selling some of her hand knits and sharing her guidance on looking after your woolens - check out her darning and woolen washing tutorials here.

Newtown House: Tell us a little bit about your background - where you grew up, how you learned to knit and sew, how you got into multisport…!

CH: The best way to describe where I come from is to mention the name “Tom Sawyer”. I was raised in a farm town (although my family weren't farmers at the time) in west central Illinois along the Mississippi River. My mother embodies “American frontier optimism” in that if she wants something, she does it or makes it herself. I grew up watching her, especially when she did “making jobs” for extra money. I remember that my mother wanted to start sewing so we could make some things to sell. We didn't have a sewing machine but we'd borrowed one from a friend and she taught me how to sew straight lines so I could help make hair scrunchies. I have always been interested in handcraft though, starting in elementary school with beadwork and chain stitch crochet. I was always making something!   

Tri prep

On multisport: I was never a very sporty kid or interested in athletics at all, but suddenly at 34 my switch flipped, I guess? I tend to do things to the extreme. "Just a little" isn't really in my vernacular. I started running about five years ago, and Ironman seemed like a logical conclusion! I'd always admired cyclists, and swam a little as a child. I don't know what my immediate future of racing looks like as almost everything for this year has already been cancelled, but I hope I'll get to attend an event again sometime soon.   

NH: And can you give us an idea of your journey into and through the fibre world - was wool, knitting and yarn production always a part of your family life? 

CH: I started knitting my first year at university. I remember going to a craft store and picking up a $10 "Learn how to knit" kit as a way to "rebel" against my grandmother who swore crochet was the better of the two crafts. I'm not sure why that sparked my rebellion, but I've never really second-guessed my reaction. She still makes the occasional rude comment!   

When I was 19 I was walking through a handcraft fair at my university. I saw a man sitting at a spinning wheel with a pile of wool in his lap…he took the tufts of fluff and magically turned them into string. I remember being SO taken aback by that and immediately scraped together every penny I could find to buy a used wheel. I imported it from Australia, waited every day at the door in disappointment while the postman rumbled past the house. I clearly remember the joy I felt at ripping that box open and watching the wheel spin the first time...after some serious assembly of course. It's a wobbly old wheel but learning on that monstrosity made spinning later in life so very much easier. While I was doing that I also started reading books about sock knitting and producing garter stitch scarves that sometimes randomly turned into stockinette stitch scarves, or got wider and narrower at various points. It was a fun point in my career. I was in art school then, and knitting was just something I did in the hallways while I waited for class to start. I loved the way it felt to build row by row, though.   

Fast-forward a couple years and a baby, and I picked my “hobby” back up, and added an Ashford Joy. As my daughter grew up, my urge to make became more difficult to ignore and I started designing some knitwear patterns for a Chinese yarn company between parenting moments.

My parents bought a 33-acre patch of land in my hometown and they started talking about a possible pasture. They knew I loved wool, so they said “Hey, let’s get some sheep!" I was never really sold on the idea until we went and picked them up. I spent a good amount of time talking with the breeder and became very excited by what she was doing with the wool she produced. I was scared we wouldn't be able to keep the parasites away, and absolutely terrified at the prospect of losing any to disease or injury, but the breeder was pretty supportive and my parents had really done their homework. It feels natural now, and I think my parents really enjoy keeping them. It's really difficult to find good shearers, but we figure it out. When I met my friend Christie, I was taken with her mohair goats and remembered seeing English sock yarn with added mohair for strength instead of nylon. It seemed like fate. Epic Sock seemed like the perfect culmination of our friendship and our love for fibre.    

NH: What brought you to Japan? And can you tell us how Harada Wool got started? 

CH: I moved to Japan six months after I graduated university because as an art major I remember my professors saying, “You cannot make art without life experience to draw on.” I had always wanted to travel, so I took the opportunity to go the moment I was offered a job at a Tokyo language school.  It was easy work and I had all the time in the world to explore, and grow up.  

 On how I decided to make Cormo yarn: About a decade into my knitting career I came across a yarn called “Elsa Wool”. I ordered a couple of hanks because I'd heard it was good. When it came in the mail I immediately thought, ”What is this magic????” and started reading and researching a little more about the Cormo sheep breed. Elsa has been raising and working in Cormo since the ‘70s, but she is one of the only large-scale producers I know of. As it turns out, half the magic was in the spinning (at Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mill).  

When my dad asked me what kind of sheep I might like to have on the farm in Illinois I immediately shouted that he MUST find some Cormos, and it seemed to me the only breed worth raising, as the yarn is quite rare. We figured out pretty quickly why that is, and we're still smoothing out lots of bumps in the road as we produce yearly.  

NH: Tailoring is another love of yours - what prompted your interest? Can you tell us a bit about what that study is like? What are your favourite garments to make?

CH: Tailoring is another opportunity to work with wool. Wool cloth is similar to yarn in lots of ways. Woolen-spun cloth, worsted-spun cloth, you can feel the life of the animals it came from in different ways. I love doing iron work and building beautiful garments out of all of my favourite sheep breeds.

“Tailored garments are like superhero capes,” says Cassie

The other thing that really draws me to tailoring is that tailored garments are like superhero capes. When a man or a woman puts on a well-tailored suit they are automatically more confident. There's nothing better than seeing a person smile when they look in the mirror after they've just put on their new suit. I love being part of that! I also love making clothes for other immigrants here that can't find clothes to fit them in the regular shops. There's absolutely nothing better than taking away the stigma of size and making a person feel whole when they slide on trousers that actually fit them. Every person deserves that. Helping people feel good about themselves is what makes all of the ugly parts of life worth it.   

NH: What's the woolly life like in Tokyo? For us at a distance, it looks like Tokyo’s climate has plenty of heat but also proper winter ... this suggests you can keep the knitting going year round, from wooly wools to linen and cotton. What trends do you see in knitting and knitwear design in Tokyo?

CH: Knitting in Japan is great! The heat is usually relegated to the month of August so knitting year-round is certainly a possibility! (I knit year-round anyway!). In Japan I see mostly oversized sweaters and simple boxy shapes. They don't look great on me, but If I see a stitch pattern I like I can usually modify it into a shape that suits me. My first couple of years as a shop owner, Ravelry exploded and knitting in English became very trendy. I think most Japanese knitters can now read the basics of English patterns without too much stress. Those linens and cottons that you speak of though, I know nothing of those! (wink, wink!)

NH: You've also got substantial experience in translating Japanese knitting and crochet designs and books into English. What are some fundamental differences in how knitting and crochet patterns are presented in Japanese charts that Western knitters could benefit from understanding? 

CH: In 2015 or so I met Gayle Roehm. She's the real master on this topic but I'll give this a go. Japanese knitting and crochet patterns are mostly visual.  As a veteran craftsperson whose hands understand what to do, I really appreciate this but I know many people prefer written patterns.   I love big charts and schematics rather than being glued to long strings of text. I think that might be because at 38, my eyes are starting to go! My favourite thing about Japanese charts is how simple they are. Even more difficult patterning is simplified down to keep fields of reverse stockinette or stockinette clean so the areas that need visual attention are obvious. When you're knitting a Japanese pattern, look for the two or three keys scattered around a schematic that will tell you what sort of field you're working on (if you're making cables or lace) so you can just get on with the actual ornamental bits.  

NH: Tell us about your favourite uses for a skein or two of Harada Wool. What are the highlight properties of this special yarn for you?

CH: Cormo is soft. I think it makes good anything really, but especially socks, shawls, and lightweight sweaters. Last year I knitted "Poplar" by Ayano Tanaka in Harada Wool, and it turned out beautifully. I like that this yarn is sock weight as you can knit it densely for a more utilitarian garment but because of the mohair halo, you can also knit it at a bit lower gauge and get a light fabric great for sweaters.   

NH: You and I have talked a lot about our shared love of sheepy wools, in particular Shetland wools that are so perfect for colourwork and long-wearing garments. What draws you to these yarns, and do you have a favourite style of knitting or design approach for these yarns?

CH: I've been asked my “why” a lot lately. I'm not sure what draws me to the sheepier wools, aside from the fact that I get really bored with “soft”. I also love the fact that the sheep understand the climate much better than we do. Because hardwools are mostly from more humid places, their wool is great for wicking and keeping dry. I often feel a bit soggy in a soft wool sweater during rainy season, but hard wool is like a rain coat. It's a great layer of protection! Ultimately my favourite thing to knit in Shetland is traditional drop-sleeve fairisle. Perhaps I'm boring but I tend to stick to the basics!  

NH: What has kept you going through the pandemic? 

CH: This is a great question. I've been thinking about this a lot lately and I'd have to say that I am at a large crossroads in my life that happens to coincide with this horrible world pandemic. I'm trying to make smart decisions that will keep my life interesting. Peeking around the next corner and wondering where I'll be in five years if I keep working really hard is probably what has carried me through. We haven't had a ton of serious “lockdown” though, so It's been easier to muddle through than in other countries. I'd say most of what keeps me going though is focusing on gratitude. I have so very much to be grateful for!

NH: We're guessing that it has been very challenging to keep Harada Wool going from a distance during the pandemic. If you're willing to share some of those, I think people could benefit from hearing about the challenges so they can get an idea of what the last year or so has been like for so many yarn producers. 

CH: Hmm, it's such a low-volume business, but I'd say the thing that keeps it going well is keeping the story alive. I'm so lucky to have a large following of lovely people who are interested in small-batch, quality products. Also, I've been lucky enough to befriend some really talented designers that help me sell the yarn with their beautiful work.   

NH: Here's a question that might be difficult for one of the busiest, most creative people we know: What's next for you? 

CH: Goodness, I have so much lined up for the next year. I'm selling some of my knit work in a really gorgeous menswear store that has branches in both Tokyo and Hong Kong.   

Since our yarn was delayed this year due to the pandemic, we've decided to make cloth with our next shearing! I'm very excited about that!

In the in-between I'll keep tailoring and knitting as much I can!

All photos courtesy Cassandra Harada

Cassie and wooly friend

Miss Click Clack: Building a life around colour and texture

Kelly O’Day - aka Miss Click Clack - in Melbourne black

We were first drawn to Miss Click Clack / Kelly O’Day’s beautiful yarn in part by her gorgeous, moody blacks and dark tones which to us evoke Melbourne’s dark laneways, changeable weather (like Wellington!) and chic fashionistas. If Sydney is sparkle and white, Melbourne is cool and black. At least that’s how it seems to us from a distance! But digging into the story of Miss Click Clack was even more fascinating – as her Instagram profile tells us, she had cancer twice. Her relentlessly positive attitude, her amazing photography from wild spots around the world and around Australia and her (naturally) lovely handknits (and oh, the socks) compelled us to write to her to learn more. She kindly obliged with the interview below.

NEWTOWN HOUSE: Please tell us how you got started yarn wrangling / dyeing / knitting ... and what was the work you were doing before you started working with wool?

Precocious and clever crafting: Fibre love started early for Kelly O’Day.

KELLY O’DAY: Craft insinuated itself into my life at an early age. When I was a pre-schooler a sewing kit was offered to me by way of a bribe if I’d cut my hair for school. I succumbed to the lure, but yarn was already my jam. I’d learnt to knit at four, and in prep (my first year of school) I completely rocked (over same haircut) an apricot pixie hat I’d made from a stockinette rectangle folded and seamed on one edge, affixed by a couple of garter stitch straps. Then when I was seven my mum learnt to crochet, and she taught me. I liked it. A lot. In Year 5 I crocheted myself so many garments (seven) that my teacher asked if I’d make something for her. But my dad, protective of his prodigious spawn, said no. These days we would have seen the opportunity – he’d have been be my agent, contracts would’ve been drawn replete with IP clauses and stipulations of hefty remuneration, I’d have had my own tweeny podcast, and, of course, there’d be those segments on daytime TV where I’d have looked completely darling in some groovy, self-crafted ‘70s ensemble, still sporting most of my milk teeth. But being the parents of a craftily precocious child also had its downside. At ten, in true enfant terrible style, I threw my first hissy fit because I had to settle for a ‘lesser’ pure wool yarn than the ‘superior’ one I wanted for a granny square tank-top. I’d become a yarn snob. The template for adult life had been set. 

Yarn and I hung out right through high school and right through uni. When I set off to work at a cytogenetics lab in a large teaching hospital my knitting bag jumped into the car and rode shotgun.

The foray into crafty retail came late in my working career. I was knitting during work breaks and one day realised that I had a stupid number of hand-knitted accessories lying idle. So I started side-hustling under the brand ‘Miss Click Clack’. Things took off and I sold hundreds and hundreds of my Smith Street Beret (sounds kind of OCD now that I put that in print…). It was always fun to cruise up and down Smith Street Collingwood, or Brunswick Street Fitzroy (two happening precincts) and count them off, and secretly snap the occasional photo (sounds kind of creepy now that I put that in print…). I wanted to make berets in colours I couldn’t find so yarn dyeing seemed the logical next step. I’d also started buying hand-dyed sock yarn which had awakened something big in me. Lightbulb big. Epiphany big. I want-to-do-it-too big. I began to dabble, but was curtailed from running with it while working, so there was a hiatus of several years before ‘Miss Click Clack Yarn Dyer’ hit the retail scene in a meaningful way.

NH: Where did you get the idea for Miss Click Clack, and how challenging was it for you starting out? And where did you get the name Miss Click Clack?

Miss Click Clack’s moody beauties

KO: I appropriated part of the ‘Miss Click Clack’ name from a knitting ad that used to be on the telly a million years ago. It had a breathy, onomatopoeic ‘click clack’ voiceover which, over the years, would pop in and out of my consciousness until I eventually robbed it and became ‘Miss Click Clack’. It was only after I quit my job following a cancer diagnosis that Miss Click Clack took a jump to the right and morphed into the yarn dyer that most of you are familiar with. Yarn dyeing was supposed to be a ‘gentle hobby that paid for itself’ while I considered my new post-cancer life and I set modest production targets. But after some early attention on social media things went BANG so I cranked things up, dyeing on my kitchen stove full time between meals. I think I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time with a product that filled a hole. Melbourne seemed to be gagging for a local dyer who understood her urbane, moody aesthetic - her love of black, charcoal, navy, and colours shot with grey – with the occasional need for a punchy colour accent. Of course, my yarn sells everywhere – not just here in my hometown - and I have many loyal customers from myriad climes (including NZ!) so there’s a lot of what I like to call ‘Melbourne taste’ out there. Of course, it might really just be urbane-taste-in-a-temperate-climate! But whatever the truth, I’ve claimed the palette for Melbourne, as I’m not one for letting the truth get in the way of a good story! 

NH: Tell us a bit about your range of Melbourne blacks - they're glorious. But what is it about Melburnians and black? And what are your primary inspirations for your colourways?

KO: The colourway ‘Melbourne Black’ is a moody blue-leaning charcoal which pays homage to both Melbourne’s iconic bluestone buildings, and her love of peri-black fashion. Melburnians love boots, and denim, and love to layer. They love wearing eclectic contemporary brands with vintage pieces, to which colour pops are added via a scarf or beanie. So the deliciously peri-black Melbourne Black went off like a bomb. I was rapt. I love my hometown and most of my yarn bases have some sort of Melbourne angle to their name (for example, ‘Bearbrass,’ the name of my BFL base, was one of the early name contenders for Melbourne before ‘Melbourne’ got the official gong). It’s been important to me to keep the Melbourne identity and to not lose that connection to the generous community that put me on the yarn-map in the first place.

Kelly in the tundra wearing a raspberry Rikke hat

NH: How do you spend your days, these days?

KO: If knitting hundreds of the same beret wasn’t a sufficiently illuminating glimpse into an aspect of my personality then let me be explicit: when struck by a passion I can be obsessive. And dyeing yarn became a passion which became obsessive - to the detriment of my well-being on occasion. But five-plus years down the track (I don’t like to rush things) I’m happy to report that I’ve finally found a work-life balance that works. I’m reading again, seeing family and friends more often, having ‘date-days’ with my husband, keeping up with my daily walks, and planning to get down-and-dirty doing conservation work on a bush block we’ve just bought. Sadly, dear husband, there still isn’t time for housework. 😉

So, yes, I am still dyeing, but dyeing less. But when I do want to chuck a bit of colour on some yarn I work to a three days’ rhythm. I studiously made a list of everything I do over these three days in the first draft of the answer to this question, but by the end I’d chewed through half an A4 page and my eyes had completely glazed over and rolled back into my head. So I will spare you the excruciating minutiae of being a solo yarn-dyer dyeing between meals on her kitchen stove. Instead I will tell you that in each day there are about two hours of ‘fun’ (dyeing/admiring) and eight hours (yes, the days can be long) of ‘un-fun’. Dyers can look so glamourous in public settings, surrounded by their delicious work. But you never see the pot-scrubbing, the back-breaking rinsing of yarn in the bathtub, the standing in queues at the post office, and the violence perpetrated against printers that spit the dummy when orders need to be printed and shipped. And my finger-tips – perennially wrinkled – I always fail the fingerprint test when entering the US.

NH: What inspires you? And which aspects of your work do you most enjoy? And how do you power through the less-fun parts?

KO: When I was fifteen my Home Group teacher gave me Peter Bowler’s The Superior Person’s Little Book of Words, confirming absolutely my (unspoken) self-estimation that I was, indeed, a Superior Person. I then proceeded to shoehorn my (now even more) Superior Lexicon into essays, much to the amusement of other teachers, while haughtily poo-pooing snorts of derision from classmates. Which is all quite a circumambagious (ahem) way of saying that I have loved words and language from a very early age and that often a colourway name comes to me before the actual colourway. In fact I keep a running list of prospective names which I augment (because the list never reduces) as inspiration strikes. I have colourways that are single words (‘Spodumene’, ‘Petrichor’); an entire range inspired by bears (‘Bear Hug’, ‘Bear Market’, ‘There’s A Bear in There’); another inspired by ponies (‘Show Pony’, ‘The Dappled Pony’, ‘The Felicitous Filly’); names inspired by pop culture and catchcries (‘Favourite 501s’, ‘Fake News’, ‘Houston, We Have a Problem’, ‘You’re Not the Boss of Me’); by songs and music (‘Brass in Pocket’, ‘We Got Married in a Fever’, ‘Ring of Fire’); and - because I like to show off - the occasional Shakespearian reference including ‘Fair Verona’, with ‘Posh Boy’ and ‘Poncing Pufflington Pants’ inspired by the “Upstart Crow” TV series). Occasionally the inverse happens and I am struck with Colourway Name Block which makes me very crabby because Superior Persons ought to be immune from such lapses. Nevertheless these little word games and pun plays are fun, and one of the ways I power through the many ‘less fun parts’. 

That, and dopamine.

Stripey socks

Apparently, every time an online sale notification pops up on my phone a big, juicy squirt of dopamine hits my brain’s reward centre. I guess it’s this addiction to the ‘hit’ that keeps many microbusinesses (including mine) ticking over even when the physical work is demanding and the financial remuneration modest. It certainly explains a lot of my extreme behaviours (the more I dye the more I sell and the more hits I get!). I now appreciate the importance of enforcing a sensible work/life balance. But while all that brain chemistry stuff is going on unconsciously, consciously I also derive a lot of pleasure from the aesthetic of a dyed skein of yarn (I can admire a new colourway for days!) and then get an enormous buzz seeing it crafted into something wonderful by a customer. These are the things that make it all worthwhile. That and the friends I’ve made. The community has been abundantly generous with its love.

NH: Your Instagram profile is fascinating - you talk about being an aspiring flaneuse (a concept I am completely in line with), a lapsed cytogeneticist and that you once had cancer twice. We'd be grateful to hear as much of what sits behind those lines as you're comfortable sharing. 

KO: Oh I could have listed many more things (failed novelist! occasional twitcher! champion of the apostrophe!) but I was limited by the number of characters in Instagram’s bio field which might be just as well for the reading pleasure of your lovely audience!

Aspiring Flaneuse: ‘aspiring’ because there is certain sartorial comportment that goes with being a proper Flaneuse which I’m unlikely to achieve in leisurewear. But I’ve been a street explorer forever (albeit propelled by a bike as a kid). My favourite period of nearly proper ‘flaneusing’ (should that be a word) was in my 20s and 30s when I lived in inner Melbourne. I would watch the people - what they were doing, what they were wearing, how they were living - all the while pondering the big questions: what it means to be human (which decisions are free, and which are pre-ordained, hard-wired), how we live together, what drives our need for personal space, and what are the ways we express either our individuality, or allegiance to a tribe (although I confess that in my current suburban domicile I’m largely perplexed and preoccupied by the human need to exact periodic domination over a patch of lawn with a violent machine). I also love to walk the laneways - the public spaces that most people don’t stop to explore - the service network of micro-streets that run behind houses and businesses. In fact, I have a yarn base that has a twist which reminds me of the bluestone pitchers that pave many of Melbourne’s laneways. I named it ‘Nightman’s Highway’, a nod to the forgotten ‘nightman’ and his weekly tending of the household ‘thunderbox’ via these laneways (yes, #worldsworstjob). So you see, that flaneusal (should that also be a word!) part of me has percolated into my yarn dyeing business!

A coffee break from the dye pots

‘Lapsed cytogeneticst’: I’m loathe to divorce myself from the moniker ‘cytogeneticist’ as it was my identity for decades, so ‘lapsed’ is our gentle separation. 

‘I once had cancer twice’: one day I left work early to have a mammogram, and I never went back. In the process of characterising one cancer, a second and different cancer was found. Two different cancers, one episode of cancer surgery and treatment. It was very efficient of me.

NH: What is ahead for Miss Click Clack?

KO: I have no plans to crank up production, so perhaps it’s time for Miss Click Clack The Book?! My friends will tell you that at any one time there is the plot a novel in my head! As Miss Click Clack I’ve accrued an excellent stockpile of fibre industry stories – some related to the warm and diverse yarn-addicted friends I’ve made along the way, others to the cunning and devious ways of villainous (I just wanted to use that word!) rival dyers – stories ripe for comedic exploitation by some sassy author! Just between you (and your x-thousand readers) and me I’d love to be that sassy author, but, sadly, I procrastinate more than ‘do’, and there is a chaos in my head these days (I blame my BC meds but my husband tells me I’ve always been scatty) that makes it difficult to corral those thoughts into something cohesive on a computer screen. But many will attest that my catchcry when asked about my yarn dyeing days is ‘there’s a book in this!’. I expect it will be my epitaph. Sans book. Meanwhile I will simply continue making random jottings in scrappy notebooks….

NH: Tell us a bit about your recent trip to North America - it looked just epic. How long was it in the planning, and what inspired your choice of destination? 

KO: Yes, it was epic. We flew from Melbourne to San Francisco (via Auckland - NZ context!), grabbed a hire car, and drove a loop to Fairbanks (Alaska) and back. I confess to having only a small role in its planning (me: ‘Alaska looks nice’). All credit goes to my husband, who has the curious and seemingly juxtaposed attributes of having indolence down to a fine art on the home front, yet complete mania on road-trips. All roads need to be explored, and a missed side-trip is a missed opportunity. So we travel hard. Sixteen thousand kilometres hard! He finessed the route over a couple of months then all I had to do was sit in the passenger seat and watch the scenery slide by. This was our third road-trip to western USA and Canada. We’re both into vistas and wildlife and getting a good snap or two so western North America, with its stunning landscapes, bears (!), and majestic mountains, ticked all the boxes. And we’re not done yet! It’s a continent that’s also very easy to drive (even if they do drive on the wrong side of the road) because the roads are great, and – unlike Melbourne – the drivers are courteous and considerate. Of course, I love my own country and could never live anywhere else - I’d miss Australia’s noisy wildlife and its own magnificent vistas - but North America makes an excellent travel alternative. Plus I always return with the most awesome boots.

NH: Tell us about your favourite meal - and perhaps if you are willing please share a favourite recipe!

KO: I don’t have one favourite meal so, instead, let me share with you a couple of food-related idiosyncrasies. I love eating from bowls - big bowls - bowls the size of your head. And I love eating from said bowls with Japanese chopsticks. And it doesn’t really matter too much what’s in them. So in the privacy of my own home I might eat a bowl of pasta with chopsticks, or a bowl of salad. Just because. I also like eating with my hands so I love, for example, jamming slices of thin-crusted pizza down my throat, or slathering up the juices of a curry with naan or roti and jamming that down. 

Here’s a recipe for a salad I devised using baked, spiced cauliflower florets (and amenable to a bowl and chopsticks, should you so desire it!):

To prepare the cauliflower: place florets in a baking dish, drizzle with oil, sprinkle with Ras El Hanout (AKA Top of the Shelf spice mix), cover with foil and cook in a warm oven until al dente. 

Once cool-ish, toss florets through mesclun or baby spinach leaves. Add soaked and drained cranberries, sunflower seeds, dollops of cottage cheese, and whatever else is at hand that appeals –sliced firm pear, sliced orange or mandarin, cherry tomatoes. Substitute cubes of feta cheese or fried haloumi for the cottage cheese if you desire. Drizzle with a supermarket-bought balsamic vinegar glaze. Make a meal out of it by adding a poached egg or two, or by tossing through pieces of grilled salmon.

Or if you really want to get down and dirty - à la Miss Click Clack - substitute iceberg or cos/romaine lettuce and make hand-held shooters.

What is one thing about you that might surprise people?

What?! And spoil that book?! You’ll just have to wait 😉

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Kelly is also a prolific knitter of sweaters - including for her lucky sisters, shown here wearing gorgeous versions of Caitlin Hunter’s Zweig and Engle sweaters. Plus, the berets that started it all!

Frances Paki and Sally Graham: Crafting runs in the family

Sally Graham and her daughter, Frances Paki, live close enough for regular quality time together - including knitting, of course! Sally wears her Orkney Cardigan by Marie Wallin, while Frances is sporting the Whitehorse jumper by Caitlin Hunter and a pair of self-drafted trousers.

Auckland’s Frances Paki and her mum, Sally Graham, are two exceedingly inspirational makers. Knitting, sewing, gardening and cooking are all part of their lives - daily habits of creativity and care for themselves and their families. Frances, 34, grew up rural, just south of Auckland and now lives closer to Auckland central with her family, where she works from home doing pattern making and sewing. Her mum, Sally, is 60 and works part-time as a paediatric nurse. Although she grew up on the South Island, she’s lived in and around Auckland most of her adult life, which keeps her close to family (and her darling wee granddaughter). “Part-time is great,” Sally said, “as I have time for knitting, spinning and sewing. I also love gardening and have a small city garden which is crammed full of plants. My next project is to try and get more of a dye garden established.”

We were fortunate enough to get them to sit still long enough to answer some questions for us about their lives, how they incorporate daily creativity into their worlds, and the value they place on making. We’ll start with Frances.

Newtown House: Please tell us how you got started in the fibre arts - did you learn as children, who taught you, and what encouraged you to keep going? 

A selection of Frances’ earliest creations - including a hat she made for Brownies.

Frances Paki: Mum taught me many crafts as a kid. Knitting, sewing, crochet, cross-stitch, tapestry, cooking, gardening - she was always making things for herself, me and my brother, and the home. There were always materials around so it was easy to keep going, and mum was always supportive of projects. I went to manual during form 1 and 2 where I sewed, cooked and did woodwork. I remember finding the sewing and cooking we learnt being relatively straightforward because I did it a lot at home already. Woodwork was fun, and one term I made a huge chair with storage under the seat. I have sewn throughout most of my life but stopped knitting during my mid-late teens and picked it up again in my twenties. I was traveling all the time for work and wanted something to satisfy my making needs while I was away. Now I like to make things for my own family. It is a part of my everyday life.

NH: Tell us about some of your earliest sewing / knitting / crafting memories...and do you still have any of the garments or other treasures you might've made? 

FP: I vividly remember knitting a hat for Brownies when I was 8 or 9. It is an apricot colour. I remember Mum helped with a few rows, as did her sister, Jane, when she came stay while I was making it. I have memories of making many pouches/bags on the sewing machine and a doing a ballet slipper cross-stitch that I was very proud of. I am quite sentimental when it comes to handmade things. I still have the hat and the cross-stitch and a few other treasures made when I was young. 

NH: Why is it important to you to make things for yourselves and your loved ones? Has this become more important over time? If so, why?

FP: There's something very satisfying about wearing something you've made, or seeing someone you love wear something you've made. I think I've always appreciated handmade things but there was a time when I enjoyed shopping more. Making is definitely growing in importance for me as I get older and my family has grown. It's also important for me to make so our daughters learn that it is possible to do so many things yourself and you don't need to always buy it from a shop.

NH: Following on from that, what aspects of your crafts give you the most joy? 

FP: I really enjoy the planning aspect of making. Finding the right pattern for a lovely piece of fabric, looking through my wardrobe and figuring out what I need for the coming season. Knitting has grown in importance for me since I started sewing for a job. I still enjoy sewing but needed something different for my down time and knitting does that. I find it very relaxing and rarely a day goes past when I don't knit.

Frances dyed the rusty colour of Moeke yarn herself, using madder root, to complete this Grandma Shawl by Junko Okamoto.

NH: Tell us about your favourite patterns or styles - and how your choices may have evolved over time. 

FP: The rise of Independent pattern makers is amazing. I remember spending a lot of time in the local fabric shop looking at “Big 4” sewing patterns and that was all I would sew. Now I very rarely sew from them. I also went through a vintage pattern phase. I would find lots of lovely patterns while I was traveling and couldn't help but buy them. I learnt to pattern draft about 15 years ago and since then I have drafted a lot of my own patterns. Some of my favourite pattern designers are Merchant and Mills, Pattern Fantastique and Grainline Studio. I have definitely started sewing more 'basics' - T-shirts, jeans, jackets - in recent years, as opposed to multiple fancy dresses. I think is a reflection of my life changing, both work and personal.

NH: There was a time that skills like sewing, and knitting, and crochet, and cooking, were called "the domestic arts", were taught in schools and were mostly practiced by women in the home. These days such courses are rarely taught in school, and "the domestic arts" can sometimes be seen as less important than other pursuits. I'm guessing you'd reject this trend, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this! 

FP: It's hard to get a good gauge on this because so many people, mostly women, throughout my life have practiced 'the domestic arts'. It has always been a normal thing to do, and often a part of everyday life. In my life it is almost those who don't make that are in the minority. I have an amazing group of friends who knit, sew, spin, dye. I taught my now 14-year-old step-daughter to sew and knit a few years ago. She still dabbles occasionally, though she enjoys cooking and drawing more. My two-year-old likes to sit in my lap and we knit together with my hands on hers. I will definitely encourage her interest. I think they are important skills to learn - clothing and food are a part of our every day, so it makes sense that we know how to make it it for ourselves.

Next, it’s Sally’s turn!

NH: Please tell us how you got started in the fibre arts - did you learn as children, who taught you, and what encouraged you to keep going? 

Sally Graham: I learnt to knit as quite a young child. I am the eldest of four siblings (two sisters and a brother) - we are all close in age and spent our youngest years on a farm on the South Island. Somehow my mother found time to sew and knit nearly all our clothes - often including matching clothes for our dolls. (All of the dolls’ clothes I still have.) Maybe she taught us to knit and sew at a young age so we could make our own! I do recall making  a few clothes for myself clothes at primary school - I think they probably quite roughly made but I did wear them out places.

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Sally knit this vest from natural dyed yarn she spun and dyed while on a course at Nelson Polytech 40 years ago.

In the 1960s and ‘70s girls still did sewing and cooking at 'manual'  and even though I attended a tiny country school, we went to the 'big smoke' Reefton once a month in the school bus for this, which was great fun (apart from the ghastly windy roads which made me feel carsick)! As a teenager I made many of my own clothes, mainly long dresses and skirts - supplemented by op shop buys. Unbleached calico was my fabric of choice, which I then dyed. In about 1979 i spent a year at Nelson Polytech doing a weaving and spinning course. It was fantastic and I learnt so much. I made so many things, most of which I gave away. Sadly I have not done any weaving since, mainly as I haven't had a loom, however this is something I am keen to try again hopefully soon. I am still spinning - after a lull for several years - and am now enjoying re-discovering natural dyes. [photos]

NH: Tell us about some of your earliest sewing / knitting / crafting memories...and do you still have any of the garments or other treasures you might've made? 

SG: I have quite a few knitted garments from my teenage years - nothing earlier. The vest in the photo was made using the wool I spun and dyed whilst doing the spinning course in Nelson. 

NH: Why is it important to you to make things for yourselves and your loved ones? Has this become more important over time? If so, why? 

SG: As a young mother in the 1980s I automatically sewed and knitted most of my children's clothes - cheap imported clothes were still not widely available and just about everyone I knew made their own. I also made many of my own and my husband’s clothes at this time. It is now so lovely to have some of these garments still around and my granddaughter able to wear them. Because Frances is such an accomplished sewer and knitter, I have not made much for Tiraki. I like to try and knit a little garment to give friends and colleagues at work for their new babies.

NH: Following on from that, what aspects of your crafts give you the most joy?  

SG: I love the anticipation of planning and starting a new project and then when it is completed if it works out how I was hoping it would it is really gratifying. (It's not always the case - and I've had many completed projects that have not just not been right.) I do enjoy knitting for other people although there is always a niggling worry that it won’t be quite 'right’.

NH: Tell us about your favourite patterns or styles - and how your choices may have evolved over time. 

SG: As my children grew up, I made less clothing for them. I became quite obsessed with needlework - particularly cross-stitch and tapestry - and produced cushion covers. (My favourite one is shown in the photo looking very tatty.) I also produced lots of pictures for the wall - many as gifts.  I started an Elizabeth Bradley rug over 20 years ago and have nearly completed it, however I have done nothing to it for over 10 years!! [Photo included] 

A few of Sally’s recent knits, including Kate Davies’ Paper Dolls, Petiteknit’s Balloon Sweater, Marie Wallin’s Orkney cardigan and the Aileas cardigan by Isabell Kraemer.

When Frances started getting into knitting she introduced me to the world of Ravelry and all the wonderful independent knitting pattern makers and yarn dyers. Previously one went to the local wool shop and 'put aside' an approximate amount of wool, which was great as it meant you did not have to buy more than you needed - and more importantly didn't run out! Also I only used to buy wool for the project I was working on and did not have a 'stash' like I do now! Knitting on circular needles was rare - nowadays that is my go-to. However I knitted my fair isle Marie Wallin cardigan on long needles in the traditional way doing back, fronts and sleeves, and it was nice. There seem to be so many techniques for casting on and off, shaping etc that I never knew of previously - it's a lot to learn, thank goodness for YouTube. I love knitting with a lot of detail - I get bored with rows and rows of stocking stitch. I think my favourite is fair isle. I would love to go to the Shetland Islands some day.

NH: There was a time that skills like sewing, and knitting, and crochet, and cooking, were called "the domestic arts", were taught in schools and were mostly practiced by women in the home. These days such courses are rarely taught in school, and "the domestic arts" can sometimes be seen as less important than other pursuits. I'm guessing you'd reject this trend, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!  

SG: Like I said at the start I did sewing and cooking at school once a month in form 1 and 2. It was girls only then, and I think boys should definitely have the opportunity to learn these skills - it should be compulsory - especially learning to cook as I get that sewing is not for everyone. I love seeing so many young women (and some men) taking up knitting and sewing. I am so happy that Frances has developed such a passion for knitting and sewing and she now helps me when I can't  figure something out! I am very proud of her, she has a lovely group of friends who get together regularly for knit nights. I think that fibre arts are definitely alive and well.

The gallery below shows a selection of Sally and Frances’ creations, including Frances’ beautiful Tamarack jacket with hand quilting and Sally’s stunning needlepoint.

Tukuwool: Charting Tiina Huhtaniemi's journey in wool

Tiina Huhtaniemi is the force behind Tukuwool, a brand of gorgeous Finnish wool we are proud to stock. Tiina took some time to tell us about the evolution of her business, which like so many fibre-related journeys, started with an individual passion and grew outwards from there.

Newtown House: Please tell us how you got started knitting ... and what motivated you to firstly open up your yarn shop, and then to acquire Tukuwool? How challenging was it to take on a yarn company? 

Tiina Huhtaniemi: I learned to knit as a child. Both in school and from my mother and grandmothers. They all have been true knitters and knitted a lot when I was a child, grannies later, too. As a teenager I didn’t hang out a lot with friends, go to discos, etc. It was the knit, sofa and Sky Channel (those days before Netflix with “The Bold and the Beautiful” - oh my!).

So it all started from my dear hobby. First I knitted for my kids when they were small, then sold wool soakers, and suddenly my stash had grown to a small warehouse for an online shop. Then a small bricks-and-mortar shop together with the online shop, then they both got bigger and bigger. Tukuwool came into our lives when Pauliina started her business. We were retailers from the beginning and when she announced [she was] closing her business, I told her that I wanted to buy the brand. 

Yarn shop, our own brand and arranging a knit festival too is a big challenge. But I like them and the more interesting things are going on, the more it gets me going. Of course you need to delegate and have good people to work with - I don’t do all by myself. I have the best staff in the world and we make this together. 

NH: Can you tell us a bit about the sheep breeds that are used to make Tukuwool? What are the properties of their yarn?

TH: Tukuwool is a blend of Finnsheep and Finnsheep Texel crossbreed, around 85/15 percentage. Finnsheep is shiny, durable, soft, and elastic - usually called a mid-fine fibre. The average length of one fibre is 7cm. Texel is a bit rougher fibre, a very durable one. 

We are working on getting the yarn only from Finnsheep but that’s a long way away… 

NH: How would you describe Finnish knitting to people who might not be familiar with it? What are the most popular patterns in Finland using Tukuwool at the moment?

TH: Finnish knitters are known as very talented and fast knitters. They have really high technical knowledge and they learn to knit in school at early age. So everyone can knit! Popular patters are at the moment: Poet (Sari Nordlund) from Laine magazine and the Lotta dress (Marie Greene), also from Laine. The Haiku shawl by Johanna Ärje has also been popular. Johanna has also designed a collection called The Girl Who Said Baa! for Tukuwool. Worth checking! 

NH: It's a big job you've got, between managing your yarn company and managing the yarn shop - how do you balance those two demands?And how do you ever find time to knit?!

TH: It’s the hardest part, of course. Working hours are long, you don’t want to calculate them! This autumn I have focused on well being more and started to work out three times a week. It has been the best decision for a long time! I still knit every day in the evening - not nighttime anymore. Enough sleep is also important. 

NH: What inspires you? And which do you enjoy the most - knitting, developing yarn for Tukuwool and stock for the shop, or designing?

TH: Developing new colours, patterns and co-operation with other companies, designers, etc. is really inspiring. I’d like to design and knit more, of course. 

NH: What is ahead for Tukuwool?

TH: We are overwhelmed by the love and popularity our brand has got recently. We need to focus on speeding up the process and getting more wool and yarn for sure so that we could spread TukuLove more. We have wool in Finland, for sure, but the process of getting it into the skeins and to retailers’ shops is long and has too many steps at the moment. So this is what we are trying to solve. 

NH: Please tell us about your favourite meal - and if you are willing could you share a favourite recipe?

TH: Tricky one! The newest favourite meal for our whole family has been chicken wok from rice noodles. That way the kids (we have three aged 11, 12 and 16 - a nice teenage group!) eat more vegetables.

Short recipe:  Onion, carrot, cauliflower, garlic (whatever you have) are sliced into the wok and cooked in olive oil. Chicken slices are roasted/baked in a pan with oil and spices (turmeric, ginger, curry, garam masala, salt). Baked chicken slices are added to the wok. Cook rice noodles in boiling water for 2 minutes. Then add them to the wok. Add coconut milk and mix all together. Add sweet chili sauce, balsamico, salt, chilli, whatever you want according to your taste, and enjoy! 

NH: What is one thing about you that might surprise people?

TH: Hahaa… I was a teacher in kindergarten before starting a business. That is quite well known. Before that I also had a short period as a musician in a band, playing keyboards and as a singer. It was called Tarantella, and a few times Tiina & Tarantella if they wanted a woman mentioned. So music has been a big part of my life. I also performed a lot in theaters when I was younger and before being an entrepreneur. Sometimes I miss those days, to be honest.

All about Frankie & Ray

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Jo Dunsmuir and one of her many beautiful quilts.

Jo Dunsmuir is the multi-talented woman behind Frankie & Ray, her shop for sewing and quilting patterns and handmade clothes. We’re proud to stock her eminently wearable, breezy patterns, perfect for bringing a little colour into your handmade wardrobe or turning a wee snippet of woven fabric into nifty knickers! We caught up with Jo not long ago to learn more about how she got started, what she thinks about fashion and handcraft, and how to make a nice pizza.

Newtown House: Please tell us how you got started with Frankie & Ray ... and what was the work you were doing before you started it? How old were you when you learnt to sew, and quilt, and knit? Have you always had a wide creative streak?

Jo Dunsmuir: Frankie & Ray was born in the early 2000s by accident. I was a librarian by profession but was looking to indulge in something a little more creative and was completing a Diploma of Interior Decoration as a part-time student. I met and made friends with a fellow crafter, and it was Pia’s idea to try our hand at selling some of our makes on a shared stall at one of the handmade markets that were emerging around Melbourne at that time, and so with some moderate success at our first outing, away I went on this journey.

I couldn’t nominate an exact age when I learnt to sew and knit, but knitting definitely came first courtesy of my German-born Oma (grandmother). I took to it like the proverbial duck to water, and I’ve knitted on and off for my whole life. I find it a mindful and meditative thing to do, and I love the ability to handknit a gift.

I did a certain amount of sewing with my Oma, but really I learnt the basics of dressmaking at secondary school, like many women of my generation. I’ll be honest, the motivation for sewing during my teens was to be able to have new clothes at a lesser cost than store-bought. It was a time when manufactured clothing wasn’t comparatively cheap like much of it is today, which meant for our family, store-bought was for special occasions, birthday or Christmas presents, otherwise you (or someone in your family) made your clothes.

I came back to dressmaking during my professional life as a research librarian for a business newspaper, where I admired, but couldn’t afford, the beautiful suits and fabrics of the financial district uniform on my salary.

It was during this time I really honed my skills on making tailored clothing, and started to gain a deeper understanding of how garments are constructed – which led to playing around with drafting my own simple patterns. Beautiful quality fabrics were easily available at this time around Melbourne, from Clegs, from a few retailers who traded at the Queen Victoria Market, and from the haberdashery department downstairs at David Jones, amongst others. (I still have a coat I made from a mustard Italian wool gabardine purchased for a scary amount of money at the time from DJ’s.) It’s really encouraging to see this niche for good quality dressmaking fabrics being filled again by quilt/patchwork stores, but also by some specialty retailers.

Quilting has come only fairly recently, and my first quilt was made as a way to put some sizeable scraps of Liberty Tana lawn cotton from my dressmaking to good use.

My first quilt was cut with scissors, pinned and sewn haphazardly, and hand-quilted very wonkily. I often wish I could return to blissful ignorance to the ‘imperfections’ of that first quilt.

As for a wide creative streak, I’ve never thought of myself like that, but I am always keen to try something new. The excitement of learning a new skill is thrilling... or not. And that’s the beauty of trying things out. I’ve been longing to try ceramics and drawing/painting. 

NH: How challenging was it for you starting out? And where does the name Frankie & Ray come from?

JD: I began with accessories, including scarves and fabric belts, and some more homewares and decorator items (cushions, tea cosies etc), but it was inevitable that I moved towards clothing, because I’ve always loved clothes, and I really love beautiful fabric. 

Because Frankie & Ray truly began as a sideline hobby, I didn’t chase growth, or have a business plan, or even consider marketing. I really just followed my nose and it has absolutely grown in a very haphazard and unplanned way.  

The name comes from our two much loved pets of the time – Frankie, our incredibly beautiful, clever, and charismatic rescue Siamese cat, named after Frank Sinatra for her amazing blue eyes, and Ray, our first pet greyhound, who was a reject racing dog, and responsible for my becoming a crazy greyhound lady. Both are sadly no longer with us, but live on through the business name. 

My husband and I have always had pets, and we liked the idea of being able to offer a home to a greyhound from an industry that breeds thousands of dogs every year, many of whom are destroyed for lack of speed, or injury, or disinclination to ‘chase’. The breed has got under our skin, as it has for all adoptive owners, and we now have Henry, our second. 

Beginning at the time I did feels like a bit of a blessing, as the whole handcraft / makers movement was just beginning to experience a popular resurgence. Many makers I met at that time were new graduates from creative studies with a fresh take on old handcraft skills, and the market scene in Melbourne provided us with the perfect place to get our products to the public, and our names out there. I think this coincided with the beginning of the age of the internet ... blogging was kind of big back then, and the ability to sell online really enabled many makers to reach customers that would never have been able to find us otherwise.

NH: You've got a range of offerings through Frankie & Ray – gorgeeous handmade clothes, sewing patterns – but you also teach. What aspects do you enjoy most? And what's the one big message you'd want to give people who are trying to get started in these skills? 

JD: I love everything I do and consider myself very lucky indeed. What’s that old saying, if you find something to do that you enjoy, you’ll never work a day in your life? For me, I’m very lucky to balance my hands on making garments for sale with teaching and pattern-making. 

If I can pass on some skills, and some hints and tips on process and technique, and have a good time while doing it, then that’s perfect. I get a lot of satisfaction from seeing women go home from a workshop with a garment ready to wear, and the confidence to make more.

There’s a lot of emphasis out there on skills that are quite difficult to master. If you’re just beginning learning to sew, set your sights on something simple and achievable. When you’ve had some practice and a few successful makes under your belt, you’ll be ready and confident to move on to more complicated techniques. 

Never stop persisting. Failing is learning. Ask for help / advice. Practice makes perfect!

The Friday Shirt in a lovely coral linen

NH: How do you spend your days, these days?

JD: My days begin with a walk with our greyhound Henry and my husband, followed by breakfast and a quick(ish) scroll of my social media (read Instagram...I’m no fan of Facebook). Then I try to deal with any household chores that might need attention before packing orders and doing a run into town (6km to Apollo Bay) to the post office. Only then do I start in my workroom, which is downstairs in our house. That might be sewing, or it could be getting patterns ready for dispatch. If I’m struck with inspiration for something new, that inspiration often comes when I’m actually sewing. I work in quiet (no music or podcasts), and the act of working with my hands often allows ideas to present themselves. If it’s a promising idea I usually have to drop everything to try it out.

NH: What inspires you? And which aspects of your work do you most enjoy? And how do you power through the less-fun parts? 

JD: I don’t pay much attention to trends. I’m still very influenced by the minimalist fashion of the 1990s – my collection of Vogue patterns included many from Cavin Klein, Donna Karan, and Issey Miyake. Very often it will be a fabric that will inform what I make with it. What I mean by that is; that I buy fabric with no plans for it, so it may arrive and have to wait a while in my stash before I know exactly what I want to make with it. 

Trends are unavoidable, even in the handmade world, but I try my hardest to steer well clear. I believe clothes should be comfortable, made from the best quality natural fibres I can find for the job, and should last more than a single season. But perhaps most importantly, I want my garments to be able to be worn as part of everyday dressing. I don’t make anything I wouldn’t want to wear myself. Anything new has to find a place in my own wardrobe for fit, comfort, and style before I go any further with something.

I most enjoy the part of the process when a design becomes as good as I can make it, and the making itself becomes like second nature, when I no longer have to think too hard about what step comes next. Equal to that enjoyment is taking delivery of fabric that is better than I’ve expected. I’ve had deliveries that make me gasp with pleasure. There’s nothing quite like that feeling of not being able to wait to start sewing with those ones.

The Calendar Dress pattern makes a nifty shirt, too.

The flip side are the days I simply don’t feel like sewing but have stock to make. The beginning of the spring / summer season is always a bit daunting. For example, right now I have lots of new fabric, my designs for the season are well-formed and ready, but I have hours of sewing ahead of me to make stock. My motivation is always that I know how good I’ll feel when I have a reasonable amount of stock in hand. There’s only one way to get to that point, and that’s to do the work!

NH: Businesses like yours are very inspiring for people who are hoping to embrace the ideals of slow fashion – either by making their own clothes or by buying one-off, handmade garments. Can you tell us a bit about your approach to slow fashion, and perhaps a bit about the change you hope to see as a result of people starting to really grab hold of these concepts?

JD: Slow fashion is such a new concept, but I’m encouraged that people are working to make more considered clothing purchases or make their own garments as a way to counter the ‘churn’ of the modern fashion industry. My personal philosophy is to make every garment in my wardrobe work hard for as long as possible. I imagine I have a bigger wardrobe of clothes than most people, but every single garment in there must be worn, even if it’s only occasionally. I own clothes (some bought, some I’ve made) that are up to 20 years old. If you love it, wear it, pay no attention to trends, and keep your favourites. If you do succumb to a current must-have trend, then continue to wear that garment the next year, or repurpose the fabric it was made from.

By sewing their own clothing, I hope that people realise the effort that goes into garment construction – that ultimately everything is handmade, even in a factory environment, and therefore the value we as consumers place on garments needs to reflect and respect that.

I’d like to see clothing more treasured and enjoyed, that it’s good for more than a few wears, or even a single season. Once it’s done with, perhaps it might be re-used as rags, or cut up for quilting or other handcraft, or donated to charity or friends if it’s still in good condition.

NH: What is ahead for Frankie & Ray? 

JD: Your guess is as good as mine! I’ve never made plans, but I am still enjoying the ride! I am trying to slow down a little bit after many years of being lucky to be in this micro business. Sewing is a physical job, and I do hanker after a little more time to indulge in some other pursuits like gardening and cooking, and maybe learning some new hand skills. Travel is always high on my list of wants.

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Quilts feature in the family caravan, too.

NH: Tell us a bit about your trip last year to Europe. It looked fantastic. How long was it in the planning, and what inspired your choice of destination?

JD: Oh, Italy! We loved every single minute of it. We began to plan in earnest about a year ago, but we’ve wanted to go for a long time. My husband bought me a book for my 40th birthday (quite a few years ago!) called Salute!by Gail and Kevin Donovan, Simon Griffiths and Robert Castellani. Part cookbook, part travel book, it sparked a real desire to travel to Italy. I used to work with a woman whose family emigrated to Australia from Malta, so we’d always wanted to go there also. When we realised Malta is so close to Sicily, it was an easy decision to add it to our travel plan. I’m so glad we did because for a tiny country Malta packs a big punch. 

We began our journey in Zurich, which we loved, travelled by train through the Alps, and travelled Italy from north to south, ending in Malta. We made a decision to avoid some of the better-known destinations, which I have no regrets about. I’ve been asked which were my favourite things / places, and I cannot nominate one place over another. It was all fabulous. One highlight was being able to meet with my lovely friend (and talented knit designer) Anna Maltz and her husband, who travelled from London to meet us for a long weekend in Sorrento.

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With Henry the Handsome, the family’s rescued greyhound.

NH: Tell us about your favourite meal – and perhaps if you are willing please share a favourite recipe! 

JD: I love to eat, so to pick one favourite is almost impossible! In Italy, one of my favourite meals was a kind of antipasto picnic we shared with Anna and her husband. We visited one of the many ‘salumeria & macellaria’ (delicatessen) stores in Sorrento and bought a selection of cold meats, cheeses, bread, a few vegetables in oil and some olives. A bottle or two of wine, we took it all back to our hotel and set up on one of the tables on the terrace overlooking the Bay of Naples.

Pizza is a highlight throughout Italy – I think the secret is really good handmade dough, buffalo mozzarella, and a simple (and very sparing) topping of just one or two great quality ingredients.

I set out to eat gelato every single day – and I think I managed pretty well. The flavours are so much more diverse than what is generally available here in Australia. Like liquorice, and some particularly Italian flavours like fior de latte, which translates to ‘flower of milk’...a delicate cream like flavour, and another I had called profumo di Sorrento – ‘perfume of Sorrento’ – which was a mixed citrus flavour. Delicious!

With Italian pizza in mind, this is the recipe we use for pizza dough taken from Karen Martini’s book, Where the Heart Is.

Basic Pizza Dough.

400g plain flour

100g fine semolina

2 teaspoons table salt

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons (7g) dried yeast

Combine flour, semolina and salt in a bowl. Mix water, oil and yeast in a small bowl and stir to dissolve yeast. Pour water mixture into flour and mix until combined, and knead on a lightly floured surface for about 15 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic, but still quite wet and sticky.

Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with plastic film and rest in a warm place for about 30 minutes, or until dough has doubled in size. 

Makes enough for 4 pizzas.

NH: Finally, what is one thing about you that might surprise people?

JD: I am truly, totally, dreadfully disorganised when it comes to my paperwork. My income tax returns are always late!

All photos courtesy Jo Dunsmuir

Biches & Bûches: Family, creativity, and beauty

We are thrilled to stock the lovely, lovely wool from the mother and daughter team of Biches & Bûches. From an atelier in Burgundy, Astrid Troland and her daughters, Caroline and Louise, weave a magic spell of colour and pattern that has captivated many knitters. The yarn is spun in Scottish mills before coming back to France for sale. Their wide colour range means Biches & Bûches is perfect for colourwork - and it’s at home in delicate shawls, or knit up into hats, cowls, mittens or jerseys. The range goes from fingerweight lambswool to a bulkier, Aran weight, with blends of lambswool and silk and lambswool and cashmere also on offer.

We caught up with Astrid recently to hear more about how she got started on her Biches & Bûches journey and what might be next.

Please tell us how you got started knitting, and about the work you were doing before you started Biches & Bûches? Where did you get the idea for Biches & Bûches, and how challenging was it to start a yarn company? Where did you find the link to your Scottish mill?

As for many of us, it was my grandmother who taught me to knit. And to count. Those were the two most important things to know for a girl, in her opinion. I knit every day from when I was about five or six years old, and I was lucky to live in Denmark because school days are very short, so we had the whole afternoon off and could spend time doing sports, a lot of different activities and I would of course also be knitting a lot. I have always preferred knitting in wool and other natural qualities with a lot of beautiful colours.

As for my education and working situation, I am a trained translator and I have had my own translation company for more than 20 years. For some time in the beginning, I worked in the south of France, but I soon realised that working away from home was difficult with two little girls so I decided to have my office in our apartment so I could take care of Louise and Caroline and still have a job. I was very lucky that this was possible. I actually still work as a translator, and I still enjoy it.

The beginning of Biches & Bûches was long underway. It was back in 2012 that I started to think about and knit some designs and began writing patterns. Then I re-knit the designs and adjusted them so they were easier for others to knit. It is a different approach when you make a design just for yourself or if it is going to be published and understood by others, in different sizes, so I had to train myself to think about knitting in a whole new way.

Slowly the idea of selling yarn and patterns took form, but it was only several years later that it really became a company. It was a big step to evolve from having a project I loved to start showing what I did to the world. So many ends had to come together to be able to sell my design ideas. It was very exciting, and it was absolutely fundamental to work with Caroline on this. She is young and has a different and more artistic background than I have, so she sees things differently.

Caroline had just finished her studies to become a photographer when we spent a whole summer constructing the idea behind and the website for Biches & Bûches. Caroline is doing the writing, communication and the photos (except for the Instastories, where I mostly show my daily mood).

For the yarn, I was sure that I wanted many colours. The original idea was to have some Norwegian wool, but it wasn’t possible so when I found our Le Petit Lambswool, I thought that it would be perfect for colourwork and my design ideas. It is a natural yarn, very easy to work with, and the quality of the yarn is very high. I’m still very happy with my choice and today, we have four yarn qualities: Le Petit Lambswool, Le Gros Lambswool, Le Cashmere & Lambswool, and Le Silk & Lambswool.

When did you move to France, and what motivated you to make that change? 

Since I was a little girl, I have always been fascinated by France and everything French. When I was 18, I lived with a family in France for a year and I just loved the atmosphere, the way they lived and — shortly, I loved everything about it. I kept going back to this family whenever it was possible, and one summer on my way back to Copenhagen, Denmark, to continue my studies after a summer holiday break, I met my future husband, who is also Danish and who was working in France. It was an easy decision to make the move to Lyon.

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Caroline wears a Biches & Bûches colourwork jumper.

How do you spend your days at the atelier?

I still work as a translator, so I often begin my days with my translation work, just to wake up. Although these past months, I work more and more with Biches & Bûches. There are so many things to do, like taking photos, packing orders, working on new designs, planning the yarn production — the time just flies away when I’m with Biches & Bûches. And when I get tired, I sit down and knit — that’s my quiet moment of the day. At the atelier, we have a garden and we enjoy seeing the nature change, the birds growing up and other small and not so small animals around us. Life is very quiet here, and a good place to grow new ideas.

What inspires you? And which do you enjoy the most - knitting, choosing colours, or designing? 

I think that everything can be an inspiration — a colour, a colour combination, the wool, the garden — it’s actually just a feeling inside you that you try to express through your work, so I feel that it’s a part of yourself that you show. It’s very personal, in fact.

I love thinking about colours, trying out new colour combinations. I like to see how colours that I’m sure will fit perfectly together just don’t match well once they are knit. It has always amazed me that you cannot tell in advance what colours will work together in a certain stitch pattern and combination. That’s a fascinating thing about knitting.

I’m someone who doesn’t really like to do things the same way twice, so when it comes to knitting, this is reflected in new ideas all the time. With the endless possibilities, I’d like to try out as many as I can — and this means many new designs.

And I do love to knit. I knit a lot…

What is ahead for Biches & Bûches? 

We have a design (Afterparty) that was published in Laine Magazine issue 6 at the end of September and some new designs that we will launch in the coming months. 

We now work with many lovely yarn shops around the world (like yours in New Zealand) and that’s a very special way of connecting with new parts of the world and get to know some of all the lovely knitters that live far from us.

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And then we have different events: For example in September, we participated in Fanø Knit Festival in Denmark; in October we had an event in Paris called Tricot Market with a small group of knitting and yarn friends; and in November we will be at the big CSF - Création et Savoir-Faire show in Paris. So it’s a busy fall season.

How important is it for you to be able to involve your daughters in this work? 

Our little family has always had the highest priority, perhaps because we live so far from where we grew up. We are very close, so it has been a great experience as a family with this project and of course, Biches & Bûches wouldn’t exist as it is if I were alone. To me, family is key.
But, on the other hand, I want Louise and Caroline to pursue their dreams and find what inspires them and to go their own ways. So, over time, the structure of Biches & Bûches evolves according to the current situation and I think that’s great, because we need new inspiration all the time and trying out new things. They are both adults now — Louise is 30 and Caroline is 26.

Finally, can you tell us about a favourite meal, or share a recipe?

I would like to share one of Louise's recipes when we are in for a special treat. (It’s a tartine.)

Photos: Biches & Bûches

Sliding through Slow Fashion October

We’re now well into Slow Fashion October, the annual celebration of slow fashion championed by the Fringe Association’s Karen Templer. 

(If you’re new here, by all means have a gander at our interview with Karen here. And check out her website’s segment on Slow Fashion October.) Here at the House we’re working our way through Karen’s prompts but given the general busy-ness of life, we are taking the “slow” part a bit literally.

One of the many things I admire about Karen is her unrelenting focus on the sustainability of her own wardrobe - she is constantly editing and refining and, most importantly, *considering* what she wears, and in what possible combinations, and what might be needed to fill a gap. She is a skilled sewist and knitter, and has committed to building and maintaining a slow wardrobe. Documenting her practice is key to this.

I admit I’m a serious fan, and that I take great heart by following her journey. My own skills can’t keep pace with my aspirations, but with practice, I’m slowly getting better. This is thanks in no small measure to the seemingly endless fountain of learning and support available both online and from my lovely knitterly (and sewing) pals.

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The opposite of restraint: Pieter Claesz, Still Life with Peacock Pie (plumage, for pity’s sake!!!), 1627, National Gallery of Art.

When it comes to what I’d like to make, though, I have the absolute worst case of buffet eyes. I want to make all the things, and now. A few sweaters, yes - I am short on cardigans and jumpers. I could do with some skirts and dresses, especially in lighter fabrics now that summer is on its way. (Even though summer in Wellington often means the jerseys go over the dresses and atop the skirts, and you nearly always could do with a scarf.) I’m also a natural magpie - so I’m constantly striving to stay focused on the projects I have on deck rather than the next new shiny thing. 

The truth is I have a very busy and often exhausting full-time job, in addition to the joy that Newtown House is as No2 job. And I am not a particularly fast sewist or knitter. It is time, as a great friend of mine would say, to make room in my reality for the reality.

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My Nuuk: Yes, it’s time to snip the ends!

This is where the thoughtful approach that Karen - and other attentive makers like her - takes really comes to the fore. She is unafraid to take her time. To get it right. To go slowly, with purpose. To fix things when they’re not right. To understand fit, and fabric, and drape - and to stop if she’s gotten something wrong, and remedy it. To pursue an idea to its conclusion - which often means acquiring new skills or experimenting along the way. She is fearless about undoing, about ripping back, about making it right. That she documents this so openly is a great help to people like me, struggling along in the weeds silently cursing our efforts. (Or maybe it’s just me? Please don’t answer if I’m alone in this - but if I’m not, comments below please!! I want to hear all about it.)

So the other day, as I cast on for my long-anticipated Nuuk sweater in a buttery browny Beiroa yarn from Rosa Pomar, I felt the familiar feeling of wanting to race through so I could get onto the actual knitting. Instead, I paused. I got out a book. I thought about my cast-on. I took my time. I enjoyed what I was doing. I decided to just slow the heck down, give my brain time to absorb some new skills, and make some notes along the way. 

I may never reach the heights of you multi-craftual, seriously gifted folks in the blogosphere and on Instagram but I’m grateful for what you are showing me: that there’s great pleasure to be had in slowing down, and in learning and then applying new skills one step at a time. 

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Fun with fluff: Tukuwool and Hesperus (silk / mohair) combine into a fabric that’s like knitting a puffy cloud.

So as we march through Slotober and celebrate being deliberate and thoughtful in our making, and in building our wardrobes, I’d like to thank Karen for taking the time to share her journey with us, and for encouraging us to be unafraid to dive in, go slow, and make beautiful things. 

Me? I’ve finished the Nuuk and I’ve barely taken it off for the last three days. Because I am these days a mostly one-WIP kind of gal (which has its perils, as I’ll talk about later), I’m now into the joy of casting on my Ranunculus, which I’m making from a combo of Tukuwool and Hesperus, a lovely silk mohair dyed up by the lovely Nikki at Dark Harbour Yarns. (With a major tip of the hat to the inspiring Melissa at Espace Tricot in Montreal, whose Ranunculus inspired this one.)

The sewing WIPs are yet to be decided. That’s a task for the rest of the (long, Labour) Weekend! 

What Nell knits

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Nell Ziroli - wise counsel, fibre whisperer

Nell Ziroli is a knitwear designer, knitting instructor, and all-around knitting inspiration.

If you follow Mason-Dixon Knitting, you’ll see that she frequently pops up there with a wonderful, beautifully finished garment or an inspired take on a design that has captured a lot of attention.

See, for example, the variant she made on Kate Davies’ wildly popular Carbeth jumper. Nell continued the ribbing from the cuffs up the arm, and the result of this simple change (which is complex to execute - ask how I know) made for a lovely variant on an instant classic pattern. In Mason-Dixon’s Lounge, where knitters gather virtually to talk turkey about patterns, design, and any challenges (oh, there are always plenty of those), Nell works tirelessly to provide tips and support.

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Nell's Carbeth - a genius modification

A lifelong knitter, Nell lives in American state of Virginia, where she shares a house with her youngest daughter. When she’s not working on her own projects, she finishes other people’s (I like to imagine her as a knitterly version of a country doctor), and regularly takes on an even trickier challenge - fixing treasured (but possibly over-loved) knitted dolls. 

You can find her patterns including the elegant Roger cardigan (an example of which is here) and her latest summer stripy design in linen (Liminal) and lots more on Ravelry and on her website.

Tell us a bit about yourself: family, work, where you live, and the things you like to do when you’re not at work.

Well, I’ve been knitting for over 50 years.

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Details matter to Nell - like the Liberty fabric pocket she sewed into this Roger cardigan.

Currently I live in coastal Virginia, and I have three beautiful daughters and two grandsons. My youngest daughter Haley and I still share a home. She is quite helpful with this work - she tests some of my patterns and has taught me all I know about photography. My middle daughter, Melissa, and her darling boys also live in Virginia, but still too many hours away. My oldest daughter, Christi, is way, way out on the West Coast. They’re all wonderful women who I’m very proud of.  

Walking is one of my favourite things to do - I love to keep an eye on what’s growing, who’s living in the trees, and I’m on the lookout for quirky architectural things.  

Tell us a little about your knitting - when did you learn, who taught you, favourite projects. What draws you to knitting? Why do you think it's important to keep practicing these skills? 

My mother taught me to knit when I was eight or so. Somehow, with all of the moves we made, she managed to save two of my early knitting projects - a cover for my Girl Scout “Sit-Upon”, made with Red Heart “Mexicana,” and a funky little drawstring bag.  

Actually my family is/was very creative. My grandfather was an architect, both grandmothers had various crafts going, and my dad built delicate balsa and tissue paper airplanes that he would fly. So I’ve always been surrounded by makers.

In the ’70’s I had a pair of Levi’s cargo pants, which I fully embroidered, that I wish I’d kept - or at least documented. They were amazing.

I can’t imagine not knitting. And this is a great time to be a knitter! There are so many temptations; choices in yarn and designs and not to mention technique! 

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Wrapped in Cables, an elegant scarf pattern

Do you do other work apart from NellKnits?

Yes, I do! I have a part-time office job that is not at all related to knitting (however, knitting does occur there when it’s not busy). There’s also remote work for Mason-Dixon Knitting, moderating a few of their project forums and answering direct knitting questions.

I work at my local yarn shop, Baa Baa Sheep, one day a week, and teach there a few times a week, too. I also do finishing, assembling, blocking and loving on other people’s work through the shop (and through the mail).

Also, people send me Blabla knit animals to repair. Life is always interesting.

What does the online world / social media bring to this creative party? Do you think it has helped to spark people's interests in what's possible? 

I love the connection of social media, the backstories, trials and triumphs and sometimes intimate views of people that you admire (hey, they’re just like me!) and I think that it may cause people to take a closer look at what is beautiful and interesting immediately around them.  

To be creative is such a strong desire and need for so many people, and although it may sometimes seem that there is a bombardment of ideas and projects, social media allows you to view many examples of a similar design or concept, which may allow you to make the best choice of how to proceed with it.

Is there a possible downside in seeing too much "perfection" in people's feeds?

(Over) curation - it’s preciously inspiring, yet frequently an impossible goal.

Do you have a favourite knitting pattern? (One of yours or someone else's!) 

That’s a tricky question. I think I’ll have to say that the amazing Baby Surprise Jacket is an architectural marvel to knit. Elizabeth Zimmerman would have been an incredible person to have spent some time with.

As a longtime teacher of knitting, what are some common traps you see people fall into? Common mistakes? What's one thing people could do to really lift their game? (As in, pockets! Or good finishing skills!) 

The biggest trap is that students often think that they should get all of this now, and quickly. Keep it simple and pay attention to the details. I love little things that click and I appreciate symmetry.

Finally, a note: When Nell generously agreed to answer our questions, we also asked her to share a recipe and to suggest other people who might be keen to share their stories with us. It’s a “recipe” (very bad pun) we’re hoping to make a regular feature here at Newtown House, so if you know someone you think would fit the bill, let us know at hello@newtownhouse.co.nz. 

Betsy’s Scones

I love to cook - meals are generally simple with minimal ingredients. However, I love these in every variation.

You will need:

2 cups (280g) flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 to 3 Tbsp sugar, brown or white, depending on your preference and your additions

pinch of salt

5 Tbsp (70g) butter, cold

3/4 cup (170ml) buttermilk

Instructions: Stir dry ingredients together. Dry add-ins can be stirred in here. Cut or grate in butter.

Stir in buttermilk. Wet add-ins can be stirred into the buttermilk. Turn onto a floured surface. (I just plop it onto the baking sheet.)

Pat into a circle, and cut into sixths or eighths. Or top with seasoned fruit, fold in half and pat again; cut into six wedges.

Bake at 425 degrees F (220 degrees Celsius) for 12 - 15 minutes.

A few add-in ideas :

• Lemon zest + blueberries

• Sliced peaches with a few drops of almond extract

• Grated or diced apples + cinnamon

• Nuts

• Cheese + smoked paprika or cayenne

• Orange zest + pistachios

Photos: Nell Ziroli