As I mentioned in my last post, I started writing up my thesis on 1 January, and I'm aiming to finish by 1 July. I've got a strict timetable drawn up - and I'm pleased to say that I've managed to stick to it so far!

I've finished chapter 1 - an introduction to the epic themes behind my research (summarised by the word cloud above). I'm also keeping up with my thesis cardigan (as explained in my last post) - here, you can see it after the chapter 1 welt section. 

I've just started on chapter 2 - a review of fashion theory literature, with some 'vignettes' from my own data woven in - and commenced the next bit of my cardi.

Progress report in two weeks!

A few weeks ago, Simon and I trekked up the M6 to the amazing Mendrs symposium in the Lake District. We had a fantastic time, catching up with friends and making new ones!

I gave a talk about my PhD research, and in particular how the re-knitting treatments I’m developing could be seen as a sort of ‘emotional mending’. I’ve put the abstract here, and I think a recording of all the presentations will be available on the Mendrs site soon.

This post is part of the Mendrs blog tour – conceived as a way of continuing the energy and interest generated at the event, and nurturing the sense of community we created. For this post, I wanted to reflect on my own experiences, and share the thoughts that I have when I’m mending clothes.

The pictures above show some of my recent mending exploits:

• Simon’s (very) vintage pea coat, which was in great condition when he bought it in San Francisco 7 years ago, is becoming an ongoing mending project for me. On previous occasions I have fixed the lining, patched the pocket bags, and bound the disintegrating cuffs. On my last mission, I completely replaced the pocket bags, which required a journey into the depths of a very well-constructed garment, and bound the fraying buttonholes.

• Inspired by my work on Simon’s coat, I replaced the entire lining of my vintage llama coat, which I must have had for 15 years. It was in rags, a disgrace – I dreaded taking my coat off! At the same time, I replaced the pocket bags with lovely strong drill, rather than the existing silly lining fabric which snags and splits and is useless for pockets.

• Simon and I formed a mini production line to renovate his mountain of jeans, which required all manner of mending. He assessed condition, cut and pinned patches; I sewed. He now has a mountain of fixed jeans, but still wears the same pair for weeks at a time.

• My white mac has been languishing in the mending pile for a couple of years, waiting for me to somehow deal with a number of rather obtrusive pen stains, which had mysteriously appeared on the placket. Prompted to act by the need to be smart on my sister’s potentially rainy wedding day, I created a line of foundation stitches and then added crochet trim to cover the stains and co-ordinate with the buttons. I’m too scruffy to avoid more stains in future, but I think now that I’ve ‘opened’ this piece, I’ll feel quite positive about adding more embellishments.

• At Mendrs, I patched up my large stuffed frog, who was acquired from the Brussels flea market and underwent structural damage in the wash. I felt bad about having spoiled him, but now feel warm and fuzzy when I see his polka dot patches.

It’s nice to share my mending – in the past, it’s been a rather ‘backstage’ activity for me, but I’m beginning to see it in a different light.

I have always tended to think of mending as a chore, which is never complete. My mending box (boxes, actually) are a rather stagnant area. Items are put there, full of good intentions, and rediscovered with a sense of horror years later – especially if only a button was needed. Perhaps my lack of passion for mending is because I have preferred to make something new, to be able to follow an idea on a journey from an image in my mind to material reality.

There’s loads of evidence that making is good for you – the physical hands-on activity, the joy of interacting with materials, the way it connects you with others, the satisfaction of seeing something grow and take shape, and the opportunity it gives you to express yourself and your identity. I talk to lots of amateur knitters about these benefits at workshops – but we also talk about the frustrations of making, and the reasons why more people don’t make things for themselves to wear.

One of the key issues of making something from scratch is, I think, the overwhelming number of choices you have to make: colour, material, shape, pattern, size… plus that niggling concern that it won’t turn out quite as you intended. Of course, you can use a pattern – but that still involves lots of choices, and often the feeling that you haven’t got quite what you wanted. While I generally encourage people to feel confident in experimenting, I have to admit that too much choice can just be paralysing. I’m a trained designer, yet like everyone else I have piles of beautiful fabric that I can’t quite figure out what to do with.

When it comes to making non-knitted clothes I am like anyone else, an amateur. Though I have good sewing skills, gained from my fashion degree, I ‘use up’ my creative juices on Keep & Share and don’t have the energy for sewing garments from scratch that I once had.

In my recent activities – perhaps because of the work I’ve been doing with existing garments, and the conversations I’ve had about mending with Tom of Holland and others – I’ve found that mending is a really rewarding type of making, which overcomes the paralysis of choice.

When you approach a garment that needs mending, the challenge is already framed; the piece itself is telling you what to do, or at least what the problem is. When I fixed the pockets of Simon’s coat, I didn’t have to think about what to make. I knew that the pockets needed patching, or replacing, and could then focus on the satisfying, and creative, task of figuring out how to do that. Although I didn't have a pattern or instructions, by observing the garment I could figure out how it was made. When I re-lined my coat, I carefully took apart the old lining and used it as a pattern for the new one. I’ve discovered the construction secrets of some old, beautifully made, pieces – and added in some of my own. As I deconstruct and reconstruct, I learn about the garments in my wardrobe and create a stronger connection with them. Of course, I also get the warm glow of treasuring materials, and keeping something in use.

I don’t have a lot of time for personal making – there are always more urgent work-related making tasks to be done – but when I do a good mend, I get a good return on my time investment. When I put a new lining in my coat, I effectively gained a new coat, because it had become pretty much unwearable. Plus, if you mend something that you have worn to pieces, you know that the effort will be worth it. When I buy or make something new, I never quite know whether it will become a best friend, or sink to the back of the wardrobe.

I reckon that the satisfaction of making depends to some extent on framing: if you can frame your mending as a creative act, and give yourself enough time and the right tools and materials, it will be fulfilling. Like any other task, if the framing is different, it can feel like drudgery, or at least a chore. Perhaps any type of making can be a ‘flow’ activity, which Csikszentmihalyi describes as being between boredom and anxiety. Having got my head into the right space for mending, I'll be approaching my mending box with anticipation, rather than trepidation, from now on.

PS If you’re thinking that I’m doing a lot of mending for Simon, I should point out that he does the vast majority of the cooking and washing chez Holroyd – activities that are flow for him, drudgery for me :)

To read more about mending, check out the other posts on the Mendrs blog tour:

At the moment I’m collecting, developing and sampling techniques for intervening in existing knitted fabrics – opening, unravelling, re-knitting and embellishing in every configuration I can muster. In my last post I showed one example of the step-by-step images I’m taking of each sample, which will show others how to do the same process. I’m aiming for these processes to be generic – able to be applied in many different ways, in different contexts.

But as I’m doing the samples, I’m realising how many decisions are involved in their making. I want to show a multitude of possibilities, but – by their very nature – each sample can only show one. For example, I have a sample of a piece which I’ve opened and knit down from the open stitches. What hem to knit? What cast off to use?

In a conversation with my PhD supervisor last week, I described these decisions to him, and explained that I was using the idea of ‘being knitterly’ as my guide. Where I have a choice of techniques, I choose the one which seems the most knitterly. But what does this mean? I suppose, for me, it’s about appealing to the sensibilities and preferences of an experienced knitter, and enjoying the full vocabulary of knitting – based on my own experience and the knowledge gained from discussing techniques with others.

I guess that I started using the term ‘knitterly’ with reference to the idea of ‘painterly’. My dictionary defines painterly as:

painterly adj

1. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a painter

2. characterised by qualities of colour, stroke, or texture perceived as distinctive to the art of painting, especially the rendering of forms and images in terms of colour or tonal relations rather than of contour or line

So…

knitterly adj

1. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a knitter

2. characterised by elements perceived as distinctive to the craft of knitting, especially…

It’s the second of these definitions that I’m particularly interested in. Could it be developed? What are the elements perceived as being distinctive to the craft of knitting? I searched for others using the term in this way, and found a thread on the Knitter’s Review forums, and a mention in KnitKnit about the knitterly work of Teva Durham.

One person on the forum also made the link between knitterly and painterly:

“I view ‘knitterly’ much as I view ‘painterly.’ Or much as I view the concept of a ‘musician’s musician.’ Paintings that are considered ‘painterly’ often display techniques that may be difficult for a beginning painter to master but which add something beautiful to the work. Tom Waits is a classic musician’s musician–some folks without much of a musical background may not understand all of his work, but those who have studied or played a lot of music can hear musical quotes and techniques that are really exciting.” Lanea

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On the hunt for the characteristics of knitterly-ness, I’ve gathered some ideas together, backed up by some of my own thoughts and the words of others (usernames refer to posters on the Knitter’s Review forum, which can be found here - I hope the original posters are happy for me to use their contributions, but please contact me if not)

Knitterly is about both design and execution

“I create designs to bring out this expressive quality, but in reproducing them, not every knitter has the touch. There are two levels, the design and the implementation or interpretation – like a Chopin nocturne needs a feeling pianist.” Teva Durham quoted by Sabrina Gschwandtner, KnitKnit: Profiles and Projects from Knitting’s New Wave, p60

Knitterly is about both process and product

“An attention to the craft – to the skill involved in making the item and not just in the item itself” fillyjonk

“[To] focus not only on patterns but also designing, technique, fibre, etc … because for me, knitting is more than just fashion.” MJM

Knitterly is being ‘absolute boss of your knitting’

“The technique will, I think, prove to you that you are the absolute boss of your knitting.” Elizabeth Zimmermann, Knitting Without Tears, p37

… by understanding the structure you’re creating 

I think of a knitterly approach as being able to read your knitting, to see a piece of knitting or a pattern and to understand the processes involved.

… and using the right technique, based on your own preferences

“It’s about knowing eighteen different ways to do an increase, and choosing the one you want, no matter what the pattern says, based on how you want the end-product to look.” honeybee33

Knitterly is attention to detail

“An attention to, and an appreciation for, detail. An unwillingness to sort of shrug and say, ‘Oh, that’s good enough, no one really knits any more so no one will notice the corners I cut.’” fillyjonk

Knitterly has a preference for in-the-round to flat knitting, for seamless finishes, and for knitting over sewing

“[The] traditional method of construction ‘in the round’ is more natural to knitting than the more modern method of knitting over two needles. Knitting pieces and sewing them together owes more to dressmaking and tailoring, than knitwear. The majority of old patterns were in the round. There is a piece of good advice for knitters that the Shetland Islanders mention over and over again. ‘Never, ever sew when you can knit’. After all, most people hate putting the knitted pieces together.” Michael Pearson, Traditional Knitting, p14

Knitterly is revelling in the cleverness of knitting …

“Perhaps many people share with me great pride in producing a piece of work which will cause their expert friends to exclaim, ‘How did you do it?’” Elizabeth Zimmermann, Knitter’s Almanac, p44 

… but being open about your techniques

“[I] gradually, with hints and winks, give out clues.” Elizabeth Zimmermann, Knitter’s Almanac, p44 

“The “wise knitting woman” who passes her skills and knowledge on to others.”fillyjonk

Knitterly doesn’t disguise its nature

“Being true to the craft….to me that means it should look like knitting.”kdcrowley

I surprised myself by realising how much I agree with this. I remember having a conversation with a machine knit designer, who tried (quite successfully) to disguise the fact that her fabric was knitted. Her work was accomplished and professional, but I don’t think I’d describe it as knitterly.

Knitterly is being prepared to experiment and ‘unvent’

“It’s about ferreting out how it could be possible to make a yarn-over-knit exactly the same size as a yarn-over-purl, even though you are the only one who would be able to tell.” honeybee33

“[To] look at a sock knit the same way for generations and come up with a different heel.” RobA

Knitterly engages with tradition yet pushes forward

“To me, knitterliness is not about tradition, or ‘the way they used to do things’. It’s not just about looking back, or moving forward. It’s about the drive for the craft that propels all of us ever outward, expanding *and* refining, preserving *and* inventing, no matter where that long drive takes you. Just because we can, and just because we care.” honeybee33

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There were some proposed characteristics of knitterly-ness that I disagreed with:

Knitterly is about enthusiasm rather than skill or detail

“I think of someone as knitterly if they love knitting, and it has nothing to do with attention to detail. A grandmother who knits with Red Heart yarn because she loves the craft so much and can’t afford wool is a perfect example to me. I know people who knit tons of novelty scarves, and others who knit one exquisite sweater per year with every detail carefully planned out and executed. Yes, I think the latter is a better knitter (skillwise), but I think they are both equally knitterly.” knit_cookie

“If the work is done for the joy of knitting (product or process)  it is knitterly. If it is done for the participation in a trend alone, it’s not. So the most intricate knitted garment in the world could be non-knitterly – because it was done for the sake of a trend, and the rattiest scrap of garter stitch with dropped and split stitches, can be knitterly, because it was done for the joy of knitting. RoseByAny

I understand the sentiments of these contributors, but think it’s useful to define knitterly as something other than enthusiasm: otherwise we have no name for knitterly techniques.

Knitterly is about humility and lack of ego

“The old sage woman who’s made mittens and socks (and more) all her life for her loved ones. Without fluff, and without great praise…just the quiet doing.”knittingbaglady

I agree with the following response: “While I understand the feeling of roots that this image creates, I am not sure it represents knitterliness to me. It would depend on how you did that work, wouldn’t it? RobA

My gut feeling is also that a lack of ego or fanfare is more indicative of the status of women, and women’s craft, than a knitterly quality to aspire to. A lot of my work is about trying to get a little more fanfare around the knitting of others.

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So, what do you think? Do you recognise my definitions of knitterly-ness? Disagree? Have any more to contribute? Who or what do you consider to be knitterly, and why?

COMMENTS FROM ORIGINAL BLOG POSTING:

jet | 4 April, 2012 at 1:44 pm 

1. i read the comments and thought about the word knitterly.
   The pleasure of knitting is i think very importend, but… if you have the skills to level up your skills it can be knitterly as well.
   Like when i was an art student and i had to knit some art work, i loved it to try out some other materials and to try out how you could use the same technic without losing the effect of knitting. When something like that was been a succes i felt it was knitterly as well.
   i don’t think others aren’t telling the truth but, you can’t disquality the one or the other.
   Like the fun and enjoyment of the knitting it self but as well the fun that you can have that you watch your skills are improving to a higher level;-D
   i’m a dutch girl so … my english isn’t sooo well, sorry for the mistakes i have made;-D

2. latham180 | 4 April, 2012 at 8:47 pm

   Great blog post Amy, inspiring as always. I wonder if the definition as “elements perceived as distinctive to the craft of knitting” could be applied to something that is not actually knitted. For example, could Chae Young Kim’s knit effect digital wallpaper be described as knitterly?

3. Amy | 6 April, 2012 at 7:25 pm

   Thanks for the comments – there’s definitely an interesting dynamic between enjoyment and skill, and an issue around whether ‘knitterly’ requires ‘authentic’ materials, or even to be physically knitted!

   Food for thought…

4. tomofholland | 9 April, 2012 at 9:50 pm

   Since reading this post I’ve been thinking a long time about what ‘knitterly’ means to me. I think I broadly agree with you. For me, ‘knitterly’ means that you have an object that you could not perceive to be made in a different way. I think it would be interesting to explore the term ‘elements’ in the second definition of ‘knitterly’, rather than trying to finish it. There are some things you can only do by knitting, which I think makes something ‘knitterly’. The most obvious one is already mentioned: the ability to make a seamless tube (hence a sweater knit in the round is more knitterly than one knit in pieces). But another important one to me is that you can shape that tube whilst you are making it, unlike sewing, where you need to cut material, and then sew it together. There’s also a certain way of decoration that feels very knitterly to me, which is the textures you can create with knitting, which again, is something you do whilst making the fabric, rather than something you do afterwards (e.g. in pottery, you would generally first make a shape, and then you can create a surface texture afterwards). As for colour, stranded colourwork feels more knitterly to me than intarsia. All this is underpinned by intimate knowledge of technique, and an intuitive understanding on when to use them to achieve the exact effect you’re after.

Amy | 10 April, 2012 at 10:45 am

1. Hi Tom – thanks for your contribution! Yes, I totally agree – I often bang on about designing for the capabilities of the structure, and celebrating those that are particular to the structure, e.g. the ability to shape three-dimensionally without sewing.

   Interesting point about decoration, and stranded colourwork versus intarsia – I think I agree. In colourwork, in a way you are more restricted because you have to design for the floats – and creating within that restriction is particularly knitterly, I think.

2. tomofholland | 10 April, 2012 at 11:59 am

   I think any design element that works within the restricted framework of knitting and tries to push it to the very limit makes something knitterly. Again, using stranded colourwork as an example, I think Bohus designs are a good example of being very knitterly; or EZ, who limited herself to try and only use purl sts where absolutely necessary and thus finding very interesting ways of designing and constructing objects.

3. jet | 10 April, 2012 at 3:11 pm

   I’m totallly agree with tomofholland.
   but a level further, or higher will be the same. and show you much better the meaning of knitterly.
   Like or by the way thinking of theatre. You must use to show the audiance bigger sized things of knitterly fabric by using bigger sized stiches and using bigger yarn, like thick rope or plastic tubes or … fabric that you can knit on your arms to get the same awesome knitterly meaning .
   I have done that, and when i had to learn students to knit i had given them the project knit a had to weare in the theatre and think big sized.
   It helped them to think why they knitted and to think on an other level to show the knitterly of their work.
   I was flabber gasthed at the end of which the had made, when i had given them an other subject to make they didn’t had thought of knitterly only of learning to knit.
   We often think to commen when we think of knitting and knitterly.
   I like both ways but it’s awesome to show people you can do sooooo much more with the term knitterly then just a piece of knitted fabric.XD

For my PhD project, I’m looking at ways to intervene in an existing piece of knitwear. I’ve constructed a scarily complex flow chart of possible ‘treatments’, and I’m planning to knit samples to show the possibilities. I’m starting with plain ecru machine-knitted panels, and using bright red yarn to show what has been changed. Later on I’m planning to do some treatments to garments, to show them in context.

As I started to knit the samples, I realised that I would need to photograph them at each stage in order to show how they were done – otherwise I would have a pile of finished samples and just a pile of scrappy notes. My aim is that the techniques could be used by others, so the ‘how to’ information is really important.

I’ve started my sampling with treatments that open the fabric along a row, and extend, replace or shorten the knitting. I thought I’d share one of them here for feedback: ‘replace section’. I’d love to know what you think – do you get a sense of how this has been done? What additional information would you need to recreate it yourself?

COMMENTS FROM ORIGINAL BLOG POSTING:

devonfinefibres | 21 March, 2012 at 9:46 am

1. The colour makes it very clear what has been done. The useful thing with this particular technique is that it need NOT be obvious. So both subtle and “in your face” depending on the yarn/colour used for the replaced section.

2. Rachael Matthews | 21 March, 2012 at 9:51 am

   beautiful pictures, simple, but when you look closely, so much CARE! x

3. Ruth Singer | 21 March, 2012 at 9:53 am

   Yes, that makes sense & looks great!

4. Amy | 21 March, 2012 at 10:48 am 

   Awesome, thanks for the encouragement everyone!

5. tomofholland | 21 March, 2012 at 1:48 pm 

   I think it makes perfect sense. Are the first six pictures also going to be part of the instructions? I think I would add one more picture, which would be the first row in red, possibly even only half-knitted.
   And, how can we get hold of your finished “how-to”? I’d definitely be interested in having that!

6. dozenoaks | 21 March, 2012 at 4:09 pm

   Really lovely pictures, informative and stylish – your PhD sounds much more exciting that mine was!

7. Gail Goldstone | 21 March, 2012 at 5:22 pm

   I think that the photos demonstrate very clearly what you have done to ‘intervene’ in the knitted sample. Thank goodness for digital cameras:)
   So far it is also plain that this can be done on the KM. Well done Amy.
   Gail

8. Amy | 22 March, 2012 at 11:38 am

   Hi again everyone – thanks once more for the feedback. I will be asking for comments more often!

   Tom – yes, the first 6 pics are part of the instructions. I toyed with the idea of showing the first row of red, as you suggest. I decided not to as I’ve been doing the knitting in bulk whilst at conferences/training days, so I don’t have the chance to photo at that stage. But I agree it would be a nice extra step – and if it was just part of a row I could do it with the others. Maybe I can add it in – we’ll see!

   Gail – yes, quite a lot of the techniques (I have a huge list of samples still to do) will be do-able on the knitting machine – interesting to think about it from both hand and machine perspectives so thanks for your comment!