We have some truly stellar guests for you in Episode 154! Our featured interview is with accomplished designer and avid crafter Tanis Gray. Tanis has served as yarn editor for Vogue Knitting, and is the award-winning author of 16 knitting books. Over the last 6 years, Tanis has published seven movie-themed knitting books, including Harry Potter, Star Wars, Nightmare Before Christmas, and The Gilmore Girls. Madeleine also interviews the embroiderer Manuela Thüler, who is passionate about Japanese textiles and craft traditions. I share my progress on Madeleine’s lace wedding veil and Madeleine has prepared a short tutorial on a new grafting technique!
Tanis Knits - Turning Movies into KNITwear
Tanis originally studied film animation and, soon after, worked in film & TV for several years. Eventually, she changed up her career and became the yarn editor for Vogue Knitting before she was approached by the publisher Insight Editions to write movie themed knitting books. Tanis shares insights into her collaborations with Warner Bros. and Disney, the in-depth research she does, and how she designs pieces that truly capture the essence of the beloved characters. Being a hardcore fan of the movies, she brings real passion to her work!
Before starting a design, Tanis carefully chooses a color palette that matches the character and overall aesthetic of the movie. For example, the “Elven Armor Pullover” is meant to represent the the buttery leather armor worn by the elves in Lord of the Rings. So, she picked a tanned orange yarn to match. For each project, Tanis identifies the movie’s most iconic symbols and then finds the perfect type of garment to showcase them. And she’s great at it! Just look at the Little Mermaid socks which show Ariel’s turquoise tail covered in scales and feature her purple bikini top, bright red hair, and even a golden crown around the cuffs. Or the “Mischief Managed” socks. Socks perfectly reference the tiny footprints moving across the Marauder’s Map from Harry Potter!
Tanis is also a very thoughtful and articulate teacher and she kindly demonstrated some useful colourwork-related knitting techniques. One of these was how to graft together colourwork using two strands of different coloured yarn and a tapestry needle on live stitches.
She also demonstrated the beautiful Estonian Vikkel Braid – a more subtle alternative to the Latvian braid. It’s worked over three rows and is a great way to create a subtle break in a pattern.
Finding Tanis Knits
- Website: www.tanisknits.com
- Ravelry: Tanis Gray
- Instagram: @tanisknits
Patron Discount - Tanis Knits
Tanis has over 300 designs on Ravelry using every technique imaginable, but mainly stranded colourwork, since that is her absolute favourite. And Tanis is kindly offering Fruity Knitting Patrons a 25% discount on all her self-published patterns from her Ravelry store. So enjoy browsing through her designs and a big thank you to Tanis for her generous offer!
Fruity Knitting Patrons can find all discount details here.
Japanese Textiles & Freeform Embroidery - Manuela Thüler
Sashiko uses a simple running stitch to create even, geometric patterns across the fabric. For this, you use a long embroidery needle and a special thimble that is worn like a ring near the base of the middle finger. It has a metal plate or ridge that helps guide and push the long needle through layers of fabric efficiently.
Manuela’s own embroidery work incorporates not only Sashiko but a mix of other embroidery styles. Her crafting philosophy centers around mindfulness and spontaneity. She lets curiosity lead the way, allowing each piece to unfold naturally and intuitively.
Finding Manuela Thüler
- Instagram: manuela_thueler
- Embroidery courses (in Bern, Switzerland): www.goldfaden.ch/en/kurse/sticken
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Under Construction
Wedding Veil - The 12th of Never
I’ve been doing my best to get an hour or two of knitting done most evenings so that I can finish Madeleine’s lace wedding veil in time for the wedding. I want the veil to be really fine so the dress still shows through clearly. I’m using this ultra-fine cobweb-weight yarn—100% cashmere—and the lace pattern is very open, which will make the veil very transparent. However, if the veil is too wide when it falls down her back, it’ll end up with a lot of folds making it look less transparent, which I want to avoid.
The original shawl design is called “The 12th of Never” by A Passion for Lace. It is a half-circle with an arc that spans about 235cm – a lot of fabric which would mean a lot of folds when worn as a veil. So, I reached out to the designer, Monique, from a Passion for Lace and she generously helped me re-calculate the pattern to create more of a bell-shaped shawl. Monique suggested that I delay the decreases at the edge of the shawl which creates a longer shawl. I also made the initial diamond strip at the bottom shorter than the original design. So together, these two alterations will hopefully result in a more veil-like shape.
Fiancé Sweater - Varde Rundfeld
Madeleine is finally making proper progress, again, on the Varde Rundfeld Sweater which she’s knitting for her fiancé, Ryan. Madeleine originally knitted the yoke using a bright blue for the main colour, but decided it with a more elegant navy blue.
To avoid unravelling all of her work, she had to cut open the yoke (which is knitted bottom-up), reknit the bottom section and graft that together with the remaining top part of the yoke. For this, she discovered a tutorial by Lucy Neatby called Grafting Made Easy. This method gave her a much deeper understanding of the structure of stst fabric. She’s so thrilled by it that she prepare a short tutorial on how she used it to graft her Varde Rundfeld sweater.
In this case, both pieces of fabric are knitted bottom-up, so that the knit stitches line up perfectly on top of each other: This is called perfect grafting. Starting at the top half, you guide the yarn to the back and around the base of the first stitch, finally bringing it forward again. The needle is then threaded around the left leg of stitch two and the right leg of stitch three, moving to the back and then the front of the fabric. You simply repeat these two stitches moving along the two rows from right to left.
This is what it looks like in real life. You don’t graft live stitches to other live stitches. Therefore, Madeleine left extra rows on the top part of the yoke, just beneath the row she wanted to graft. Additionally, she added five rows above the grafting row at the bottom of the yoke, using bright yellow waste yarn. The contrasting yellow made it easier to follow the correct row while grafting. After completing the grafting, she removed the excess yarn from the back of the fabric.
What we are wearing
Andrea is wearing the Ariel Pullover by Claudia Quintanilla during the interview and her April Cardigan by Petite Knit on the couch. Madeleine is wearing the Do Ewe Yoke Sweater by Zanete Knits during the interview and the Hearten Cardigan by Kim Hargreaves on the couch.
Credits
- J. S. Bach, The Well Tempered Klavier, Prelude No. 3 in C-Sharp major, BWV 848, performed by Kimiko Ishizaka, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
- Locomotion Commotion Potion by Montana Skies, used under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License
- Henry Eccles, Violin Sonata in G Minor, II. Courante, performed by Thrax, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
- Haru no Umi by Nanae Yoshimura, Kifu Mitsuhashi and Michio Miyagi, from the album The Art of the Koto, Vol. 2: From Yatsuhashi to Miyagi, ℗ 2001 Celestial Harmonies, Provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises
