Waste-Not, Want-Not

‘Waste Not, Want Not’: The inspiration behind, and title of, my upcoming knitted accessories collection.

Concept: A collection made purely from yarn that I already have in my studio, resulting in a collection of limited edition and one-off pieces.

The idea for this came to me during lock-down as I faced barriers when it came to making new work. Sourcing materials has been really hard, either because production has drastically slowed or halted, or logistically it has been hard to get anything shipped. I source my yarn from the UK & Italy & have either been unable to order new yarn via normal channels or have found that colour choice is incredibly limited. Instead of seeing this as a hindrance, I took it as a challenge.

I have been running my own brand for a few years now and as a result, have amassed a surplus of yarn. This happens for 1 of 3 reasons.

1. Bespoke designs. I am sometimes commissioned to create a bespoke design/colour-way for a client, meaning I purchase small amounts of new colours. Inevitably there is often some yarn left over once the piece has been made.

2. Gifts/donations. I have been lucky to receive yarn from other makers/friends who no longer have a use for it.

3. Leftover yarn from old collections. I often carry certain colours forward from one collection to the next, both because they are popular & to minimise waste. It is not possible to do this with every bit leftover so over time I have ended up with lots of random amounts of colours spanning the entire rainbow!

As you can see from the images, I have a decent amount of yarn in the studio already & so I will be using nothing but what you see here to knit my next collection. Some cones have a substantial amount of yarn on them & some have barely any, meaning that some colours, may only appear in the collection through 1 or 2 lines of knitting. This also means that every piece in the collection will either be a total one-off or limited edition design of just a few pieces, as I aim to 'waste-not' by using up every last bit of yarn I have to hopefully make some very special pieces for all of you.