Knitting as Art: The Wicked Pullover

Some of the creations of fiber artist Sandra Backlund. Referring to her technique as “heavy wool collage” she fancies herself as a sculpture more than a knitter.
Well, it’s not too hard to figure out why the model looks like that.

Ancient Images of Spinning

People have been spinning flax for thousands of years. The first image is Egyptian, the other four, Greek. All figures are depicted using drop spindles, and the Grecian women are also using distaffs. Click on individual images to see enlarged versions.

Textile Terms: Wool Gathering

When someone is daydreaming instead of paying attention to the talk at hand, it used to be, and sometimes still is said that the person is “wool gathering” .  How did that saying come about? Most people don’t require any wool at all to do their fanciful thinking.
The answer is simple enough. When sheep are [...]

Knitting in the Movies: Miniature Knitter for Coraline

It’s called “microknitting” , and Althea Crome has hit the big time as knitter of Coraline’s tiny sweater and gloves for the movie based on Neil Gaimon’s fantasy novel. Althea is a full sized adult human who knits miniatures. Her work is painstaking and positively amazing! Seeing this video has lit a fire under me [...]

Knitting as Art: Graffiti and ‘Yarnbombing’

photo: BNPS
Imaginative knitters around the world are turning their skills to creating public art projects out of yarn. There are even plans in the works for a book about the phenomenon. The UK’s Telegraph has an article about this fantastic bus, with information about how this trend got started. I think this is [...]

Knitting as Art: The International Tree Project

Interesting in participating in a collaborative fiber arts project? Last year, University of Alabama’s Jennifer Marsh created  fiber covered gas station. Now, she’s organizing another huge project– a covered tree in Huntsville, Alabama. Participants are asked to make and submit a leaf, using any fiber arts technique. The deadline is March 15, and her site [...]

Knitting as Art: Extreme Knitting, 1000 Strands

What, you may ask, is Extreme Knitting? Apparently, it’s using gigantic (fence post size) wooden needles and hundreds and hundreds of yarn skeins. Other than creating an art piece, and a very large one at that, there seems to be no other practical use at this time. The leader of this new movement is Rachel [...]

Oldest Western knitting image

Most representations of knitting in art have been produced from the 18th century on. This painting, by Meister Bertram von Minden, Germany, was done near the end of the 14th century. Titled “The Madonna Knitting Christ’s Seamless Garment”, it represents the Virgin Mary making a tunic in the round, using 4 needles. The tradition of [...]

Knitted Hitler: Knitler, that Knazi!

Uh oh. He’s baaack! First in wax at Madame Tussaud’s and now in wool. That’s what I call subversive knitting. Read all about it in Telegraph.uk.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2310454/Adolf-Hitler,-Saddam-Hussein-and-Pol-Pot-recreated-in-knitting.html

additional thoughts on this issue:
http://danceswithwool.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/a-few-thoughts-about-knitted-hitler/

Knitting as Art: Sounds

For me, one of the pleasures of knitting is listening to the quiet click of the needles. It’s a very soothing sound, probably because of childhood memories of lying in bed at night, hearing my mom’s needles clicking away in the living room. This afternoon, an article on the net from the Washington Post caught [...]