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PICKING UP THREADS

This was written in
2007
so is now very dated

Very few alterations were made to our original plans. There were two serious disagreements between us and the publishers. We won one and lost one. The first was that they thought the book should have colour and we were adamant that it should not. We believed then, and still believe today, that readers are sidetracked by colour. They will look at something and say “I don’t like that” and yet see the same design in a different combination of colours and love it. We wanted them to focus on the shapes, not the colours. We wanted everything in outline, or shades of grey. We made a minor compromise and agreed to have a few pages of small photographs at the back.

The second disagreement was over Woolhelmina and friends. The book’s editor decreed that sheep wearing clothes were not allowed so many of Steve’s drawings could not be used. It was disappointing at the time but was a blessing in disguise. Some of those sheep were to rear their heads again later and, anyway, we had far more drawings than we needed. We have never discovered the reason for the banning of clothes when it was perfectly acceptable for Woolhelmina to be seen juggling, as she is in the drawing that was chosen for the front cover.

Most of this communication was by post or on the phone but we did make one visit to the publisher’s office. This was a great shock. I guess that most people would have a similar mental picture of what the inside of a publishing company might look like – smart, bright offices, though perhaps not as up-to-date as some city  offices; advertising posters on the walls, beautifully presented books on display, etc., etc. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The offices were in an old building very near the British Museum. Once inside the door we had to pick our way through piles of untidy-looking papers which turned out to be stacks of covers waiting to be added to unseen books. I’m sure the people working there knew exactly where everything was and were on top of the jobs-in-hand but that is certainly not the way it looked.

It was even more of a shock when we were led up a narrow staircase, which looked as though it had not seen a coat of paint for many, many years, into a tiny office. It really was minuscule. There were three of us – Steve, myself and the editor of the book – but there were only two chairs and even then it was overcrowded. This was the only publishers we had ever been inside and it certainly wasn’t what we expected. We were able to finalise a few outstanding details about Woolly Thoughts. Despite not liking all of the sheep, the editor was obviously impressed by Steve’s drawings and he was commissioned to illustrate Alan Titchmarsh’s Avant-Gardening in the ’90s: The New Guide to One-upmanship in the Garden, which was to also to be published in 1994.

It was a very exciting time when Woolly Thoughts was eventually published in 1994. We did a couple of radio interviews. The book was reviewed by both knitting and maths magazines. It was even stocked by some suppliers of mathematical and educational books. We became much in demand for running workshops and, a year or two later, the Knitting and Crochet Guild ran a competition based on the ideas in the book and we were asked to judge the entries. At the Maths events we attended people who we had previously considered to be way above us in mathematical ability suddenly started to take a great interest in what we were doing. Was this our arrival? It seemed like it at the time but we were soon rushing on again.

I should mention three other events that happened in the same period of time as the writing and publishing of Woolly Thoughts though I don’t actually remember the order in which they occurred. I have already said that one of the most useful aspects of making squares the way we made them was that all squares could be exactly the same size whatever yarn was used. It didn’t matter how thick the yarn was, every square could be made to the exact same size. It might have more, or fewer, rows than another square but the dimensions would be perfect.  I decided to make a jacket to prove this point. Armed with a template for the size of square I wanted, I searched for as many interesting black yarns as I could find. I had decided they had to be black because, as I have said before, colours are distracting and attention had to be focused on the diversity of the yarns. It was going to be a very dressy jacket so the first yarns were silky, mohair, boucle, anything I could find in the wool shop. Then I went looking for other things to knit with. I used ribbon, lace, shredded net (the sort they used to make petticoats with), and shredded kite fabric. I also included squares of corduroy and velvet fabric which were machine stitched round the edges to give a base for attaching them to the other squares. All of the squares were edged with the same silky yarn and the edges of the jacket were finished in the same way.

On one occasion I exhibited this jacket and a lady told me, in no uncertain terms, that it was very boring and would have been much better if I’d used ‘proper’ colours. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I don’t expect everyone to like what I do so her reaction didn’t worry me. By coincidence, I met up with her again years later. She apologised profusely and told me that she had come to realise how subtle it was and that she was now addicted to our way of working. She must have had it on her conscience for a long time.

The second event was when I saw an advertisement for a competition organised by the International Mohair Association. There were categories for men’s, ladies’ and children’s garments and the only rule was that the yarn used had to have a certain content of mohair and the entry should be accompanied by the ball bands. I decided I wanted to enter all three categories but I was very short of time and it was going to be expensive to make three mohair garments. I went on a search and found bags of discontinued yarns for one, some oddments of the same shade but different dye lots, for the second, odd balls for the third and, just because it was too good to pass by, another lot of non-matching dye lots.

Fortunately mohair knits up quickly and the three garments were finished in time, using tried and tested designs. Then I decided I had time to knit a second entry for the children’s category. I sent off a lady’s jacket, a man’s sweater, and two children’s coats with matching hats. They must have arrived very close to the competition’s closing date and it wasn’t long before I got a letter saying that all four were being kept for the next stage of the judging. A few weeks later the man’s and lady’s garments came back with a note to say that both of the children’s coats had been sent to London for the final judging. One was definitely a coat for a girl, the other could have been for boy or girl. The girl’s coat was From Square to Eternity, in pink and mauve. The boy’s coat was a design that came to be known as Tilting at Windmills, in navy blue, red, green, royal blue and yellow.

The girl’s coat was returned, the other went on to win second prize in the competition. Some weeks later I went to the Association’s head office to collect my prize, which consisted of a bag of goodies, a cheque and one of those huge cardboard cheques. I was very glad I had gone there in my car as I think I might have felt rather conspicuous on the bus or train.

Click here to see the black jacket
Click here to see the boy’s coat
Click here to see the girl’s coat

6b. WOOLLY THOUGHTS continued