Ep. 157 - Wedding, Tatted Lace & Music Inspired Knitwear

Episode 157 features two special guests: Our Knitter of the World Rachel Isley and Géraldine Lucile, the lace maker behind Lucile Lace. Rachel Isley is the U.K. designer behind Unwind Knitwear. Her work typically features intricate colourwork or cables often inspired by artworks, whether it be music, floral tattoos or a mural of sea shells. Géraldine is an art historian with a deep love for tatting – a lace making technique that uses only a shuttle and some thread to make tiny double knots that evolve into delicate pieces lace. Madeleine was so inspired that she taught herself to tat and made a strip of lace for her wedding dress! She talks about this in detail and I share my own progress on the Jean Cardigan!

Lucille Lace - Tatting Lace (Frivolité)

We met Géraldine at the Swiss Yarn Festival, back in April 2025. Géraldine is an art historian with a deep love for tatting or frivolité in French. At the festival, she was teaching workshops on tatting.

Tatting is a lace-making technique that uses just one thread and a small shuttle. With these, you make tiny knots to create beautiful, detailed patterns. Tatting became popular in the 18th century, especially among the upper class.

Through her brand, Lucille Lace, Géraldine tats beautiful pieces of lace: From jewelry like earrings and rings, to doilies, clothing trims, and decorative bag. These are just a few of her beautiful works!

Finding Lucille Lace

Lucille Lace Online Shop: 5ddd4c-64.myshopify.com
Instagram: @lucillelace_craft

Knitters of the World - Unwind Knitwear

Rachel designs exceptionally beautiful stranded colourwork garments. Many of her designs are inspired by the works of other artists, whether it be a piece of piano music, a mural or a floral tattoo. Rachel is a pianist herself and she translates music phrases or motifs into striking colourwork patterns, which she explains in more depth in this episode.

Her Nighbook Sweater (above) was inspired by the music piece Nighbook, composed by her favourite pianist Ludovico Einaudi. Below, is the Blum Sweater. It’s part of Rachel’s Organics Collection and inspired by the tattoo artist Blum who specializes in fine line floral tattoos.

She also loves solving puzzles, and often setsgives herself construction challenges within her designs, in order to find new clever and elegant solutions. Both her work and the way she talks about it, is truly inspiring. We’re delighted to have her on the show.

Finding Unwind Knitwear

Patron Discount - Unwind Knitwear

Rachel from Unwind Knitwear, is giving Fruity Knitting Patrons a 25% discount on all her self-published patterns in her Ravelry and Payhip stores. Rachel’s designs are intricate and elegant, featuring unique colourwork motifs and delicate cables. Many are inspired by music and other art forms, and her patterns include helpful tips on how to adjust them to fit your unique body measurements. Fruity Knitting Patrons can find all the discount details on our Patreon page. Thank you, Rachel, for this generous offer!

Ryan & Madeleine's wedding day

Ryan and Madeleine both had family coming from very far away, especially Australia and the US. So, they decided to celebrate their wedding at the beautiful Hof Schleiersbach, which is an organic cattle farm in the Odenwald forest, just an hour away from Frankfurt. This way, people could stay overnight at the farm and it would be easier to spend time quality time together over the entire weekend.

Their guest list was very international. And amongst them were our friends Charlotte from Stone Knits and Sofia from the Sofia’s Tales podcast. Sofia and Madeleine’s aunt Michaela (Instagram: @michaelaolsenart) applied their artistic talents by arranging the wedding bouquet and wedding arch!

After the ceremony, our friend, Martin, played some jolly tunes on his violin and Madeleine and Ryan cut their wedding cake. True to their joint love of hiking in the mountains, their cake was covered in pine trees and topped with a decoration showing the two of them in the mountains.

Wedding location: Hof Schleiersbach
Email: info@hof-schleiersbach.de
This organic cattle farm is run by the Böhm family. They also organise and host private events like weddings & birthday parties with the option for guests to stay overnight.
Wedding cake made by Carol Hunter: CAKES BY CAROL
Martin der Geiger (martindergeiger.de) performed a wide range of repertoire on his violin, including various Folk songs (and a selection of Pride and Prejudice soundtracks of course…)

Madeleine's Wedding Dress & Veil

Inspired by our interview with Lucille Lace, Madeleine taught herself to tat and made a strap of lace to hold the shoulders of her wedding dress together. She used a gorgeous, free pattern by Lillian Tat Lace called Forever in Love. Madeleine managed to find a thin silk thread in a shade of green very close to the dress (it looks more different on the pictures than in real life). It’s the 100% silk sewing thread from the German brand Gütermann.

This pattern works best for decoration, like bracelets or trim. In Madeleine’s case, it stretched a bit because it had to support the fabric’s weight. Never-the-less, Madeleine was very pleased with the end result and thrilled to have contributed a personal touch to her own wedding dress.

Jean Cardigan - Johanna by Colibri

I’ve made good progress on my Jean cardigan by Kolibri by Johanna. After knitting the body and sleeves, the pattern recommends blocking your cardigan before knitting the button band. Because the body is covered in lace, it will stretch after being blocked and you want the button band to be long enough. I dutifully blocked my cardigan, only to be shocked by its stretching an entire 10cm in length! Far more than I expected.

This is because I’m combining two very stretchy yarns by Pascuali: Arctic Pearl which is made of seaweed fiber (100% lyocell) and Mohair Bliss which is 60% organic kid mohair and 40% silk. Silly me didn’t block my swatch beforehand… To remedy this as best as I can, I am now unpicking some of the sleeves and body to make them shorter before moving on to the button band.

Bovey Castle Knitting Retreat with Marie Wallin!

We’re excited to announce our new Bovey Castle Knitting Retreat in Devon with non-other than the fantastic Marie Wallin as our guest workshop teacher! Marie is a highly respected knitwear designer known for her beautiful stranded colourwork designs. For our retreat, Marie will bring along some of her designs and give a talk about her journey as a knitwear designer, from her years as Head Designer at Rowan to building her own independent brand and yarn line.

She will also lead two workshops on a brand new Fair Isle cushion design. All participants will receive the complete kit for this project, including 18 balls of Marie’s British Breeds yarn and the pattern as part of their gift bag.

Marie Wallin’s yarn range is called British Breeds and it is spun by our favourite artisan mill, John Arbon Textiles which is located not far Bovey Castle. On another day, the mill owners, Sonja and Helena, will join us to explain how they work with the local wool board and team up with designers to create new fibre blends and special colours.

In our past retreats, we’ve had quite a few knitters bring their non-knitting husbands, daughters or best friends along for the ride. And for this retreat, they will also be able to join in on all activities outside of the workshops, including the mill tour and talk. There will also be a special falcon experience, where we will meet and interact with owls, falcons, hawks, and eagles, learning about their habits and even flying them ourselves. Dartmoor is the perfect location to do this in. We’re also visiting a working honey farm where we’ll look inside a beehive and an take an educational tour through the honey factory.

Bovey Castle was built in the early 20th century as a private country estate for Lord Hambleton and his family. And today, it is a beautiful five star hotel with nearly 300 acres of grounds to walk around. You can even play golf, croquet, or even go fly fishing. Bovey Castle feels a bit like Hogwarts. The outer walls are dark and heavy, while the inside is filled with elaborate wood carvings, grand fireplaces and plenty of cozy sofas perfect for a relaxed knitting session!

Join our Retreat

If you would like to join us, just go to artisan-retreats.com and fill out the registration form.

Website: artisan-retreats.com
Marie Wallin Workshops
Fill out the registration form here.

Jean Cardigan

What we are wearing

Andrea is wearing her Wild Apple by Bohus Stickning during the interview. For her wedding veil, Madeleine is wearing a variation of the 12th of Never shawl by a Passion for Lace on her wedding day.

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
Edvard Grieg, Peer Gynt Suite No. 2, Op. 55 : IV. Solveig’s Song
Performed by Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Conductor Bjarte Engeset
Licensed to YouTube by AdShare MG for a Third Party (on behalf of Naxos), and 4 Music Rights Societies
Sláinte, Album: Cup of Tea, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, She moved through the fair.
Charpentier: Chaconne for Soprano and Continuo: Sans frayeur dans ce bois, performed by Patricia Petibon, from the album Nouveau Monde – Baroque Arias and Songs, ℗ 2012 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Berlin, Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group
Primavera, by Ludovico Einaudi, from the album Divenire, ℗ 2006 Ludovico Einaudi, Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group
Arbëreshe by Eduard Jubani, from the album Potpuri Shkodrane, released on 16.08.2024, ℗ Eduard Jubani, Provided to YouTube by IIP-DDS
Crow Road Croft, performed by Calum Stewart and Lauren MacColl, from the album Wooden flute and Fiddle, ℗ Stewart/MacColl, Provided to YouTube by IIP-DDS

Ep. 157 – Wedding, Tatted Lace & Music Inspired Knitwear