At the third Knit and Matter workshop, led by textile artist and educator Philippa Larkam, we turned our minds to how the threads we had produced through spinning and dyeing would become surfaces.
We began by exploring our relationship to the design process. For many fibre crafters, this aspect of making will most often involve a pattern, designed by someone else, that we follow. But what do patterns mean to us as makers? For some Knit and Matter participants, a pattern is a set of instructions to follow; it gives us an idea of what we need to do to produce something we have chosen to make. This can be useful when it comes to garments such as socks, for example, when the fit and size of the item is quite important. For others, a pattern is less of a goal and more of a guide; it can provide inspiration and some rough ideas about materials or size that can be taken in new directions.
Patterns within knitting are also interesting. They can provide a focus, through colour or combinations of stitches, for example, that allows us to be present in our making. Complex patterns can be challenging when it involves lots of counting, but they also provide a way to ‘read’ our knitting or crochet as we go along.
‘Reading’ our work is a way to gauge how our chosen design or pattern is working. In our discussion of design, we found that some of us prefer to undo when something has ‘gone wrong’, while others ‘look at mistakes as design elements’ in themselves: a hallmark of handmaking.
From threads to surfaces
Now ready to use in our projects, our dyed yarn was hanked, showing the colours as they were positioned when we dyed. The first thing many of us did was to start winding. While some used swifts and winders, others revisited the more manual winding processes we remembered from our childhoods, when we provided outstretched hands for our mothers and grandmothers. This was a good opportunity to lend a hand and have a chat!
As the yarn was wound into balls, we began to see the colours we had carefully considered in Workshop 2 take on different dimensions.
Inspiration and ideas
Our theme of ‘landscape’ has inspired participants in different ways, from meaningful places to the landscapes of our lives. Some participants developed ideas in sketchbooks, while others drew on favourite holiday snaps, or online images.
Just as Sarah had encouraged us to play with fleece in Workshop 1, and Ishrat had also invited us to play with colour in Workshop 2, designing and starting to make our knitted and crocheted objects involved exploring and experimenting. As one participant said, ‘when you play with stuff, that’s when you get the best ideas’.
The yarn we’d made offered a range of possibilities and restrictions to respond to, including time. For some, this meant experimenting with different forms, from a series of small pieces to pictorial representations which drew on the textures and colours of the yarns to reflect aspects of their landscapes. Others explored how combining other yarns, or even other yarn crafts, can create different effects.
We are all used to design as a feature of our knitting and crochet practice. Although this is very often through the designs of others in the form of patterns, we will often still make choices about style, colour and yarn type. The process of working on our own responses in Workshop 3 showed how much we draw on our experience and expertise when working with materials through knitting and crochet.
How do you approach design in your making?
- Do you like to know what you’re aiming for when you make, or do you prefer to find out as you go?
- Do patterns provide instruction or inspiration? Are they a goal or a guide?
- Do you decide what to make based on material, or choose material to fit?
- How does what you make reflect the landscapes of your own life?