Crochet and Knitting and repetition

Health article

Harry thing

Personal experience

Repetition and purge

Reconnecting with physicality

Exorcism and purging

Meditative

‘Each artist has his/her own reasons for including crochet in the process, ranging from looking with fresh eyes at "women's work", studying the potentially obsessive, repetitive and/or meditative qualities of crochet, or noticing the attention to the moment often entailed in crocheting.’ Linda crochet in explanded field

Crochet

Introspective

Reflective

Nostalgic

Main Entry: abstracted Part of Speech: adjective Definition: preoccupied Synonyms: absent-minded, daydreaming, inattentive, lost in thought, out in space*, out to lunch*, remote, withdrawn Source: Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)
Copyright © 2008 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rig

Crochet is a very relaxing pass time. It allows the creator to get lost in their own quiet ecstasy or to silence their thoughts;

‘Most of the time I have a lot of thoughts bouncin' around in my head...but with a paintbrush in my hand, the world just gets kinda quiet’- Ally The Notebook

This quote is from the notebook when Ally romanticises the soothing qualities of painting but I think this relaxation relates to many artistic processes. The practice of focussing on an activity lets the brain relax into a meditative state;

‘the repetitive actions needed for knitting and crochet can bring the mind and body to a state called a "relaxation response" that is quite similar to what people experience with techniques such as repetitive prayer, yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, and other relaxation disciplines.’ Health article

This is from a health article written recently online which proves the officialness of what I was just saying. Relaxation is essential in the fast pace world we live in;

‘Knitting benefits an individuals emotional and physical health. Knitting can reduce stress in an individual who is trying to manage the severity of their chronic illness. It can also help reduce stress in individuals who lead very hectic lifestlyes’

I’m not chronically ill but, like most people, I have problems managing stress. I find that crochet prevents my stress from manifesting itself in ugly forms. It’s nicer to crochet than to lose it at a shop assistant I feel.

When I crochet I reconnect with my own physicality, I crochet therefore I am.

Crochet can be Repetitive. Repetition can be a purgative act.

hobby pass time

‘For me, craft is meditative and rewarding in and of itself, but it is also, paradoxically, about multitasking. Don’t just watch the tv, craft.’ Church of craft supernaturale

Learning Crochet

Ideas about skills being passed

Knitting, crocheting and sewing is something that is passed down from grandmother to grandchild or mother to daughter;

‘I love feeling surrounded by the handiwork of my female relatives-it makes me feel safe and warm, especially because I know how much work went into these decorative items’

Debbie Stollard

Stollard here writes about the intimacy of it. I can not relate to it in this way and that is what makes my approach to crochet strange. All my grandparents are dead bar one and the one who is alive we don’t see. The last thing my mum said to her was ‘Fuck off out of my house’ and that was it. I have not been taught to crochet by a relative and instead learnt it from a book. This cold connection contrasts strongly with the ‘warmth’ that Debbie Stollard writes about.

Crochet is associated with older generations and is and outdated, old fashioned craft. In the past it would have been passed from mother to daughter and that still happens now but at present most peple learn crochet from books and I’m no exception. In this research I am questioning Is there any difference between being taught affectionately from a family member and learning from a book? Does learning from a book (creating a ‘false’ connection with the craft) make the work less valid as it is not originally how it was leant? Does not understanding the full context and history of crochet make it a flawed practice?

I learnt to crochet from books. It started with one book and as my interest grew I found more books, bought from charity shops and rented from library’s to increase my skill and knowledge of crochet. Learning from a book is challenging as it is very difficult to translate pictures and text to ‘doing’;

‘Writing about an action, talking about an action, and reflecting upon the nature of an action are not the same thing as the action itself, nor do they provide much insight into how it feels to act and how it feels to know for oneself how to act’ Dormer p11

When I was given my first book about crochet (from my brother) I struggled to understand the process of crochet because at the time I did not have a hook or yarn to practice with. When I eventually bought the materials and tried to follow the instructions practically it was an uphill battle. However meticulously a process is described it is impossible to include everything;

‘Craft knowledge also makes use of a concrete, precise verbal and written language. This language does not adequately describe the actual carrying out of a process because in any description of a practical activity too much that is important gets left out.’p17 dormer

The process of crochet is so specific that not everything can be described. Everything only comes together from actually doing it. You can read it over and over repeatedly and not get anywhere until you actually begin doing the activity and experimenting with it. For example if you read this…

‘When making the first single crochet in a starting chain, insert the hook under the top loop of the second chain from the hook, (do not count the loop already on the hook when determining which chain is the second chain from the hook).’crochet website

…It makes no sense to you unless you have the hook in your hand and have understood the basic elements first. Pretty obvious stuff.

Persevering at crochet was very difficult to me. I was one of those children who gave up any hobby they started after a very short time. These hobbies (or skills I could now be really good at) incude ballet, piano, guitar, horse riding, recorder, swimming and ultimate Frisbee. I literally give up everything I start as I get very frustrated at being bad at things.I am interested in what makes people stick at a certain skills in order to become proficient at it.

The satisfaction of achieving in the skill makes one continue so if your bad at it (like I was at recorder) it’s difficult to persevere. Also patience is required as no one is good at a skill when they first start. Encouragement is beneficial to create a positive learning experience. I don’t really understand this though as I was really bad at crochet (like, really bad the first thing I produced was meant to be a square and looked more like a penis) so why did I persevere?

Peter Dormer writes about learning craft skills and the ideas around it. He explains that in order to properly learn a skill one needs to learn from an experienced maker;

‘In learning a craft the role of mimicry is probably essential. This means one needs to work alongside a skilled practitioner’ Dormer p47

I understand this notion that to understand a skill one needs to copy another but I don’t think that this is the only way a skill can be acquired. When learning from an expert the skill can be learnt more easily and more efficiently but it also limits the learner. In learning from a practitioner the leaner may not fully investigate the possibilities of the material or the craft. Moments of creativity I think arise from examining and pushing the boundaries of the craft

There are suggestions in most instructional crochet books of how to hold the crochet hook correctly none of which I have been able to understand enough to utilise;

I was crocheting on the train once and an older lady came up to me to correct me on how to hold it. I was annoyed by this because it meant that she had the luxury of learning from a person (rather than a book);

‘Acceptance now depends on denying or subverting the craft, or insisting that craft is the least important aspect of the work’p26 Dormer

Surely it is essential to fully understand the history and the context of the craft in order to ‘deny or subvert’ it?. I will never understand the full history and context of crochet because the history of crochet is incomplete. This is because it is passed on from person to person and the objects that are produced are perishable so documents about it and actual articles are limited and don’t go back very far. Does this mean that my art is not as valid and would not be accepted? I think that people can do more creative things with a craft when they don’t fully understand it

‘people learn crochet now don’t know history so create more exciting things’ crochet book

When I first was experimenting with crochet I did not know what was traditionally made. The more I researched it and found typical objects which were produced I found it strongly influenced my work and led to me engaging with it in a different way (not necessarily for the better).

Historically, as I have mentioned before, people learnt to crochet from another person rather than a book;

‘Girls were shown how, and not left to read and decipher the instructions for themselves. This was an important factor in creating much of the confusion still existing within the craft- even in the terminology and patterns of the post 1950 period.’ P21 turner crochet

There are many contradictions in crochet books due to the reason above. I’m guessing a bit of Chinese whispers syndrome occurred so names or stitches and methods aren’t necessarily all the same. This implies that there was some sort of documentation that they learnt from to remember everything.

Developing a skill

My personal experience of learning crochet, challenges etc

Caring activity, different from book

Craft

Why people like handmade things

‘Think of the sheer multiplication of works of art available to every one of us, superadded to the conflicting tastes and odours and sights of the urban environment that bombard our senses. Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience…What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more.’ P7 johnson process textiles

When you look at something that is obviously hand-made it is difficult to not relate to the humanness of it;

‘Technology is good at manufacturing neatly made goods and so goes the argument, we want something that is overtly different: we want to see the artist’s hand, spirit and individuality. Technology bring’s life’s comforts, but we look to the artist to provide human drama-hence the dominance in one form or another of ‘expressionism’’p87 Dormer

The tangibility of hand craft makes me people warm to it and enjoy looking at it.

human actual tangible

‘the idea of process is all-important in the work. The act of making and the time the work took is visually obvious or implied: embellishment emphasises the sense of presicousness; the throwaway is countered by the unique one-off; the global nature of contemporary culture is contrated witht the sense of a particular time and place of making’p10 memory and craft

Teaching Crochet

Crochet Workshop

Teaching people and the limitations

Bibliography

Pamela Johnson, Rushton Aust, Tadek Beutlich and others Under Construction: Exploring process in contemporary textiles (Crafts Council, 1996)

Pauline Turner Crochet A history of the craft since 1850 (Shire Publications 1984)

Clinton D. MacKenzie New Design in crochet (Litton Educational publishing 1972)

Peter Dormer The Art of the Maker; Skill and it’s Meaning in Art, Craft and Design (Thames and Hudson 1994)

Doing your dirty washing in public: Fabric and its links to memory and craft in the making of recent art

Memory and Craft- GERARD WILLIAMS

FABRIC AND FEMINITY Gill Nicol

Websites

Andrea Zittel Interview with Supernaturale

The Church of Craft – an informal history Kirsten Hudson

Crochet in the Expanded Field linda scharf supernaturale