MDK Field Guide No. 14: Refresh
MDK Field Guide No. 14: Refresh
A welcome breeze of clean, fresh design from Carol Feller, the Irish designer whose work MDK have loved for many years. These four patterns explore texture, structure, and the beauty of a special yarn.
Transom Cardigan:
The fun of exploring clever construction is what this design is all about. The saddle shoulders, the shape of the garment—it all converges in a forever piece that combines classic and modern. And her training as a textile artist means that the fabric we’re making is a perfect weight, just gorgeous.
Twining Wrap:
No need to think about size or fit, and with today’s knitters more clever than ever, a great shawl design allows for expanding skills. Here, Carol mixes cables, knit/purl patterns, and a triangle shape in a lush snuggler.
Trellis Top:
When MDK began to plan this Field Guide with Carol, their conversation included talk of a poncho. But Carol’s imagination took her far afield from the familiar drapey extravaganza, to this neat, versatile layer. It has the same easy feel of a poncho, but the buttons down the sides mean you can wear it as you like.
Arcade Cap:
A beanie for a cool day. The lighter yarn makes this a winner for a windy day, or maybe a day when you’re craving a cover. This is a fast, clever knit.
There's a bit of a back story to the name of these guides...
The two American women, Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne, who produce these guides run a company now known as Modern Daily Knitting, but up until a month ago the company was called Mason-Dixon Knitting. Ann and Kay were originally pen pals living in Nashville and New York respectively. They chose the name, it seems, to reflect that fact that one lived in the south and the other in the north of the USA.
I confess when I first ordered these guides in June 2020, just after they had changed the company name, I didn't realise the significance of the original name. But comments I saw online made me do a bit of homework. From Wikipedia I discovered that:
The Mason–Dixon line is a demarcation line between four U.S. states, forming part of the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia (part of Virginia until 1863). It was surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in the resolution of a border dispute involving Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware in Colonial America. It later became informally known as the border between the free (Northern) states and the slave (Southern) states. The Virginia portion was the northern border of the Confederacy. It came into use during the debate around the Missouri Compromise of 1820, when the boundary between slave and free states was an issue. It is still used today in the figurative sense of a line that separates the North and South politically and socially.
Having read this, I can understand the impetus for change and appreciate their choosing to act on it. My stock, however, was printed before the change took place and still carries the old company name. I have added this explanation to the website so that customers are aware of the situation.