Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1929. / Published also without thesis note. Bibliography: p. 126-128.

This thesis explores how women form, perceive and communicate their sense of identity by hand knitting for leisure. Leisure, defined here as time outside of work or caring responsibilities, was selected as the focus of this research because women have some choice over how they spend this time and express themselves. Writing on contemporary knitting has tended to frame knitting within political, artistic or commercial contexts (such as Black, 2005, 2012 and Elliot, 2015). This leaves a gap in our understanding of why women who knit for leisure do so. This is partially addressed by recent empirical research (for example Fields, 2014) that has studied social processes within knitting groups. However, research has devoted less attention to the wider motivations of women who knit alone or in groups. This is important if we consider that identity formation happens in a broader context, and may involve a constant interaction with people (Jenkins, 2004), objects and ideas, as is suggested by the findings of this study. The research employs a qualitative approach based on Charmaz’s (2006) grounded theory by way of a staged design which aims to respond to the data and minimise the influence of preconceived ideas. This aim is particularly important given the historical and contemporary stereotypes associated with knitting, and my own background as a textile historian and maker. Application of social research methods also aims to further develop the role played by empirical research in the area of textile scholarship. Data was collected in three stages; a pilot study, questionnaires with women textile bloggers and the main research stage which consisted of semi-structured interviews with knitters living in Edinburgh. Interviewees were contacted by volunteer and snowball sampling. Content analysis was supported by QSR*NVivo and involved descriptive and theoretical coding in order to identify themes in the data. Analysis suggests knitting provides immediate social interaction and support. This could be associated with Jenkins’ (2004) proposition that identity is formed by ongoing social interaction. However, there is another dimension here as knitting also enables the solitary knitter to access interactions with ideas and other people through objects and the personal memories held within them as well as through online communities. Three key findings are that knitting presents a way to be creative, productive and social. Firstly, respondents describe knitting as a balance between challenge and perceived ability, as might be described as ‘flow’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 2002 [1992]). Secondly, this meets a need for a leisure activity that produces a tangible manifestation of effort and skill. However, the process of knitting is also seen to be as important, if not more so, than the final product. This insight reinforces the usefulness of empirical study of the experience of making textiles, and reveals additional data than studying only the final object. Thirdly, knitting is presented as a means to access meaningful social interactions and a sense of belonging to a community whether or not the knitter is a member of a knitting group. Such interactions might be online or provide a sense of continuity with previous generations of knitters in their families or women in general. Knitters see this as a way of building social capital and support. Overall, findings suggest that identity formation and communication should be seen as a complex process that does not only involve direct social interactions but interaction with the idea of other knitters, past and present, and the practical experience of making.

This study investigates ‘how men knitting functions as a queer pedagogy’. In the doing it recognizes that a man knitting elbows his way into long-held contrived conventions of (domestic) femininity, queering space and generally causing embarrassment and a sense of cultural unease through his performance. As a work of educational research (situated within a Society, Culture, and Literacies profile) it is intent on troubling lingering gender-based notions of in/appropriate educational research and what remains academically out-of-bounds: knitting as domestic diversion has largely been neglected by scholars with the few academic sources focusing almost exclusively (and unapologetically) on female knitters. As such, the pedagogical meaning(s) of men knitting are essentially absent from the educational literature. This research project seeks to address that gap. Taking the form of three journal articles, this work reads the everyday performance of men knitting as queer pedagogy, learning which ‘minces’ and troubles not only masculinity but traditional constructions of educational discourse limiting pedagogy to classrooms and accredited educators. Using personal narrative and a methodology which brings together document analysis and queer theory, this study interrogates photographic and other artifacts through a queer lens, destabilizing meaning(s) and problematizing gender. It recognizes that leisure activities like knitting, as with other human activities, are by-products of the culture where they’re re/produced and a reflection of broader societal boundaries. ‘Men knitting as a queer pedagogy,’ is about gendered desires, anxieties, and places where critical dissatisfactions with culture gets performed in other/ed ways.

Knitting always begins with a line. As the needles and hands work together, performing the same action over and over again, the line quickly becomes a collection of lines, crossing, looping and locking. The looping and locking generates a surface, and the surface becomes a form. Knitting generates form. Knitting is commonly categorized as a craft, associated with quick hands, idle time, and everyday objects that clothe us, and as a result, the technique is often overlooked and rarely pursued beyond its’ culturally constructed boundaries. What if knitting constructed new forms that transcended the ordinary and the expected, and challenged tradition? What if those forms spoke to shape, space, and light? The following collection of lines documents research and material explorations in an attempt to reinvent and redefine the boundaries and application of a traditional arts and crafts technique.

Contemporary knitting over the past decade has experienced a recent resurgence in cultural interest and technical exploration. This research project aims to identify, through personal practice, the implications of knitting as undefined, removed from the boundaries of product. It is the dissolving of the lines between design, art and craft and exploring the domestically machine knitted textile via the use of materials and the inherent qualities of the fabric which are the driving factors of this research. It is through this exploration that my personal and creative process is diversified. The traditional connotations of knitting are historical, social and cultural, in particular hand knitting. Childhood memories of mothers and grandmothers knitting out of necessity, for clothing, often evoke feelings of safety, warmth and comfort. This familiarity of the looped stitches and understanding of the knit as garment binds knitting to fashion. Industrial knitting process, as scale of stitch is reduced, begins to remove this familiarity and creates an anonymity of structure and process, for example jersey knits used for t-shirts. This instant recognition for knitting as clothing is part of the design process where-by knitted fabrics work in unison with product. It is this boundary that has defined my professional practice designing for knitwear. This research involves a more experimental and fluid approach to producing the textile, considering the qualities and potential of the structure as something to celebrate in its own form. Designers such as Issey Miyake, Hussein Chalayan and the artist Rosmarie Trockel have been influential in taking fashion concepts into the gallery, often knitted. This movement of making conceptual and political statements, especially in the case of the industrially knitted pieces by Trockel, was a step to question the traditional and feminist perceptions of knitting and using the process as a material to create art. While these exhibitions explored the knitted textile in the form of fashion garment, the importance of diversifying the knitted cloth and displaying conceptual pieces is a major influence on this research. Also the more recent exhibition 'Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting', (Museum of Arts & Design New York 2007), has allowed for a reinvigorated forum for constructed textiles to be viewed as object, new product or purely as spatial explorations of structure. The impact of these ideas has allowed for the consideration of the textile being stripped back further and to remove the instant connot ation of product application. Exploration of materials, knitted structures and the manipulation of fabric without the constraints of identified product is the impetus of this project. The evolution of the outcomes is instrumental to the reactions of fibres, stitch and interplays of positive and negative space, while suggestions of product are accidental and created by the knitted form as it is removed from the machine. A personal interest in exploiting the knitted structures potential to possess transparency and opacity, become sculptural and changeable by hand have influenced the choices of material and stitch combination. This experimentation has informed my personal practice and the involved process of making.

Melin, O-P, 2017, Metoder för flerfärgsstickning - En undersökning av instruktioner i handböcker. (Fair-isle knitting methods – A survey of instructions in knitting manuals), Institutionen för Konstvetenskap, Department of Art History, Uppsala University.   The study researches the instructions for various methods of executing patterned knitting with two or more colours (often called Fair Isle knitting) in knitting-manuals from the Nordic countries, the UK and North America, in search of similarities, differences and traditions. Professor Edward Shils defines tradition as something created by humans which is transmitted between at least three generations. Are there similarities and differences between these areas in regard to how colour knitting is worked? The study identifies and differentiates between four main methods for colour-knitting. The researched ca 130 manuals, dated from the 1950´s until the present - were analyzed in regard to the relative frequency of the methods they advocate. The result is that two-thirds of the instructions for Fair Isle knitting, during the period and regardless of geographical/cultural area, propose the stranded method with parallel floats. The other stranded method - with rotated floats - is less often given, and seems to have become less popular within the researched period. The method with rotated floats is mentioned more often in manuals from the Anglo-Saxon countries. The bound methods of Fair Isle knitting are the least suggested in the researched manuals, despite the bound and woven method being referred to, especially in British manuals, as equally advantageous. This method also never seems to have had much popularity in the Nordic countries. Bound and twined knitting, although until recently only used in areas of Sweden and Norway, might, because of the recent publication of manuals, find a new lease of life. Professor Shils regards tradition as a transmitted pattern of thought connected to a thing or practice. Knitting to create textile from thread is therefore a tradition, as well as the methods that are handed down weather by oral or written instruction. As noted, some methods of colour-knitting are traditions more in some areas than in others. Also, some knitting methods may never have been lasting enough to establish themselves as traditions.   Keywords: Fair Isle knitting, instructions, methods, knitting-manuals

This thesis explores how textile contributes to meaning-making and spatial design in scenography. Through the theoretical lens of performativity theory, it studies three scenes from Cirkus Cirkör’s popular show Knitting Peace. Using semiotic analysis as formulated by Jan-Gunnar Sjölin, the thesis focuses on movement, spatiality and socio-cultural meaning through the three questions; How can textile enhance movement and rhythm? How is it used together with lighting to create changes in spatiality? And What connotations does textile induce, and how do they affect the overall meaning-making in scenography? The results suggest that textile is a valuable material in performance art and scenography. For example, textile behaves in ways that resemble both fluid and solid form. This allows for change of depth and shifting between open and closed spaces on stage with little effort. It also gives means to enhance and enlarge human movement in scale, intensity and time. In Knitting Peace this is used together with lighting design to create off sync layers of reality to symbolise a distorted dreamworld. The thesis shows how we can better understand the way textile affect us by applying perspectives that focus on its different characteristics. Moreover, it demonstrates that an interdisciplinary approach that builds on knowledge from different fields, such as fashion design and performance studies, can greatly benefit our understanding of the potential use of textile in arts.

Uppsatsen undersökte handstickningens sociala status under åren 1838–1845 via stickhandböcker som publicerades kring de brittiska öarna under den nämnda tiden. Studien har genomförts med en kvalitativ textanalys av totalt 5 olika stickböcker och författare. Syftet var att utröna stickningens sociala status med hjälp av stickböckernas tilltänkta målgrupp, författarnas egna noteringar om stickningen, stickbeskrivningarnas inriktning och materialanvändningen för framförandet av stickbeskrivningarna. Resultatet blev att handböckerna riktade sig till de övre klasserna av samhället och framförallt var målgruppen för böckerna kvinnor. Materialanvändningen i handböckerna visade till största del på exklusiva material och stickbeskrivningar var ofta dekorativa. Stickningen blev klassat högt i status under tiden, inom den kvinnliga sfären, då utförandet av tekniken sågs som en fritidssysselsättning och ansågs som ett värdigt utförande för damer.

This project considers the potential impact of learning relations between hobby craft makers and formally educated makers. It questions how the craft based relationship of a formally educated artist and a self taught/amatuer maker can be renegotiated and implemented in a broader learning context. The artistic research aims to propose that a facet of ‘new knowledge’ in the field and future of contemporary art and craft production is one of togetherness; by embracing discomfort and the unfamiliar to affirm and reveal the knowns and unknowns of one's own practice and field. The question is considered in discussion with social/relational art practices, amatuer craft theory and gift theory. The project culminates both in this paper and an exhibition piece as part of Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design Spring Exhibition 2016.

Each stitch is a piece of me that I give, a moment of my life and a unit of my love, meticulously culminated into a universal visual language. The optimist in me knits for the cause, while my formalist counterpart works to make the images that sell my thoughts. I knit for the lovers.I make these objects as a practice and a confirmation of my optimism. I make these images to communicate and persuade as a serious contender while at the same time retaining my own optimism and sanity by promising to never take myself too seriously.