Beautiful, unexpected and moving: a personal essay from the Paris Review: The Unravellers. On knitting as “a metaphor for everything I’ve ever failed at“. Note: the language and subject matter are both adult in nature.
And then there are Untanglers: those who enjoy dealing with horrible tangled messes of yarn. (You can tell how I feel about them just by the way I wrote that last sentence!)
Even if you know about the group, the piece is worth a read, just to feel your visceral reaction to some of the tangled messes that knitters have got themselves into. You might recoil, as I did, or you might enjoy contemplating the puzzle!
(I adore that this piece in the mainstream media is about a group on Ravelry.)
A fascinating interview with artist Nicola Gibson, who knits sculptures. She crafts often life-size realistic sculptures of things both living and manufactured – chickens and shoes are two highlights – from mixed textile media and techniques. She uses machine knitting, machine embroidery, felting and sewing. She began her career after art school as a sculpter, using more conventional sculpting tools and media, but has transitioned to using textile materials and techniques for her work. You can learn more about her work on her website.
Relevant to my interests: actual instructions provided by the BBC for knitting The Doctor’s scarf. The document is apparently genuine, and was sent sometime in the 1980s to a viewer’s mother who enquired about instructions for making a replica scarf for her child. There’s a nice bit of background on the actual scarf prop, too.
You might recall us writing about the ‘Knitting for Munich’ initiative in Laura Nelkin’s Ravelry group. One the knitters involved was on CBS over the Christmas period, talking about the program.
One of the organizers posted a photograph in the Ravelry of a little boy picking a hat, and knitter Anna recognized it as her work. Anna proudly sent her Mom an e-mail with the photo, her mom shared it on Facebook (like Moms do) and her aunt (who works for CBS) saw it and things snowballed from there!
So many times when you contribute to a charity drive like this, you don’t see where the items end up. I love that Anna was able to see her donation going to a grateful recipient.
