FELICITY FORD

Felicity Ford is teaching knitters how to have fun with colour through her wonderful Stranded Colourwork Playbook

The Knitsonik designer chats about her latest book

FELICITY FORD started a quiet revolution with the publication of her Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook in 2014. This small, unassuming book caught the imagination of knitters all around the world, thanks to its KNITSONIK system, which demonstrated how to create our own unique patterns by observing the world around us.

Many knitters were motivated to capture elements from their day-to-day lives through the medium of knitting, and they shared their successes and stories through social media. For the sequel to her first book, Felicity has in turn been inspired by their ideas, collaborating with other knitters to share ways of applying patterns found in daily life to celebratory hand knits.

The Stranded Colourwork Playbook has projects for knitted correspondence, personalised bunting, cowls and shawls, all designed to offer blank canvasses for our imaginations. We chatted with Felicity - aka Felix - about her latest joyous project. How did it feel to learn that knitters all over the world have been embracing the ideas you’d set out in your first book, the Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook? “It’s humbling, joyous and exciting all at once. The Sourcebook was written to be a useful and enabling prompt, but you can never predict where people will take the ideas it contains! For example, Helen’s glorious dry-stone wall-inspired waistcoat; Tabea’s fresh and bright sneaker-themed swatch; Judith’s sophisticated vest celebrating special editions of Jane Austen novels… these are just some of the projects that immediately spring to mind when I think about what people have done using the KNITSONIK system, and they are each as unique and creative as their makers. It’s a strange and humbling feeling to imagine I played a tiny role in their production!

“Likewise, it has been beautiful and inspiring to watch the amazing work of Muriel (France) and Yumi (Japan) develop over time. Their Knitted Correspondence project is extremely joyful; they make a small swatch every month commemorating a special thing, place or moment, and