Friday, May 23, 2008

EVOCATIVE KNITTING: or, how to knit like an artist

Detail of Ingrid's 'Darjeeling Moon Moth' wrap

Here's a little factoid to start your day: hundreds of thousands of knitters exist in the world. They knit for multiple reasons from just having something to do while watching their kid play soccer to delving deep into their own creative, meditative, being. Afterall, knitting is undeniably therapeudic and increasingly research seems to point to its ability to comfort emotionally in multiple ways.  Also, more people knit than golf and they aren't all women, either. So, why am I telling you all this, most of which you probably already know? Because I'm leading up to something. Don't rush me.

Okay, then. Here I am, a once-avid sewer who used to make all her own clothes as well as a passionate embroiderer who even considered applying for entry to the most prestigious British guild once upon a time but who has forsaken  all that for knitting. Knitting. Why? Because in this one craft I found art as well as comfort and the astonishing ability to combine all my other loves in one delightfully tangled package. I found artistic self-expression unfurling between two straight sticks and, occasionally along one big curved one, and it seems all I really need. I don't knit to patterns, I knit intuitively following simple structures and using mostly basic stitches mixed with glorious yarn.

Liz's Greens of Giverny hanging out in a green world

And I'm eager to help other knitters jump off the pattern grid to discover their own artistic journey, even those who really believe they can't make anything beautiful unless someone gives them explicit directions. You don't need explicit instructions, you just need to allow yourself the discovery of adventure. And here's the thing: you don't need a pattern, you just need a guide.

Susan's beach-inspired wrap

So, here comes what all this has been leading to…my new pattern book that won't be a book and won't have standard patterns but will be a detailed guide for beginning and experienced free-range knitters. Several are planned, each focusing on a particuliar inspirational culture or natural environment with the first coming out this June entitled 'Knit a Beach: A guide to Evocative Knitting'. Me, who has published one knitting book and multiple free-range patterns, is more excited about this than anything I've done up to now. It's as if this is what I've been leading up to all along, a completely different, very detailed, exploration of knitting off the grid inspired by, in this case, by nature.

More information to come in future postings but, in the mean time, I leave you with these examples of evocative knitting, the first three all  submitted by participants of the Culture Fushion knitalong:  Ingrid (more on her creation on her blog http://ivaa.typepad.com/aadalen/knitting_a_million_shades_of_green/index.html ), Liz with her Greens of Giverny and Susan Barnhorst with South Padre Island.

The final photo below is by Lenita Rich from her Nova Scotian Knit A Beach Project last summer: