Tag: knitting

Darker Yarns, Part 2

Curating, Bricolage and Indigo

Those who feel an attraction to yarn probably have a similar relationship to fabric, matched with an irresistible urge to collect interesting textiles when they see them. The two really do go hand in hand, given that yarn is potentilly fabricated into a textile, but in a less industrial way for the home knitter. Those who collect beautiful yarns and fabric face only one difficulty, the issue of storage being the most challenging in terms of space and protection from deterioration from light, insects or damp. In this new era of fashionable minimalism and discard, I stand firmly in the magpie group when it comes to textiles. It is not hoarding. I am the curator of my stash. Sometimes innocent questions are asked by a non knitter. For example, I recently bought one beautiful hank of fine merino wool dyed in indigo, it’s colour hauntingly irregular. The pragmatic bystander asked “what are you going to make with that?”, immediately indicating a lack of appreciation of this lovely yarn or the slow art of design. There is no answer. The beauteous yarn will let me know when it’s ready to be incorporated into something, and that might be never, but in the mean time, the hank of dark promise carries intrinsic allure and delicacy, it’s colour evoking many memories of indigo textiles seen in the Far East, Vietnam, China, and Northern Thailand. Why let function get in the way of a fantastic yarn?

Fine Merino wool. 3 ply. Indigo. Lust worthy.

I recently read a wonderful book on yarns, a pattern book of sorts, but also with delightful chapter introductions. In the prologue, the concept of bricolage and it’s relationship to style is outlined. According to the British sociologist, Dick Hebdige,¹ the only way left to achieve originality is through the mixture of cultural referents. Many modern knitters, as well as crocheters and sewers, (or should I use the French couturiers, so as not to confuse that fine art with smelly drains ) are bricoleurs: they find creative inspiration in ‘the combination of elements from seemingly disparate cultural sources’ creating ‘energy that didn’t exist before’ thus producing more unique and idiosyncratic knits.² I am glad I found this book: this concept legitimises as well as describes some of my favourite pastimes.

Indonesian hand died fabric, small sample of Harris tweed, costume jewellery brooch with inlaid wooden tree, and fine silk German embroidery thread. Bricolage in textiles.

Darker Yarns and Creativity

My aunt was a keen collector of yarns and textiles. Her living room was overflowing with projects. At night when she tired of the sewing machine, she would return to knitting and crochet. She was surrounded by bags of colour: most of the textiles came from factory discards, usually swatches and samples for upholstery. She would mix and match these weighty fabrics, glossy heavy taffetas with tapestries, French imperial garlanded designs with plain textured fabric, lining the backs of her machine sewn patchwork rugs and throws with simple plain cotton. They were strong rugs, both in weight and design, and most suitable to use as floor rugs for babies. The money earned from the sale of her creations at weekend markets supplemented her old age pension. Along with rugs, she would knit or crochet small decorative items and children’s clothes. Her hands were always busy.

One of my many projects. It is a joy to make something from this yarn, a combination of merino and possum wool from New Zealand. A textured pattern would detract attention from the beauty of the wool. Simple fingerless gloves on the go.

I visited her in hospital 9 years ago. She had just had a stroke but seemed to be recovering well. She sat up in bed with her knitting, the pattern spread out on the bed, a lacy design from an old women’s magazine. She remarked with a croaky, almost jolly laugh that she couldn’t understand the pattern, that it made no sense at all, but this didn’t deter her knitting progress. She had similar problems with the words in the magazine. I’m not sure if she ever received any help with this cognitive problem.

A few months later my Aunt committed suicide by slashing her wrists. For a long time, I felt guilty that I didn’t visit her at home after her stroke, and angry that she chose such a dramatic way to exit. Now I fully understand. Like most people who suicide, she chose the quickest option that came to mind at the moment of her decision. Her hands did the work that needed to be done. My memory of her now sails back to a time long ago: she is 22 and I am 5. She is short, soft skinned and beautiful. We are laughing as we pick daisies together in the backyard. She is teaching me to make long daisy chains which we wear around our necks. To this day, every Spring, I make daisy chains.

These hand spun, hand dyed yarns found at a market in Corbost on the Isle of Skye. They will not be used for fear of destroying the magic they hold as hanks.

Yarns and Dementia

Before the fire, I curated a vast collection of fabric and yarn. The beloved stash included antique hand woven Indonesian Ikat and faded blue Sumbas, too precious to hang on our walls for fear that the harsh Australian light would fade their natural colour, womens’ finely embroidered supper cloths, French linen with fine pulled thread borders, hand worked Italian pillowslips no doubt made for the wedding glory box, filet crocheted cotton samplers and tray mats recording historical events such WWI and the return of the Anzacs to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth 11 and a vast array of other textiles and yarns. Among this collection was a modest little knee rug made of knitted squares sewn together, a common enough item, but this one stood out. It was worked in monochromatic colours, dusky shades of sunset pinks and pale orange. The tension was professional while the colours were worked in a most intriguing way, both within each square as well as the way each square related to its nearest neighbours, the whole row, and the whole blanket. It was the work of pure genius, a knitted Monet or Van Gogh in three shades. When we bought that little blanket in an opportunity shop in Beechworth for a few dollars, the saleslady mentioned in passing that the creator of that magic rug was completely demented. I’m keeping this in mind. Although I no longer have that rug, I have the memory of her genius and the knowledge that one day, my hands may be my only saviour.

Japanese silk remnants, shibori dots in silk, with hank of wool, Brigantia Luxury Aran weight, from Yorkshire in the colour of Pomegranate.
Used fabric from the hill tribes, Northern Thailand, found at a second hand fabric shop in Chiang Mai. Draped on Chinese cupboard used for the stash.
Another hill tribes piece, with Australian pale green pottery cigarette case with cicada, sadly cracked and needing some gold infill wabi sabi style.

¹ Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Dick Hebdige 1979

² Magpies, Homebodies and Nomads, Cirilia Rose, 2014

Yarns on Yarns, Part 1 may be viewed here.

Yarns on Yarns

The Nordic child teaches the adult

the well heeled politely nod

and heed the warning

as the poor vote for more oppression

believing that old yarns and lies

will save them.

Simple cowl in alternating moss stitch and garter stitch. 100 grams of Aran weight wool, size 5 needles. Celtic pin by local silversmith, Tony Fitton.

I knit and weave this ancient yarn, heath tinted and Celtic hued, with tired hands, deeply immersed in a timeless pastime. Now mindfully, now mindlessly, knit one purl one, the art of ancient knotting soothes my disquiet. As the pattern turns more complex, a row of hieroglyphics looms ahead, demanding more attention, a knitter’s code from an another era. The emerging fabric begins to twist and turn in an interlacing helix as new cables form and cross paths. How did those women of olde translate designs from painted page or stone to yarn, the Book of Kells to knitting?

Post election blues

‘Knit with your hearts an unslipping knot’.  Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra. Act 11, Scene 11.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We sleep, curled around each other like a loosely formed hank of wool, weaving hands, legs and toes, fingers threading through hair and soft skin: then we unravel, in search of cooler planes of sheet, only to reform like lost souls soon after.

Fishing and Knitting

My grandparents come from wild sea

One knits fine wool to wear

The other knots hard rope to fish

My grandmother was a quiet soul, her stern appearance not helped by her refusal to wear her dentures. She looked ancient before her time. She retreated to the front room early in the evening, to knit or read, or to keep warm in a softer space under a colourful crocheted Afghan blanket. Outside the winds roared across the strait, black ocean and wild tides tempered by isolated islands rising on horizon, Sphinx like, at dusk. Living in the oldest port of Victoria, she made a paltry income from her knitting. Heavy cabled Aran pullovers were bartered or sold to fishermen for a few shillings. Pure woolen garments were water resistant and insulation against the wild winds and inclement weather of Bass Strait. The textured cable pattern, apart from being decorative and evocative of another era, provided more thickness than a plain knitted garment. Perhaps she knew those cousins who ‘met their watery graves’ out at sea as they fished the wild Strait. Maybe she retreated into the rhythm of knit one purl one for sanity, privacy, a safe haven for hands and mind.

Grace and Charles Robinson with Cocky.

My grandfather was a boat builder who knew that sea, its tides, anger and calm. He worked with the sea and on the sea. In his spare time he tied knots from ropes, strong yarns of another kind. In his old age, he taught me to twist fine wool into chord, to create little pom poms and other trims and tassels. His skills, like hers, were timeless.

The Little Black Doll

One year, my grandmother gave my younger sister a gift. This was odd, as she never really gave presents to her grandchildren- the wild sea and the fish, flounder fish as big as a plate, and wild prawns netted from the incoming tide in the channel, were gift enough. The gift was a small black baby doll made of hardened plastic. She had knitted a costume for the doll- a little outfit of yellow and green wool in the finest of ply. The shirt was in moss stitch and the long shorts were in basket stitch, each alternating square less than 50 mm, with tiny buttons sewn down the front. The tension was precise, the hand stitched joining invisible. I was jealous, not of the doll- I was well over dolls as an 8 year old child- but of the beautiful fine work that my sister received, and will most likely not remember. Today, when I knit in basket stitch or moss, I think of Grace, my grandmother, the finest of knitters, the quietest of souls.

Global optimism cowl. Knitted one week prior to the election.

Knitting in the 1950s

It would all begin with choosing the wool. Every suburban shopping strip had a little wool shop in the 1950s and 60s, stocking the latest wools and patterns. Now those shops have long gone. Making clothes for the family was not a pastime or a hobby- it was often a necessity. I’m not sure if wool was as expensive as it is today, I doubt it, but the cost for one garment was staggered through the handy system of Laybuy. The cellophane wrapped wool was put aside in the back of the shop, all in the same dye lot, with just enough balls for the project. Then a little money from the weekly budget was set aside to buy a few balls as needed.

We knitted as a family and could knock up a jumper in a weekend, especially if someone was off to a party. My mother would usually cast on, do the ribbing, the sleeves and the neck, while my sisters and I would knit the main body, perfecting our tension along the way. We produced plain garments in stocking stitch, usually with 8 ply wool from Australian companies such as Patons and Cleckheaton.

It was a cool weather occupation and the annual accompaniment to the onset of late Autumn or the first frost. Even today, as the weather begins to turn, I search for my wool stash and begin a project, even if only to make a cowl or fingerless gloves. My mother, now 96, with stiff, inward curling fingers, a Viking gene she tells me, is calling out for plain yarn to knit. Now it’s my turn to cast on for her and do the first row. I understand her need; it’s ingrained in our history, our DNA.

Discards for small projects, found at op shops.

Knitting versus Kmart

I don’t have anything against Kmart, or other cheap stores such as Target or Big W. These stores have their place and provide basic and affordable goods. But somewhere along the way over the last 2 decades, these stores have made clothing so cheap that knitting has became an anachronism, a pastime of the well heeled. Industrial clothes are pumped out at such volume, exploiting cheap labour, that clothing is often bought on a whim and discarded without a thought.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures indicate about 500,000 tonnes of leather and textiles are discarded each year, amounting to 23 kilograms each, and only a fraction of this appears to be being recovered through recycling.¹

As pure wool or cotton yarn very rarely appears in most garments these days, this mountain of discarded clothing ends in landfill, a major plastic microfibre pollutant. The textile industry is the second largest global polluter after oil. Food for thought.

Information and quotes from Slow Clothing, Finding meaning in what we wear  by Jane Milburn.

I hear my yarn calling, “to knit up that raveled sleave of (post election) care.” Do you enjoy Knitting and Crochet dear reader or have you taken up the Japanese art of darning? Does winter draw you to craft or barley soup? Is knitting meditation and when does it turn stressful?