First Person
Designer to Love: Sylvia Watts-Cherry
There’s intarsia, and there’s Sylvia Watts-Cherry intarsia.
Consider, for example, the question of a certain button band.
For Sylvia, a cardigan with a Nubian queen on it can’t have a plain old button band interrupting the face.
So her iconic design—a true showstopper—includes a proper intarsia button band: a dozen colors carefully knitted to continue the pattern.
You know: just another bit of knitting.
Nobody is having more fun with knitting than Sylvia Watts-Cherry—she’s got a million ideas and a wall full of yarn. Stand back, people.
She is fearless in her designs. Her background in science and math gives her a comfort level with complexity and detail. She’ll combine cables and intarsia. Embellishment and texture. Anything is possible in Sylvia’s world.
She has been knitting since she was eight, growing up in Aberdeen, Scotland. Her long career culminated in running a busy tutoring company. It was only when she sold her business a few years ago to retire that knitting became her all-consuming new career.
From the sound of it, this is a very busy retirement.
What Inspires Her?
You can see a variety of influences running through Sylvia’s designs.
It was at an exhibition of African textiles in London that she decided she wanted to try to recreate some of what she saw—she is totally fascinated with African fabrics, culture, and history, drawing from her Nigerian family heritage.
Nubian Queen
For Nubian Queen, her idea began with a length of fabric from Africa featuring the head of a woman.
“Around Christmas 2018,” she says, “I started playing with a pattern. I found this fabric I absolutely loved. Found it at a craft festival in London. That’s how the Nubian Queen started.” She wanted a figure recognizable as a Black woman with a headscarf and vibrant colors.
“I was going to New York for Vogue Knitting Live, and I just wanted something a little bit bigger than some plain jumper. I was going to a place that’s big and loud. I just did it for the trip.
“Everybody went mad on Instagram. I just wasn’t prepared—I didn’t expect to be recognized. It was so overwhelming. I thought I’d just knitted a cardigan. I wanted something I could take off, because it was going to be hot.”
See? That button band was all about practicality!
This dazzling design set Sylvia Watts-Cherry on her new path as a knitwear designer.
The final Nubian Queen pattern is a pullover, which is a merciful thing for those of us who haven’t quite mastered the intarsia button band.
Village Life
For another knitting festival, Sylvia wanted to celebrate a typical African village.
A coat of many colors—and creatures and people.
“It’s not a particular place, though people ask me about that,” she says. “I just put in elements of market life, people walking to market, villages, boats, animals. You never have animals living that close, but it’s fine for the sweater.”
The design wraps around the whole coat.
It was a challenge, to be sure, to make the design flow across the front. It embodies what Sylvia is all about: “Design happens as you go along. It’s not static. As I knit, I modify it and change things around.”
Such an easy intarsia button band on this one!
Will we see Village Life as a pattern? “No!” she laughs. “Some things you just have to knit for the pleasure of it. For me that was a bit of fun.”
Amaka
Part of the Warm Hands book, edited by Jeanette Sloan and Kate Davies, Amaka celebrates symbols and colors of traditional African textiles. The playfulness of Sylvia’s interpretation is on full display here.
In the MDK Shop
Caledonia
Sylvia is a child of Scotland, growing up in Aberdeen, and traditional cables and knit-purl textures are another facet of Sylvia’s work.
Living now in Hertfordshire, north of London, you can hear the nostalgia in her voice as she talks about a favorite design, her Caledonia jumper.
Cables worked into argyle. Beautiful.
“Caledonia is quite an emotional one for me,” she says. “The pattern started at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival. I came across a yarn, Fibre Co. Lore, and the idea came straight to me. It needed to be about the Highlands of Scotland, the kind of garment that would be happy there. It came from being in Scotland. And when it came to naming it, it just made me feel like home, growing up in Aberdeen.”
Modeled by one of her daughters. up top is her other daughter modeling Nubian Queen. (They’re twins!)
“When it first came out, one of the knitters following me sent me the song ‘Caledonia,’ and it was about going home, and that feeling. I played it for the whole day and cried the whole day. That one is like home. Feels very much like being young again and growing up, with the hills in Scotland.”
How She Works
“Designing is quite an emotional thing for me,” Sylvia says. “I have to feel the yarn and then I have to feel the design, otherwise I can’t connect with it.”
Getting outside is a balm to her. “I walk every day, tend to go out with the sun, 7:30 in the morning. I love being out when there aren’t many people. Go out in the woods, get the fresh air, reflect, relax, and that’s when I do a lot of my thinking and design work. When I’m stuck, I go for a walk.”
When she sees people knitting her designs, Sylvia is thrilled. “I love responding to messages. I feel it’s an honor for someone to make something that’s come out of your head. I’m so excited when somebody makes something. For me, it’s still a hoot. I get so excited. I love to see the interpretation. It’s an honor. I get a buzz from it.”
Advice for Intarsia Knitters
As a teacher of intarsia, Sylvia is pro tangle! “I actually don’t use bobbins. When I’m teaching it, I teach how to make the yarn butterflies and how to hold the bobbins if they want to use the bobbins. But the real secret is to free the yarn.”
Take a Class with Sylvia
One silver lining of the lockdown is that we can all take a class from Sylvia so easily.
Thursday, February 4, 12:30-2:30 pm Eastern: Intarsia in the Round at Knit + Escape. Sign up here.
Saturday, February 13, 10:00-noon Eastern: Beginner’s Journey into Intarsia at Virtual Knitting Live. Register here.
Sunday, February 14, 10:00-noon Eastern: Journey into Intarsia in the Round at Virtual Knitting Live, register here.
See all of Sylvia’s designs on Ravelry, right here.
Finally . . .
Here’s “Caledonia,” the song by Dougie MacLean that Sylvia talks about. Fair warning: it is as tender a song as you’ll find.
Thanks for featuring Ms. Watts-Cherry’s works in this post. Her designs are superb and I have purchased the yarn kits for two of them. I look forward to taking her virtual class next Thursday!
So inspiring. Really brightened up my day reading this!
Agree!
Wow! Just wow!
Thank you—remarkable, fabulous, amazing, inspiring!!!!!
Truly creating a masterpiece on stitch at a time. Marvelous! And Dougie MacLean is a great oval artist.
Very interested to discover another fantastic knitting designer – the Caledonia sweater is now on my ‘must do’ list.
And Dougie Maclean singing Caledonia brought tears to my eyes, oh dear.
Sylvia sounds like quite a force. What an artist.
What a cool lady! You just want to be part of her world. For me it will start with the Caledonia jumper. Just perfect.
Ditto to everything! Thank you, MDK, for featuring this inspirational designer.
So amazing ‼️
Oh man. I love that Caledonia!
I always love being introduced to new-to-me designers. Even more on my to-be-knit list (which if I continue at my usual rate will take me into my 70s if I stop adding to my queue).
Wow!
Delightful Thankyou.
What an amazing designer Sylvia is. Thank you for the wonderful article. Now I want to take her Vogue Live class.
Wow. what a day brightener Sylvia and her designs are! Thank you for introducing her, love her designs and colors choices. Her smile and energy are infectious.
Scottish nostalgia plus African vibrancy? Holy cow! (No, that’s Indian.)
I saw Sylvia’s Village Life sweater at VKL 2019. It was a jaw-dropping, show-stopping masterpiece that made it impossible for her to proceed from point A to point B without being stopped by many adoring fans! I am excited to learn from her in a virtual class next Thursday.
Sylvia is an amazing designer but more than that, she’s one of the loveliest people you’ll ever meet. Her lessons will keep me in good stead as I start the Flying Kites pillow.
Stunning! No more words escape me.
You remind me that the Amaka gloves have been on my must-make list since I first got my copy of Warm Hands. And now Caledonia is on the list – in fact, it may jump the queue!
PS: and her Tortoiseshell intarsia pullover, cover story from Pom Pom Quarterly Autumn 2020, also in the queue. She’s just bursting with brilliance!
Wow, I love all these designs. Thank you for introducing me to Sylvia’s work. This article is wonderful.
These are works of art, every one of them! I love the African themes. They remind me of some textile painting works I saw in South Africa and Zimbabwe, only they are even more wonderful in knitted intarsia. I will be following Ms. Watts-Cherry going forward. Thank you for highlighting her.
Awestruck!
Wow. Fantastic. Um, other superlatives here. Just because I don’t enjoy doing intarsia doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it from a safe distance. Thanks for this.
Such unique knitting! More than just “pretty “!
WOW. thank you for introducing me to Sylvia
There is a fiber connection with Dougie MacLean. Twenty years ago Dougie MacLean & his wife Jenny owned the Dunkeld Hotel in Dunkeld, Perthshire, where he grew up. Jenny was a spinner and knitter, and one night a week (I think it was Wednesdays?) local knitters and spinners gathered in the hotel bar, often with live music. Dougie alternated tending bar with playing the fiddle with other local musicians. I had met Dougie in Rochester NY after a concert he gave, through a mutual friend, but I was too shy to speak to him, so sat very quietly knitting in the corner. I was doing my best to be invisible until a lovely and lively Scottish teenager came over and started chatting, she turned out to be Dougie’s daughter, and eventually brought her mother and father over to join our conversation. It was a happy, music-filled evening, probably the way Wednesday evenings generally passed in that hotel bar in Dunkeld, at least when Dougie wasn’t on tour.
Wow! I need to keep my eye on this designer.
I adore Nubian Queen. It reminds me of a bust my oldest sister has had forever. She got it in Lebanon when I was a tiny tot (she and her husband had a good friend from there and they would spend quite a bit of time in Beirut with him and his family). I have been drawn to the piece my whole life and now I could knit its cousin. Sadly, I am a bit afraid to do so because I do not want to be accused of cultural approbation. Maybe I can wear a button that says, “appreciation and respect, not approbation” when I wear it? At any rate, that sweater sings to me in its strength and beauty.
appropriation, not approbation. I obviously cannot spell this early!
These designs are wonderful!
I loved this article – the Dolores Keane version of Caledonia is special. Worth listening to. Haunting.
I had the pleasure of sitting next to Sylvia at Vogue Knitting Live NY last year and asked her about her amazing Nubian Queen cardigan. She was full of pride describing how it was her daughter’s skill in creating the graphic and downplayed her knitting it up. We had a great chat about intarsia. Just a lovely gracious lady. I’m happy to see she’s getting notice. It’s well deserved.
Ah inspiring and so much ‘LIFE’ in them. Thank you for sharing
I would love a print or canvas of the village cardigan. Is that possible? Does she sell prints?
Her colors and designs are bursting and lively, and all her patterns look gorgeous when worn. While I don’t know yet if I’ll move beyond my intarsia anxiety, just looking at her work is inspiring and joyful! And maybe taking one of her intarsia classes is just the thing to get me over the hurdle. Also, I hope my eventual retirement will be as exciting as hers.
From the time I saw the Nubian Queen sweater I have not been able to put into words my reaction to Sylvia’s designs. They stir something inside of me on a very deep level. Her designs are powerful, magnificent, and awe inspiring.
Love seeing books I would not normally explore. Thanks