If you’re following what we’re doing at the Knit and Matter workshops, here’s some more information about the research that led to the project.
Across history, people have used textiles to communicate things about themselves or others. More recent times have seen significant changes in how we make and share meanings, but fibre craft remains an important aspect of everyday life for many people. The Crafting Literacy project aimed to find out more about the role knitting and crochet play in meaning-making today. The project was funded by The Leverhulme Trust and had two intertwining strands.
The first strand involved exploring ideas from existing research into craft in everyday life, and thinking about how knitting and crochet work as means through which people explore and express what matters to them. An article based on this phase of the research was published in the journal Textile: Cloth and Culture. One of the interesting things to emerge from this work was how fibre crafts have been used in many ways to communicate different messages and meanings. There will be more on this in future posts.
The second strand of the project was a series of interviews with amateur crafters and professionals in the field of textile art and education. Most of the interviews took place online, because of restrictions at the time due to the pandemic. However, online interviews meant that people could take part across wider distances, including different parts of the United Kingdom, Europe and North America. All of those who agreed to take part are adult women. Most are knitters, and some mainly crochet, although many do both regularly. These interviews asked participants to share their experiences of knitting and crochet, what their craft meant to them, and how it might work as a way to explore meaning in everyday life.
I knitted a record of the research, day by day over the course of the project. Based on the idea of a temperature blanket, where the temperature on each day of a year is represented by a different coloured row, the knitted record shows the main focus of the project each day. From the bottom left:
- Yellow = reading
- Blue = writing
- Green = interviewing
- Pink = analysis
- Turquoise = conferences
What did participants say?
Several themes emerged from the Crafting Literacy interviews which demonstrate how fibre crafts can be an important way for people to explore and express what matters to them. Here are just some these themes:
Connection
For many participants, knitting and crochet connected them to people and place. Participants found significance in using yarn bought or produced in specific places, as a reminder of visits, of people associated with those places. Knitting is a social activity for many, and a way to share experiences and expertise with other like-minded people. Making for others is also a way to connect to friends and family and to spend time thinking about the receiver while planning and making something for them which is unique.
The theme of connection was explored at two textile workshops held at the Framework Knitters Museum, one of which was held as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Sciences 2022. At these workshops, participants heard some of the findings of the Crafting Literacy project. Then, led by textile artist and educator Philippa Larkam, they responded by knitting and crocheting gift or luggage tags to represent how their craft connected them to people or place.
At these workshops, participants also added tags to a map of the world, showing the places to which they were connected through knitting and crochet.
Time
Knitting and crochet also represent connections across time. Lots of participants in the Crafting Literacy project felt it linked them to the people who taught them these crafts. It is a creative way to pass time, which crafters feel is important for relaxation and general wellbeing. This includes the time spent planning and preparing for future projects. For many, the time spent making something for someone else shows care. The interviews also showed how time can be experienced through material factors linked to making. How long something takes to make might be expressed through yarn weight, for example, through the complexity of the pattern, or in the size of the person who will receive the finished item: making clothes for babies might be enjoyable because they can be completed quite quickly; taking on a 4 ply Fair Isle sweater for an adult is a more significant challenge!
‘I think it’s a tool for me to show people love for them, that I’ve spent the time to make something for them. I suppose it’s also a way of passing time; if I haven’t got anything to so, I can always just pick that up and do that. And in another way, it’s carrying on a tradition in the family of doing the knitting that my mother did, my grandmother did’.
Linda, a participant in the Crafting Literacy project
Material factors
Material factors play an important role in what knitting and crochet mean to crafters. Many participants described how they use colour in deliberate ways to reflect what is important to them or to the person they are making for.
Yarn type is important to many people, and they may prefer to knit or crochet with certain kinds of material when they can, reflecting what is important to them, such as links to place, or sustainability. How yarn feels is also important, especially when making for others, such as babies and children.
Participants talked about how they organise their materials and planning carefully for how they will be used can have as much significance as the making itself. Of course, there was lots of discussion about stash!
The theme of materiality is continued in the Knit and Matter research project, funded by The British Academy. You can find out more about what’s involved in the Knit and Matter workshops here, where you can also share your thoughts and experiences about how knitting and crochet matters to you.