Knitting as Cultural Activity - Reflections 4

This post is the last in a series of posts extending the talk I gave at Glasgow University as part of the Handknitted Textiles & the Economies of Craft in Scotland workshop series. I am fascinated by knitters' hands. No matter who we are - whether unsure beginners, lifestyle knitters, industry professionals, textile conservationists or artists - we all engage with the craft using our hands. We may hold the yarn in a myriad of ways and work the stitches at our own pace, but knitting is a tactile craft. The fabric is created by our hands. You can tell the difference between handknitted and machine-knitted fabric. Hand-knitted fabric holds the story of whoever made it. It has presence.

I think it is this echo of presence - the shadow of the knitter's hands - that is so alluring to textile artists.

Roxane Permar is one of the people behind the Mirrie Dancers project - a Shetland-based arts project combining traditional lace knitting with state-of-the-art technology. Shetland knitting heritage is a complex story but Permar decided to take what is often a dark story and literally shed light on it by projecting knitted lace sample onto the Mareel arts venue.

The Mirrie project involved a large team of highly skilled and dedicated Shetland lace knitters spread out across the islands who were all asked to knit a sample of lace in a heat-resistant material. The choice of material proved to be a surprising point of contention: some of the knitters refused to work in other material than fine Shetland wool. Other knitters embraced the task with surprising results - one of them started to play around in order to see how far you can take Shetland lace. Anne Euston is now pursuing a textiles degree specialising in a modern interpretation of lace knitting (you can see an example of her work on Kate Davies' blog).

I was intrigued by how far you can take lace knitting and what you can do with it. What does it look like when you project something that fine and minute up on a wall? I looked at the samples Roxane had brought with her - they were so delicate and obviously crafted with great skill and care - and yet when they were blown up, they became disembodied, abstract and strange. I no longer noticed the elegant stitches - I wondered about the holes, the gaps, and the absences caught and distorted by the light.

I thought Mirrie Dancers was incredibly successful - it made me think about the gaps and absences in how we approach about Shetland (lace) knitting today.

By for me, it always comes back to the twin ideas ofpresence and absence*.

The Material Culture students at Glasgow University learned how to knit as part of their Masters. They will go on to work in museums and as field archaeologists - and will be handling handcrafted artefacts as part of their everyday working life. Knitting, Dr Nyree Finlay argued, was a way of making them more keenly aware of both the workmanship behind the artefacts but also what it means that something is handmade.

Did they? Some of them never taught themselves to knit. One girl could cast on, but could not knit. Another could knit (but not cast on). I wondered if they had thought about the materials they used - but they had been so focused on learning the craft that they hadn't thought beyond a basic budget and colours. I don't know why but that slightly disappointed me - I get that mastering the craft was foremost in their minds, but I had hoped they would take the opportunity to also engage with the actual material circumstances of the craft.

And this is where I am left to write about how I engage with knitting as a cultural activity.

My "problem" as a designer is that I tend to start with very abstract concepts (such as Palaeolithic marine archaeology) and I have to spend a lot of time trying to parse that into a commercially viable pattern collection. The collection following Doggerland is rooted in something even more High Concept - and while my ideas are probably more suited to being explored by textile art (hat tip Deirdre Nelson!) I keep returning to my obsession with accessibility. I want to enable other people to knit my ideas and be able to wear them. I want to make meaning through knitting but simultaneously enable others to construct their own meanings and knit their own stories.

(A huge thank you to Professor Lynn Abrams and Dr Marina Moskowitz for inviting me to this series of workshops.)

* I blame myself for reading literary theory at an age when others were out partying. That sort of thing wreaks havoc.

Knitting & the Marketplace - Reflections 3

This post is one in a series of posts extending the talk I gave at Glasgow University as part of the Handknitted Textiles & the Economies of Craft in Scotland workshop series. It is no secret that I work in the knitting industry and that I wear a number of hats. When I was first approached to work within the industry, I was unsure what it would be like to turn my hobby into a job. Would I still enjoy knitting? Could I maintain a decent work/life balance? Would my knitting friends treat me differently? Would I treat knitting differently? Several years later I still do not have all the answers but right now I'd say "yes", "no", "a bit" and "somewhat".

I work in both sectors of the industry: the commercial and the independent sectors. Each sector have its own idiosyncrasies but having a firm grounding in how the commercial knitting sector works has helped me understand how I can carve out a space for myself within the independent sector and which pitfalls I should avoid. More on which later.

But first let me clarify what I mean when I talk about the "commercial" sector and the "independent" sector:

• The "commercial" sector is mainly made up of big yarn companies with their own in-house designers, publishing houses, and established "name" designers who work extensively with subcontractors.
• The "independent" sector is mainly made up of one-person businesses with personal creative control. This could be yarn dyers, pattern designers, yarn shop owners, workshop tutors etc.

Arguably the shift in the public perception of knitting has been led by the independent sector via social media but the ongoing success has been facilitated by the commercial sector offering easy and affordable access to patterns, yarns, workshops etc. I would actually say the two sectors are far more symbiotic than they may appear.

Furthermore, the division between the two sectors is often hard to see: is Fyberspates an indie dyer or a commercial yarn company? The lovely Sarah Hatton works as an independent but with close ties to Rowan Yarns. The sectors work together in a myriad of ways to ensure knitters a vast variety of products and experiences. I would suggest the dichotomy is illusory at best: we need to think of both sectors as being commercially viable in the marketplace. Despite what some people may think about independents (especially when it comes to our intellectual property!), we do like paying our bills as much as we love being passionate about yarn and knitting!

For me, the key point revolves around creative control. When I work within the commercial sector, I do have a small say in yarn development or pattern support but I will not see the result of my suggested changes for nearly 18 months because I am just a tiny part of a very big whole. The independent sector is much quicker to respond: I see the result of suggested changes within 18 hours - sometimes within 18 minutes.

What has the commercial sector taught me that I can apply in my indie work? Plenty of things.

• I think in terms of "collections" now. A cohesive theme. A controlled colour palette. One underlying idea.
• I think about the technical skill level needed to knit one of my pattern. I am probably guilty of "aiming low" when it comes to technical fireworks in my patterns but I am passionate (to the point of obsession) about the idea of accessibility.
• Consistency in pattern writing. I've set up my own in-house style sheet so I can provide consistency in my own patterns (when writing for others, I'll use their style sheets when provided with one)
• You are nothing without your network. Even as an indie designer with a tiny portfolio, I could not do what I do without a vast array of other people supporting me. This ranges from yarn support and test knitters to fellow designers being my sounding board and tech editors crunching my numbers.

Right now I am happy to be working within both sectors. I have had to learn on the job as I do not have a design or textile background, but I am never bored, new challenges/opportunities come knocking constantly, and I meet some incredibly interesting people. It's fair to say that people who work within this industry all have unique backgrounds and their own special stories - it's quite unlike any other industry I have ever worked in.

Addendum: I am indebted to my friend Esther Maccullum-Stewart (University of Chicester) for her definition(s)of "indie". Esther is a media reseacher with a particular interest in "indie gaming". During a conversation about online communities, we were intrigued by the many structural overlaps between the online gaming and knitting communities.

Knitting & Social Media - Reflections 2

This post is one in a series of posts extending the talk I gave at Glasgow University as part of the Handknitted Textiles & the Economies of Craft in Scotland workshop series.

Social media and knitting are closely connected.

Knitting blogs gave young knitters a space to talk about their craft and enabled them to interact with each other. Ravelry is now the mothership for all online knitters nowadays: we interact in groups, we search the pattern and yarn databases, we amend database entries, we add photos of our knitting, we marvel at others' creations, and we connect.  I use Twitter much more than Ravelry these days, though. Twitter allows me to schedule things, ask/answer questions, meet interesting people, and laugh/cry - and do all these things with ruthless efficiency and a great signal-to-noise ratio.

The trouble with having a visible social media profile is that you need to perform yourself in public.

Despite my online presence, I am an introvert. I find social interaction draining and difficult. I am much more articulate when I type than when I speak. I find a roomful of strangers quite daunting. As you can imagine, working throughout Wool Week has been simultaneously incredibly inspiring and immensely draining.

Social media is a fabulous way of branding yourself. I am not a natural marketeer and I find the "B" word a mite upsetting in some respects - but I view social media in two ways: it is a great tool for connecting with people and it's a way of telling the story of your work.

But I am tired of Karie Bookish. Let me qualify that: I am tired of performing Karie Bookish. She is me and I am her, but I am exhausted. I love knitters and I love talking about knitting (even if I have a complex relationship with the practice) but I get so very tired of myself. After fifty minutes of working my bit of Wool Week, I wanted nothing more than escape and find a sequestered place far away from all social interaction. But how could I do that when I am essentially my own brand? I can see I will need to find a strategy for coping in the future, as I am due to work more big events and I don't want to end up as burned out as I was Sunday afternoon.

(Strategies on a postcard, please).

When you are are so visibly your own brand, social media come with added responsibilities too. I have seen dozens of businesses crash and burn through ill-considered use of social media: bitching about customers, admitting to fraud, blowing off responsibilities or just coming across as very unpleasant individuals. Sometimes ignorant use of social media is worse than no use of social media: if you only tweet adverts for yourself and refrain from interaction, people will unfollow you. There is a reason why it is called social media. I tend to recommend that you set up anonymous accounts on social media sites in order to learn the relevant etiquette if you are completely new to this way of communicating - that way you do not have to worry about potential faux pas affecting your business.

Despite the many pitfalls, social media are important components in making knitting flourish. It has allowed charismatic, enthusiastic people to 'spread the gospel' of knitting not being a time-capsule craft. The new channels provide a way of interacting with other people who share your interest across the globe. Knitting is a craft that is very much alive and kicking - and thanks to social media you can find and interact with people who share your passion.

Addendum: I met a lot of fantastic people this past week - many of whom I had only met online prior to Wool Week. I was lucky enough to have a stall next to Helen of Ripplescraft at The Lighthouse - I can only recommend having Helen as your stall neighbour: she kept me sane and caffeinated. Fellow designer Joyuna and I had coffee in the middle of Glasgow on a sleepy Sunday morning - she's just made the front cover of Interweave's Jane Austen Knits 2012! And I met with book artist Josie Moore following Friday's Glasgow University workshop. I took great pleasure in discussing William Morris over cream tea - I needed that.

Knitting as Identity? - Reflections 1

The next few posts will be extending the talk I gave at Glasgow University as part of the Handknitted Textiles & the Economies of Craft in Scotland workshop series. I was working at the Public Day event at Glasgow's The Lighthouse Design Centre when I was approached by a journalist from STV. Among her many questions, she wondered how Scotland influences me as a knitter and as a knitting designer. It was an obvious question to ask given the context, but I had to think about my response because the twin questions of identity and heritage hang over what I do.

I do not think I would be working in a creative industry and specifically as a designer-in-progress if I did not live in Scotland. Glasgow has been good to me in the sense that I feel very supported and inspired by the artists and creatives working here - and crucially I have been welcomed by them and given opportunities to do stuff that I do not think I would have been given in my erstwhile hometown of Copenhagen. Copenhagen plays host to many artists and creatives, but theirs is a closed circle by comparison.

So, geography plays an important part but it is not my only concern.

Trevor Pitt stopped by Glasgow to exhibit his The Knitting Salon, an art installation exploring the role of class, gender, community and urbanity through knitting. He gave an enthusiastic talk Friday about his own background, what informs him as an artist and what makes him so interested in wool as a medium. I was particularly interested in his working class background and how this influences his work.

I think my own background has a lot to do with how I approach knitting as a practice and why I am not always easy around knitting-as-practice. I wish I could twirl around with my hands in the air and shout about how much I love knitting - like so many of my readers do - but I have a complex relationship with knitting.

I am a working class kid myself. I grew up in rural Denmark with a family who worked as day labourers, farm hands, cleaners, and unskilled construction workers (if employed). They obsessed over pop culture and football - but they were also the local eccentrics. My family may have been huge (and hugely complicated) but it also shared a pervasive sense of self-expression and creative exploration that was at odds with its working-class status. We never had any money, but we had paintings on the walls and sculptures in the garden. I was kept in a steady supply of handmade garments and knitted jumpers. I was very young when I realised I could do stuff and make things.

For me, doing stuff meant moving away from rural Denmark and getting myself an education. Knitting is an uneasy practice for me because it is something which is directly connected to my working class roots. I worked so hard to get away and now I am back where I started more than thirty years ago: sticks and string in my hands making things.

So, knitting as identity-making?

For me, identifying myself as a knitter is more than "just" being affiliated with a collective of (mostly) women who use a traditional handicraft to connect with others via knitting groups and social media*. For me, it is acknowledging and finally admitting to kinship with previous generations and my complex family history. It is uncovering family roots and exploring what defines me as a human being. Can I ever make peace with knitting-as-practice?

Obvious questions to ask: Am I really at liberty to define and create myself and my own identity (I would have said YES not so long ago whilst arguing that the concept of a stable identity flies in the face of everything philosophers have had to say over the last 100 years). Or are we caught up in a matrix not of our own doing? Pre-determinism seems like such a dinosaur and yet here I am knitting away..

What is it about the practice of knitting that is so tangled up with identity, I wonder?

* I'll be writing more about knitting and social media in a later post.

FO & Pattern: Serpentine Avenue

Remember the old joke about tombstones reading I told you I was ill? It was one of my uncles' favourite jokes, bless their socks. Though magnificently Gothic, Serpentine Avenue is not my tombstone, but it does allow me to say I told you I was knitting!

It is the first pattern release for the Karie Bookish Knits/Old Maiden Aunt autumn 2012 yarn club. At the moment it is only available to yarn club members, but the pattern will be made available for general consumption in January 2013 as part of an ebook.

The shawl was written for OMA Bluefaced Leicester 4ply. It used approximately 375 yrds and is knitted on 4 mm needles.

But I want to write a little bit about the design process involved in designing Serpentine and the other yarn club patterns.

When Lilith of OMA first approached me, I started out by creating a moodboard on Pinterest. Lilith had decided on yarn bases by that point and then dyed up some samples for me. What a privilege it was! I sat there surrounded by yarns and beautiful colours - and I had to figure out which yarn/colour combinations I wanted to use.

It was around that time I started sketching patterns. Lilith and I had already decided upon Sherlock Holmes & Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  as a common reference point between us. So, I wanted something gothic, something Victoriana, something vaguely burlesque, and something steampunkish.

And so I ended up with a stack of swatches and a stack of stitch patterns.

I finally cast on for Serpentine during the Olympics Opening Ceremony - it was to be my own Ravellenic Games project - but it flew off my needles. The only snag I hit was trying to decide upon the cast-off edging. I first used an elaborate crochet cast-off  and it worked nicely. Then I changed my mind as I know a lot of knitters are not very comfortable with crochet. It was a step too far, I felt. The crochet cast-off will be used in another pattern down the line.

The second cast-off was a picot cast-off. It was pretty - it was very pretty - and I was happy with it for a long time. I finished designing and knitting the two other yarn club patterns - and suddenly the picot cast-off did not work. Don't ever try to tinker back a picot cast-off on a shawl, dear readers. It was not fun and I did it two days before the photo shoot.

I am really looking forward to seeing people's shawls. A lot of people have already talked about its Gothic and Steampunk feel - and I am so, so pleased that people have made that connection. It was very much the intention.

Then, the photo shoot.

If I look pale and flustered, it is because I wore a corset. I could hardly walk and talk at the same time - however did ladies waltz in corsets? I bought the corset especially for the photo shoot from Corsets UK - my corset is of far better quality than I would have assumed given the very reasonable price tag and they have good customer service. I also bought some stunning handmade earrings from Cherryblossom on ebay - again, highly recommended.

And now back to work. You know, I told you I was knitting..

10,328

I was going to write a long post about being strapped into a rollercoaster of woah and longing for days of meh. I had it all worked out in my head, but once I had written it down, my brilliant metaphors seemed significantly less brilliant and more .. belaboured. And as we all know that belaboured prose is one of the cardinal sins, I will quietly forget that blog post I composed in my head this morning over breakfast. Life is rushing past me at the moment and I find it difficult to catch my breath. I remember that feeling from my university days when I found a rich seam of information to mine and just lost myself in the library. It is so tempting to just step into that slipstream of excitement, fascination and intense, hard work - but these days I have some very good reasons as to why I cannot quite allow myself this. Back at university I would end up with ulcers - these days my body has other acute reactions that I should very much like to avoid (not that I am very good at avoiding them - as I am typing this, I have a very distinct headache brewing). It is just difficult to remember to say no to exciting opportunities - especially when I am having so much fun.

A fellow freelance knitting person recommended Asana to me the other day and it has already given me so much. It is a time and task management tool that is geared towards small teams, but works really well for this one-woman venture too. I have slotted in all my to-do tasks and I can already see where things are potentially clashing and how I can push one task into another time slot.So useful: I might even end up with some spare time on hands at some point!

I have already begun plotting what I would like to do with potential spare time: I'd like to whip up a few sewing projects, I'd like to finish my Acer cardigan in time for winter, I'd like to see some friends, and I'd like to read some proper books. My partner gave me a Kindle for our anniversary and while I have been using it a lot for nefarious knitting purposes, I have also devoured a lot of bad regency romances (which in itself is a sure sign of me being stressed).

(What? You think me plotting activities for my spare time is a sign of impending doom? I think you might be right. Ahem.)

Forthcoming:

+ if you have signed up to the Karie Bookish Knits/Old Maiden Aunt yarn club, the yarn parcels are under way and the first pattern will land in your inbox this Friday around noon UK time. This means I can finally blog about a Finished Object - that very thought thrills me no end!

+ I will be part of the "Reviving Woollen Traditions" Public Study Day at Glasgow's The Lighthouse Design Centre on October 18. This Public Study Day forms part of a Glasgow University research project and although the day is open to the public, I believe the organisers still would like you to sign up. It looks ace and I am looking forward to meeting a lot of online friends who are also participating.

Finally: 10,328? Ah. The number of stitches I knitted on Sunday. In laceweight. Doing lace. My wrists and shoulders are still aching.