In the spring of 2018, after a hard winter in which I’d been struggling with my depression, I spent some time in Berneray and North Uist. You can get a sense of how much I immediately loved the place, and how very much I enjoyed meeting Meg Rodger and learning more about her work – as artist, wool producer and crofter – by reading this post that I wrote at the time. What I don’t mention in the post was that during my visit I’d had an idea, on the back of which Meg and I had concocted a wee plan. To explain.
Meg had suggested that I’d enjoy a walk out to Udal — a North Uist peninsula, whose landscape and archeological remains, scattered about the shore and machair, told a fascinating story of the relationship between humans and the Hebridean landscape from the Neolithic through the Norse periods. The remains included a wheelhouse, about which I have a thing, and Meg told us that this wheelhouse was really pretty special.
Getting out to Udal involves a 3 mile walk across a spectacular shoreline, backed by fertile machair, upon which cattle graze and flowers bloom.
Then, turning inland, and rising up and out of the peninsula’s rolling dunes, you really get a sense of the liminal nature of this landscape.
The sea carves out its own space from dune and rock and machair and grassy sward
Flocks of plovers gather by the shoreline. Otters fish at the edges of bays and inlets, each more beautiful than the last.
The weather moves quickly here. The skies suddenly darkening in the west can turn to a furious hailstorm in an instant.
Then, just as quickly, the wind might shift and lift, and the world is bright again.
In all weathers, across the peninsula’s white-sand shallows, the sea seems lit from within: a glorious, luminous green-blue.
Walking in this spectacular landscape on that blustery spring day really helped to blow away my winter cobwebs. And the archaeology was inspiring too.
In the 1960s, archaeologist Iain Crawford began a 30 year project of excavation at the Udal. With the help of local volunteers and students, Crawford investigated three interrelated sites which together told an important story of changing ways of island life. A first site revealed that during the Neolithic period, people lived and worked right by the shore, moving inland in the period of climactic change during which the machair was laid down.
At a second site, a well-preserved wheelhouse revealed evidence of human occupation on the machair from the late Bronze age through the late Iron Age, or Pictish period. Local beach stone and driftwood provided material for building, and finds at the site included pottery, bronzes, bone pins and needles, and some stone tools. North of the wheelhouse, a third site yielded many intriguing artefacts: pottery and quernstones, bangles and brooches, decorated combs, coins, cloak pins, and a range of textile-making tools, whittled from deer antler and whalebone. This site told a rich and complex story of humans living and working, making and trading, from their home out on the machair for over a thousand years.
We spent a whole day exploring this inspiring landscape, and as I walked I got to thinking that I’d like to knit a pullover with Meg’s yarn, from wool grown in this landscape in a shade that matched the colours of the sea. Perhaps the sweater might use a circular yoke construction, echoing Udal’s circular wheelhouse. And perhaps it could feature a familiar Hebridean gansey motif, such as the tree of life.
When, windswept and happy, we returned to Berneray that evening, I told Meg what I’d been thinking. We’d already enjoyed learning about each other’s ideas and processes, and, in the spirit of creative exchange, we decided to swap our work: I’d make Meg a sweater in return for one of Meg’s wind drawings, that had been made that very day, as I walked out to Udal.
Meg’s wind drawing hangs above our table, and every time I look at it, I remember the wind, the weather, the landscape and my thoughts.
So then I knitted a pullover for Meg, and wrote a pattern.
And we photographed it at Udal.
The Udal sweater features many elements I enjoy in my design work: twisted rib; a bottom-up construction; a big, bold motif; the use of centred double decreases to shape the yoke around the body, and a nifty turned neckline.
The sweater is knitted in Meg’s own yarn, grown by her Hebridean sheep.
Like the sheep who grew it, the yarn is hardy, but the circular yoke and openwork motifs also lend an element of delicacy to a very wearable outdoor sweater.
From start to finish, this was a really inspiring collaboration with which to be involved. Meg is a complete joy to work with, and the joyful nature of our creative exchange really helped me start to think about how I might start to develop, and involve myself in, different kinds of collaborative activities – activities that are much more about ideas, mutually-respectful conversations, and ways of celebrating each other than they are about commerce or profit. You’ll see much more of such activities from me in coming months.
Kits for the Udal pullover – containing both yarn and pattern – are available from Meg’s shop and prices start at just £63.00.
You can also buy a standalone PDF pattern download from Meg’s shop or Ravelry store.
Udal is a design about a distinctive landscape, its unique history, and our personal creative connections to each other. Meg and I both hope that you enjoy it!
I love this sweater. The color, the design, the fit. Maybe next year. Beautiful photos and story.
LikeLike
Wow! Another magical place to add to my travel list! And now I must ask the internet what a malchair is. 😁
LikeLike
Liked reading this post and seeing the pictures. They really made me longing for being at the Hebrides again. Don’t think I have ever been in a place where I felt so relaxed and quiet in my head (maybe on the beaches of Caithness).. so I understand why you went there and I am glad you found what you were looking for :-)
Like the design, am on a strict yarn diet now but maybe next year I can buy some of the Birlinn yarn, really love their colours.
LikeLike
Fantastic post and inspiring photos. I’d already spotted Meg’s lovely jumper in the November issue of Country Living magazine and wondered if there was a pattern! Excited that there is and looking forward to ordering the kit. Thank you Kate, Meg and Tom.
LikeLike
What a wonderful article amazing landscape and two fantastic artists. Are the wind drawings available for sale and can anyone walk where you walked – so inspiring, thanks, Lisa
LikeLike
Wonderful piece thank you so much! Really enjoyed the photos some of which reminded me of the southern coast of the South Island in New Zealand – just beautiful. I love your sweater and the wind drawing. Thank you for sharing your inspiring story.
LikeLike
Fabulous!
And to Tom… what images!!!
Beautiful.
Thank you
Cheers
Karin
LikeLike
Kate, I love how wide open you are to our world. Your ability to “knit” the landscapes, histories and people into your work is truly inspirational. As a student of Material Culture my mind goes to the faceless and nameless women who have lived throughout the centuries knitting or weaving, tending flocks and families in so many forgotten places and times. I am certain their creative investments yielded as much for them as they do for us—-though to be sure some of them had no choice but add to their own households with this work of their hearts and hands. Thank you for a peek into your process. If ever you feel the need to go abroad in search of other rocky coasts, do think of Maine.
LikeLike
There is something so special about these collaborations! Beautiful pattern, and I know how good Meg’s yarn is. I knitted a cardigan with it last year – not a pill in sight.
LikeLike
Such an inspiring landscape and story, thank you.
LikeLike
It’s a wonderful design Kate and that colour is just gorgeous.
LikeLike
What a landscape and I really enjoy your stories
LikeLike
I love everything about this post: the gorgeous jumper, Meg’s fantastic wind drawing, the archeological detail, and most especially these amazing photos! What a lovely collaboration.
LikeLike
The sweater is beautiful and I love the story, but Tom’s pictures.. I think I can hear the waves, and feel that wind you spoke so beautifully about. God knew what he was doing when he put you two together. You have brought so much beauty to the world, I only hope you realize that. Thank you both for your gifts of yourselves.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Oh, how lovely…the landscape, the sweater, the story of collaboration, just, well everything! Thank you.
LikeLike
I love your collaboration with Meg and your desire to pursue these joint ventures.
Words are not adequate to express the beauty of the terrain. The photographs are astounding.
The new pattern is beautiful!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for this interesting piece Kate… a perfect blend of history, geography and creativity.
LikeLike
I am experiencing a rare type of luck and joy from sitting at Glasgow airport with a suitcase containing the precious cargo of some fabulous Birlinn yarn and reading this after holding the very jumper Meg is modelling. I am Waiting for the plane home while thinking about my colour choices for Udal from my newly acquired produce of Hebridean sheep. For me it’s all as blissful and sincere as described above. I wish you both a lot of continued success and thank you for your work.
LikeLike
Breathtaking! The whole thing is breathtaking!
LikeLike
Love everything here Kate and hearing about Meg. All good wishes. Hopping over to Ravelry now. xx
LikeLike
What a truly special post and what an incredible part of the world. It is spectacular, particularly as an islander on the W side of the “western ocean” (the Northern Atlantic) I am well aware of how tenuous and full of daily struggle as well as daily beauty, living on an island is. Although I trained as an anthropologist and should know what a wheel house is in archaeological terms, I don’t. To me, as a mariner, it is the part of a fishing boat containing the “command center” where the wheel and all the engine controls plus the chart table and maybe a bunk for the skipper are located. An explanation would be welcome.
Meg’s yarn is gorgeous — I purchased a lot from here several years ago and although I haven’t had a chance to use it yet I am really looking forward to that. The colors and texture of the yarn are wonderful and I love the design that Kate has done. It is a beautiful sweater though, for me, I would include more ease and make it longer. It is cold, wet and windy here in winter (we too are down wind from the prevailing wind) and I prefer sweaters which cover me up!
If anyone is vacillating about choosing this yarn and this project, don’t. It is a spectacular and the colors are fabulous. I haven’t looked at the KDD site yet to see what colors are available in the kit but if I were to choose, I would go for Dulse which is one of the most beautiful yarn colors I’ve ever seen! This is a very serendipitous project and the landscape photos (presumably by Tom) can only give you a taste of the amazing beauty of the Outer Hebrides. Lucky Kate to have one of Meg’s wind pictures, and lucky Meg to have a sweater from her sea going sheep!
Thanks to all!
LikeLike
I’m going to have to try making a “wind-barrel” – Meg’s wind-drawing is so very inspirational! Delicacy from strength. When I zoomed in and noticed the written wind descriptor round the edge, North Easterly 5 or 6, occasionally 4 in South, I felt deeply moved – it’s a powerful piece. Thank you!
LikeLike
Beautiful sweater!
Incredible photos!
Excellent history lesson!
LikeLike
Fabulous, all of it. Off to buy the pattern, and knit with my own island handspun yarn.
LikeLike
great work of you both
what beautiful picture , for brain and soul ♥
Hope i could be there someday…..
LikeLike
Thank you Kate for everything!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kate,
I love your word pictures of Scottish
places and people. My ancestors number many Scots from the West and the east and your posts give me an insight into the landscape. I was born in Tasmania. My mother’s father’s family arrived in Australia from Lochgilphead with their 11 children to start a new life. I think they were crofters, they certainly farmed in Aus when they arrived. They called their farm Kilmun Farm. My dad’s father came from Scots-Irish stock and hismum
From border Scots. I love knitting and I love your patterns.
LikeLike
How totally respectful and unctuous you talk and your love of that island and Meg.
LikeLike