heid count

Well, everyone, we find ourselves in the unexpected position of having completely sold out of Milarrochy Heids. Thanks so much to all of you for your support of this book (and us) – it is a project that means a lot to me, perhaps most of all as an example of fruitful collaboration (between designers, and within KDD as well). We’ve all played our role: Tom’s photography here is really something special and I love the layout and design he developed for this book; as well as knitting and modelling several heids, Mel has kept all our organisational wheels continually turning and Claire has been looking after the daily heid reveal on Ravelry.

This stunning heid is the work of Virginia Sattler-Reimer . I’ve “known” Virginia online for a good while now (since long before my stroke) and admire her for many reasons. Everything Virginia designs and makes seems to me to be characterised by the same combination of warmth and precision – and those two qualities are particularly evident in her beautifully balanced tam.

Virginia has created a beautiful pair of mittens to match her tam, and she’s named these designs after a state park in Minnesota – Tettegouche – and another of our designers similarly recalls a nearby location in her colourful heid.

Chezzetcook Inlet by Natasha Daurie was inspired by the waters of her Nova Scotia home, where migrating geese gather each year.

Geese migrate across the landscape-inspired hues of Natasha’s hat — in a series of inverted ‘V’s — and her heid is finished with an optional pompom.

I am really happy to include a heid by my dear friend Felicity Ford in the collection, and was very excited when she told me she was creating a design inspired by her three khaki campbell ducks. I was even more excited when I saw it.

In Featherheid the lines and gradients so reminiscent of the ducks’ subtle plumage gather to meet on a beautifully bold and graphic crown.

I think this marvellous heid is a highly fitting celebration of the equally bold and graphic characters of Honey, Bonbon and Pretzel, about whom you can read more on Felix’s blog.

I really wanted this collection to appeal to knitters of all abilities, so felt it was important to include some interesting, but easy-to-make hats that any beginner knitter might attempt. I think Ute Vos’s Let’s Stripe definitely fits that description, and I’ve designed another simple hat to accompany it – Otter Ferry.

I’m a big fan of the work of Scottish ceramicist Julia Smith, whose mugs are my favourites for my tea, and I really love the hand-fired buttons which Julia often uses when packaging her work.

The pale blue and fawn hues of Julia’s button reminded me very strongly of Milarrochy Tweed shades smirr and hare, so I designed this hat around the button, using those two shades.

Otter Ferry is a simple, stripey stocking cap with a maritime feel. It’s named for a wee settlement with an old jetty on the nearby Cowal Peninsula. Otter ferry is knitted long, folded over, fastened with Julia’s button, and is really fun to wear!

So those are the fifteen fabulous heids that make up the collection! To conclude this post – (and this may sound a bit weird) – I want to give a final shoutout to . . . my wardrobe! My method of styling this collection was to match each hat with a coat (or jacket, or vareuse) and I frequently found myself thanking my capacious wardrobe for the large number of vintage coats that it contains. Really, I am thanking my former self for assiduously and obsessively collecting old coats of many styles and colours from charity shops and Ebay, and my current self for providing these garments with a room of their own in which they now hang happily, waiting to be worn. My coats have really come into their own in this collection, and it was a lot of fun to pair up each heid with its accompanying garment as I planned the styling. In several shoots, I think the lines or colours of my coats really add something to the wonderful images Tom produced.

. . . and the coat colours I selected often speak back to the hats, and make them sing, in their own way.

So thankyou, wardrobe, thankyou KDD team, thankyou talented contributors, and thankyou, all of you, for your support.

We will now prepare your books for shipping, order another print run, and if you want to get knitting right away, yarn packs for each heid in the book are now available in the KDD shop.