Hmmm Knitting

I first learned to knit in primary school. Probably my most memorable attempt was a green woolly jelly baby. I wasn’t very good at it in school, I remember that everything was too tight or too loose and I could never remember how to cast off properly.

I was a lapsed knitter in secondary school; I had fallen too deeply in love with my tonal drawings. I rediscovered it though as I went through college. The second course I attended was called Fibre Art. It was a blend between Fine Art techniques like drawing, painting, print-making and photography with Textile Art techniques like embroidery, felt-making and printed textiles.

I knitted cocoons as part of my insect project. I mentioned these before in conjunction with the wasps nest I showed you the drawing of. As I said then I will have photographs to show you eventually (I’m really making you hang in there for those ones)

Anyway I got back in the way of knitting and I have used it time and time again as a way to express my creativity. I don’t want to get bogged down in discussing techniques. I started back to knitting in a basic way. I know a couple of different kinds of stitches and can now follow a fairly complicated pattern but I wouldn’t call myself an accomplished knitter. I’m not a craftsperson in that regard. I use knitting and wool, like I use drawing and pencils or painting and paint. It’s a technique and material that I use to express an idea.

I think craftspeople master a skill or craft by exploring all the different aspects of it. I think the joy is in the making and they create great works of beauty. For me, communicating an idea is more important than producing the most perfect piece of hand-knitted fabric.

This here is Glee Fullee Flappin. She was knit with love and joy for the person she was made for. She is one of the earliest Snugs I made along with Gregarious. I think my designs got more cohesive the more I made but I always have great affection for the first borns. They hold the original idea and like the first wire Fat Bee, they remind me that everything has to start from somewhere.