Its been an intense couple weeks in terms of knitting but I absolutely love it! Here are some mittlets in colourways I've made for stores. I get my yarns from a place which buys out stock from larger factories in Italy and Scotland so the nature of my colour development is predicated upon available yarn and how I am feeling that day. Its a bit like mixing paints....
I feel like interest in my work has increased and I just want to say thank you to those that have been keeping up with my projects and ideas.
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Recently when I brought in some knit samples to our studio class, I was asked “why aren’t you knitting for your final project?” I have been thinking a lot about that as there is no real reason to adhere to woven or knit goods. Either one or both in combination may be relevant and there are many instances throughout fashion history where knitted fabric is used in a high fashion context. Both Gres and McCardell used knitted tubing. Custom knit lengths of silk and wool knitted goods were used in their work which at the time bore connotations of working class utilitarianism. I also think of Herve Leger and Rodriguez’s sexy almost architectural body conscious dresses. I wonder in what context is knitting relevant to my design research and how might knitted components be integrated with woven ones? My knitting machines (an industrial Dubied from the 1930’s and a Santagostino from the 1950’s) are capable of creating a multiplicity of forms based upon changing basic settings. As a generative direction, I intend on developing narrow firm banding, very wide firm banding and simple tube shapes with integral finished edges. These forms may be used in conjunction with woven fabric based forms to further develop my designs. This draws upon Vionnet’s pattern experimentation methodology which was rooted in a Classical simplicity that “saw the body as a spatial form.” This also draws more abstractly upon the use of highly decorative lace banding within Edwardian boudoir garments.
My research has dealt in large part upon the use of defunct pattern technologies as a path to innovation. Many aspects of couture are difficult to replicate and this need for competence keeps its techniques out of mass market. Perhaps also keeping it from being passed on... Techniques of knitting on the hand flat knitting machine may also be seen as marginalized by skill competence issues. Going forward I hope to locate silk, cotton and lurex yarns..... Developing a link between theory, practice and creativity in a master’s program is more difficult than I imagined. It seems easy enough to read, and critically reflect upon theory and somehow it feels just as easy to obsessively draw imagery based upon the sum total of information coming at me all the time. My process comes down to that of a sieve: one which is constantly weighing, filtering and separating components which feel prescient and special from the superfluous or boring.
My study focuses on how Edwardian social attitudes towards sex, female emancipation and leisure resulted in unique forms of boudoir clothing, which in turn heavily influenced Modernist clothing. As a result I am currently reading “A History of Modernism” by T.J. Clark. He conveys the slow burn which is the rise of Modernism and expresses its duality. Also close at hand is Loschek’s “When Clothes Become Fashion,” in it she discusses how recognizable clothing forms convey meaning and communicate ideas about identity and social structures. It is clear that clothing forms, as bizarre as they may be at times, are simply reflections of our complex social attitudes. Loschek discusses clothing as a “second skin”, but also as “a self referential system focused on self-organization” while Jennifer Craik asserts “clothing designs the body.” Going forward I aim to connect these broader scholarly concepts to Edwardian and Modernist attitudes more closely. Loschek explains “vestimentary fixation on the body is prescribed by a community’s communicative agreement on morality.” Edwardian boudoir clothing would have reflected a multiplicity of moral attitudes ranging from erotic and provocative to merely “an intimate sphere for the body. Sheer, yet loose garments were ornamental yet often basic in their geometry, connotative through the “power of their materials” such as expensive lace banding and detailed surface structures. As I work through my research I hope to correlate a connection between these Edwardian boudoir clothes to Modernist clothes through specific designers and garments, until then I leave you with some obsessive sketches.... Here are some better pictures of my machine which is in operation. The yarn is 2/30 nm cashmere from Colourmart in England. Once the machine oils are washed away this knitted yardage lofts up into something fantastic. Below are some pieces I've been working on from stripes.
For my Masters in Fashion studies I have focused on that place in 20th century history where women began to eschew corsets. A new more tubular body silhouette became popular and eventually pushed out the S-shaped Gibson girl of the Edwardian Era. In researching that place of change, I have discovered a world of particular matrimonial, sexual and boudoir social codes which influenced ladies underthings. Here is a visual list of garments (with captioned information where possible) which exemplify the stylistic tension that existed.
I came across this chart (below) in one of my old Dubied manuals. I find it extremely useful as a ballpark guide to appropriate yarn weights for machines of different gauges. The columns in english translate as: knit gauge, machine guage, wool nm gauge, wool bradford gauge, cotton gauge and lastly, silk gauge. The formats of yarn measure are still quite diverse depending on whether you hand knit, machine knit (using yarn for hand knits) or machine knit using industrial yarn. This chart eschews the common sport, dk and fingering weight measure for something more precise: the nm measure. Nm (the abbreviation for the metric system) is the number of meters in 1 gram of yarn. 3/11 = Sport Weight 4/8 = Worsted Weight 2/11and 3/15 = Fingering Weight 2/20 and 2/24 = Fine weight 2 strands of 2/24 together = Fingering Weight. Nm comes with the caveat that it can be rather confusing, thus the usefulness of this chart. Referring to the "machine gauge" column this chart tells me that (under wool nm gauge) my machine will happily knit 10 different nm gauges of wool yarn. Simple really. Another nice feature is cross referencing appropriate yarns for 10 gauge machines with 8 gauge. I favour 2/24 and 2/28 nm laceweight yarn and both machines love it! Listed are a few suppliers I love all using nm yarn measure: http://www.colourmart.com http://knollyarns.com/ http://www.craftingfashion.com/ http://www.theyarnstore.co.uk Also within the same book were these fantastic patterns. I'm afraid its also in Italian just like the chart but you can tell a lot from the pictures and the corresponding pattern notations. Enjoy.
Here are some photos of my 8 Gauge Dubied model MM from the 1930's. The pictures don't really do it justice. Somehow they impart a worn quality, whereas in person it has a charming patina and character to it. Notice the wooden handles. I picked up this machine through a newspaper ad a little over 2 years ago hardly knowing what it was. I brought it home and appealed to my father to help me bath it in gasoline, eliminate rust and oil it back to a happy serviced state.
Once we had it serviced, I began to muddle through the disintegrating Italian manual. Its home knitting machine cousin might be the Passap Duomatic or perhaps the Superba. Both share the V-bed and dual carriage. This machine however knits a very fine gauge and because of the high grade tooling of all the parts it sort of glides back and forth in a very satisfying way. You can use quite a wide range of yarns from a sport weight all the way down to a very fine lace weight. You can make tubes, you can make socks, patterns and just...all sorts of wonderful, fantastic knitting. I am using my machine to develop knit yardage for winter in bold stripes. The fineness of the stitch imparts a retro 40/50's feel to the knitted goods. Soon another machine in a finer gauge called a "Santagostino" will be coming from England so I can continue my explorations. For now I will work on my Dubied. Here is a great resource for understanding the history of semi-industrial hand flat and industrial knitting machines: http://www.german-hosiery-museum.de/technik/technik.htm It really helps you understand just how varied and complex knitting machines are and how long they have been around for. Whole economies and industries have been built around the drive to develop something as simple as a woolen sock. Enjoy. Last year I bought an industrial Dubied knitting machine. I was way over my head but really intrigued by the possibilities that a v-bed or double bed machine might yield. To make sense of it I went out and bought a modern Passap Duomatic which is also a double bed, but which is geared towards the domestic market....so more user friendly. Then, like any back boiler obsession, I picked up some back issues from 1933 of a magazine called "Lavori Di Maglieria." This magazine informs the knitting technician about current trends in shapes and stitches. The designs are quite modern..or perhaps my eye loves retro? Whichever it is I wanted to share these gems with you all. Recently the topic of nostalgia has been dominating the conversation. Both at school amongst my classmates but also in my own work. What is nostalgia and why are we so obsessed with it? Nostalgia looks back at a place we can never return to, be it our youth or a fictionalized imagined perfect place we have developed in our minds......
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Anna is a Hamilton based knitwear and textile practitioner blogging about her collection development as well as pre-1950's knitwear technology.
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