Introducing Nina

This Autumn there is a new face at Collingwood-Norris. This is Nina: she started a few weeks ago and is helping out for half a day a week with a variety of tasks, mostly helping to make my handmade knitwear.

Nina is in her 3rd year at Heriot Watt university in Galashiels, her first year of specialising in knit. I’ve rather thrown her in at the deep end, and taught her a technique she had never tried before, and set her to work knitting the new colourful bobble hats using it! It’s a technique that takes precision and skill, and Nina is very careful to get it exactly right for you.

How the new colourful Block Hats are made

This knitting technique for the new colourful bobble hats is called intarsia- it involves using a different carriage on the knitting machine, and more work by human hands, placing the yarn exactly where it needs to be for each block of colour.

Above are the right and wrong side of the Block Hat in Erraid, after knitting and before sewing up. Intarsia creates a really neat reverse side. After Nina knits the hats, I then sew them up, wash them, press them and add the pompoms. It’s a team effort!

Who Made Your Clothes

I think it’s really important to know who handmade your knitwear, and to be able to put a face to a label. One way to counteract fast fashion is to buy pieces you value, made by people you know about, and to keep them for as long as possible. I want you to know exactly who knitted each hat, so you can really treasure it.

You might be wondering what has happened to Cara… If you were really paying attention you may remember that Cara joined me when she was in her final year of university. She has now graduated with a first, and got a wonderful job training to be a Shima programmer in Hawick. I would have loved to keep her, but I’m not big enough to employ anyone full time just yet sadly!

If you are going to visit the Tea Green Festive Markets at Kibble Palace on the 16-17th November or 8th December, you will see Cara representing Collingwood-Norris there. She’ll particularly enjoy showing you the pieces she has made!