Where it all began, part 5

Here's another one from the family archive. I love how everything in this photograph is so blue! This is my mum, perched on a tree stump and surrounded by swans in a very cute blue cardi which would have been knitted by one of my great-grandmothers.

Where it all began, part 4

This shot of my great-grandmother is one of my absolute favourites. This one isn't even about the knit, although I'd wager that she made that one, too. It's her brilliant pose (that fish!) and the gorgeous dress she's wearing (which my mother assures me she also made herself).

It's such a beautiful, rich image and I find it really inspiring, especially now that I've started researching and gathering ideas for my SS13 collection.

[Great-grandma Dover with uncle Christopher and great-uncle David]

Where it all began, part 3

When I was around 10 years old, my mum knitted herself a black mohair cardigan. She also made me a royal blue one but I hated wearing it because it was itchy (I was very fussy back then). But my mother's: I loved it then and I love it now. In fact I tried to steal it at the weekend but Mum decided all of a sudden that she might want to wear it again. Typical.

Anyway, there must have been something in the air during that visit, because when Mum went up to the loft to find something completely unrelated, she unearthed the pattern for it. I HAD to scan it and share it with you because it's so fabulously eighties, it is simply too good not to (see above, in all its glory). I also got a shot of me in the aforementioned cardigan that is sadly not in my possession (yet...). Needless to say, I will be making my own very soon.

Where it all began, part 2

I love these photographs of my mum and her brother Christopher in their garden. They're each sporting some pretty fabulous knits (there's that mustardy gold again!), both of which I believe were the handiwork of one or other of my great-grandmothers. But I think their Dachshund Mitzy is feeling left out and wishes she had a fetching sweater, too.

[Mum, uncle Christopher & Mitzy in their garden in Portchester]

Where it all began, part 1

Last weekend I went down to the Isle of Wight to visit my lovely mum. While I was there I stumbled across a load of old slides of my mother as a girl, with her mum & grandmother. Some of you probably know that I learned to knit with my mum and my mum's mum (hmm, this could get confusing). So the thing I loved most of all about these shots that I found, were all the (mostly) handmade knits that kept cropping up.

The Nashes clearly had a penchant for mustard/gold around that time, as there are two or three different knits in that hue that make an appearance. It then led me to think that there must be a lot of other pictures from my childhood, where my knits or my mum's had some kind of impact on me and which have possibly inspired me since. So over the next couple of weeks I'm going to try and be a bit more consistent with this blogging lark and share more of these brilliant finds. Hopefully you'll enjoy the photographs even if you haven't a clue who the people are! Here's one to get you started:

[Mum as a girl with grandma]