ABOUT

This project was a live industry brief set by Scottish knitwear company Johnstons of Elgin. The brief set was to look at traditional Scottish heritage and apply a new and contemporary twist with the view of creating an accessory set. I decided to focus on the traditional Scottish knitting technique of fair isle knitting but combining it with the recent art movement of 'glitch art' to create new and interesting patterns. For my colour palette i looked at the Scottish countryside and created my own imagery of pixelated landscape scenes. Going with glitch aspect, i started my initial sketchbook work with geometric patterns and then progressed to manipulating the original drawings by photocopying them and cutting them up, then putting them back together in a random order. This produced some really interesting imagery to translate in to knitted patterns and stitches. When I came to the fabric development, i chose to work with lambswool yarns for the luxurious feel, and chose colours relating to my initial colour work. Instead of creating my own already distorted punch cards for my fair isle knitting, i decided to work with regular geometric ones, but i randomly stopped or reversed the punch cards to distort the regular patterns and create unique and interesting new ones. This worked really well for me and I decided to set myself the challenge of creating a hat to sit alongside my collection of fabrics. I ended up with an extremely interesting range of fabrics suitable for hats, scarves and gloves.

As a live running industry brief, there was a prize for the project that was best suited for the company's brief. I was awarded first prize and had the privilege of having my designs manufactured with Johnstons of Elgin as a hat and glove accessory set. I was also given the opportunity to visit their mill in Hawick, and follow my products from initial design process through to final finishing. This was an invaluable experience for me and gave me a crucial insight in to the industry.