Olwen
Walsh - 1st Prize
Olwen’s been into wool since she was a child, in every sense. Her grandmother knitted her countless sweaters and, when she grew out of those, she moved into the ones that had been knitted for her mother. She’d hung on to a particular cream Aran cardigan and, when she heard about the Wool Week Award with Rowan, she knew exactly where to start. “The project is such a great platform to show how innovative and exciting hand knitting can be. I choose to work with wool because it almost always has the aesthetic I want in my own designs and the competition gave me a chance to research the traditional jumpers the fishermen’s wives knitted on the Channel and Aran islands.”
Actually there’s a bit of a debate about just how traditional the Aran sweater is, with some historians suggesting that the version we know today didn’t appear until the early 1900’s in when the knitters tried to extend their market and make some money from their work. But the different stitch techniques in the
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jumpers have certainly been used for centuries and each one carries a different message – the diamond is for wealth and treasure, the basket stitch means fingers crossed for a successful catch and the cable is a wish for safety.
“We face such strong competition in yarn production from Europe and it’s vital to establish the importance of maintaining the production of British yarn. Events like Wool Week are a chance to highlight that and, as I continue my career, I hope I can keep reminding people how exciting and desirable the use of wool can be.”
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