Today, I am very excited to present the Stitching Experiments Project. It is an idea that has been brewing in my mind for about two months now. It came to me a few days after I came across a whole heap of finished knitted and crocheted samples in my local yarn store, fraukuhn.
The thing is, it’s been a bit over a year since I have been interested in practicing stitching techniques on knitted fabric, including but not limited to: pleating, embroidery, fabric manipulation via sewing, etc. Practicing these techniques has a major obstacle: they are afterthought techniques. This means that in most cases, you first need to complete a knitted or crocheted fabric before you can start working with them. While I have managed to practice a little on a couple of projects completed recently, I have struggled to find enough time to dedicate into designing new projects specifically for such techniques. And even if I could find that time, knitting and crocheting large pieces also requires considerable amount of time.
That is why I was over the moon when I realized that I had the chance to use already completed samples for this kind of work. The LYS’s owner, Simone, has very generously given me access to such samples. I have acquired 22 garments and accessories in wide array of colors and materials. The idea is to use them as finished fabric and play around with various techniques.
Using samples already completed by others gives me a certain freedom: I don’t have to consider the base fabric and colors; they are already completed. This gives me the opportunity to focus exclusively on the finishing techniques. On the other hand, how each piece is constructed provides also some restrictions, but I see those as a design challenge, which in turn makes my engineering brain very happy. It’s fun to solve creative challenges every once in a while and come up with new ideas!
Of course new ideas don’t appear just out of thin air. I have been observing the work of other designers and collecting books. To this day, I have gathered a nice selection of reference and resource materials. The books I will be consulting for the duration of the Stitching Experiments Project are the following:
- Splendid Apparel: A handbook of Embroidered Knits by Anna Zilboorg
- Embroidery on Knitting by Britt-Marie Christoffersson
- Knit Fold Pleat Repeat by Norah Gaughan
- Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches by Mary Thomas
- Freies Sticken by Barbara Wälchli Keller
While I have been day-dreaming about new techniques to practice and new ways of working with knitted fabric, I have also been spending some time thinking about how I want to work with this project.
I want to document the process I follow for each piece. I will provide whatever information I have available about each sample (design, materials), talk about whatever ideas I come up with on how to re-work it and finally, which steps I followed to realize each idea. That said, please don’t expect any step-by-step tutorials on methods and techniques. I will be talking about the process as a whole, not teaching techniques.
I have also decided to use only leftover yarns for all the additional stitching. I will try to match the materials as best as possible, but might use vastly different fibers if the occasion calls for it. I will talk about my yarn choices and the reasons behind those, whenever necessary.
My goal is to share the process in the hope that it might inspire others to try new techniques and/or re-work existing items that might not be used that often anymore.
After each piece is completed, it will be listed for sale in the Handmade section of my e-shop.
Since I will be working on all these during my free time, I expect the project to last several months and the items to be completed sporadically.
Access to all blog posts of the series is available through the post category page.
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And now that I am finished with the Stitching Experiments Project introduction, I can focus on working on the first piece. So excited!! See you soon! 🙂
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