In an indirect way, I could kind of attribute my career choice of fashion design to knitting. As soon as I was old enough to hold knitting needles I insisted my mother taught me to knit so I could join her and my sisters in their fun-seeming circle of gentle click-clack knitting. One episode of The Rockford Files and one knitted row later, my new hobby was ovah. I mean, are you knitters serious? You are really willing to spend that long producing one lousy item of clothing? Forget it. At the age of 5 I turned to the sewing machine and pronounced it my new best friend.
Of course there was another option, but I didn’t warm to the knitting machine either, since it represented 2 things in my eyes: 1. Standing beside the machine with both arms up at a right angle holding the “hank” of wool firm while mum wound it into balls to use on the machine (um, doesn’t that constitute child abuse in some countries??), and 2. The relentless sound of the soaring side to side of the (hand) knitting machine, in the background of every stinking song I attempted to tape off the radio – in those days kiddies, the cassette recorder also recorded the ambient noise. (Hence the funniest thing in your sibling’s life was to bust in on you recording your favourite song and say something really stupid. Hilarious.)
BUT, allow me to wax lyrical over the machine-knitted creations I have just seen launched at the new exhibition at RMIT Gallery in Melbourne: The Endless Garment – The New Craft of Machine Knitting.
You’ll find the amazing work of ten leading international and Australian designers, some of whom aren’t stocked in Australia so this is the only place you’ll see them.
Part of the gallery has also been transformed into a knitting factory with two computerized flat bed knitting machines that produce amazing garments and “push the boundaries of what knitwear is.”
This truly is a fabulous exhibition. So make like Coogee never existed and go check it out – these garments are not your average swettahs…
SANDRA BACKLUND, Stockholm. Control-C collection 2009
{ 4 comments }
Mary 02.11.10 at 4:29 pm
The illustration rocks after all!
BTW what a sad day for fashion. How can Alexander McQueen be dead? At 40? He was a genius. I am really miffed.
Patsyfox 02.11.10 at 4:57 pm
I know! It’s such a stupid waste, and his gloom would surely have passed…
But yes, the drawing was resurrected not too badly, no? In the flesh the paper surface belies the drama.
Mrs Underhill 02.16.10 at 4:33 pm
Patsy, goodness, for a minute I thought you had been holding out on me about a passion for knitting! Just when I thought you could inspire a story and project in the magazine. Ah well.
First things – THANKS for the tip re RMIT Gallery exhibition. That school sends me endless press releases about international studies, discoveries made in fricken water filtering, you name it, yet I don’t get one about the topic I write on! Holy moley.
So … you must look at crochet now to be inspired. I’ve just been writing a feature on it and found the most divine pic of John Rocha’s recent work. I don’t know how to insert a pic here but see one … not even the best one … at http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xuuQ76-2M5E/R92pHOJrvuI/AAAAAAAAAJA/qqVfaY4Hwr0/s400/John+Rocha+fall+2008.jpg
PS: I too felt moved by Alexander’s suicide. I even blogged about it which is a rare change of speed for me. (:
Patsyfox 02.17.10 at 3:53 pm
Oh Mrs Underhill – you believed me capable of anything involving patience? Impossible!
I omitted the steps between knitting and sewing which were 1) crocheting (still too slow and just didn’t get it. and 2) “knitting nancy” which was the glorified cotton reel with nails in the top which you wound yard around and a cord of sorts came out her bum. There are only so many uses for miles and miles of knitted cord… Which lead me to the sewing machine…
The RMIT exhibition is really fabulous – I want to go back for a proper look if you want to hook up?
x
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