ALICE STARMORE

Alice Starmore is an amazingly talented designer, whose use of colour in a painterly way creates the most extraordinary garments and accessories. When I asked her why she became a designer, Alice says simply: “I couldn’t not.”

Pattern, colour, texture and words are the elements Alice has worked with for 36 years as a professional designer, author and lecturer. Based on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides, where she was born and brought up, the land, sea and sky are often the foundation for her ideas.

“Stranded knitting in the round is the fastest and easiest way to create colour-patterned designs,” Alice says. “My mother taught me the method when I was a child, and I loved working with colour. Apart from the Shetland Islands where the technique was used to make hand knitwear commercially, it was generally unknown to hand knitters and no one had ever produced a knitting pattern using the technique. I wanted to change that,

so I wrote my book on Fair Isle knitting, to include its history and technique. I taught many workshops and have produced detailed instructions for my stranded designs in books and kits for over 30 years. So for me it has proven to be technique which offers endless creativity.”

Alice’s design work is mostly thematic, drawn from eclectic subjects with strong storylines. “Knitters are of key importance when I sit down in my studio to design commercially; they are always in the forefront of my mind,” she says. “My aim is to keep on creating beautiful knitted designs for those who love the art of knitting as much as I do, and to take that art in ever-new directions.”

ALICE'S TOP TIP: “Worrying about your knitting tension is like throwing petrol onto a fire: it will only make matters worse. Many knitters do not realise that the tension at which you hold the yarn in your hand is just as important as the needle size you use. If you wish to tighten up your tension, wind the yarn around your little finger, thus putting more tension on the yarn as it comes from your hand onto the needle. If you already do this, then wind it round twice.”