A group of Hunter women, who have breathed new life into the ancient art of knitting, will show their innovative works in a new exhibition, flowers.8, at Islington’s Timeless Textiles Gallery in August.
The friends, each with their own knitting style, took the floral world as their inspiration when they came together to knit, challenge each other’s ideas and learn new techniques.
“We wanted to show that knitting could be out of the ordinary and unexpected,” one of the women said, “and that we could do things with stitches and colour we hadn’t thought possible.”
Knitting, which has been dated as far back as the third century, has essentially two stitches – knit and purl – which are combined and modified in a multitude of ways to create form, shape and pattern.
When creating the inspiration and challenging works that will be displayed in the floral.8 exhibition, the friends knitted with multiple colours, sometimes all at once; found cast-ons that behaved as they wanted; used short rows, increases and decreases to shape; knitted in the round; varied the fibre and needle size (for texture); used traditional techniques and patterns; and created new ones.
Timeless Textiles Gallery invites you to touch this innovative work, to feel the textures and to learn to knit. The flowers.8 joint exhibition commences 21 August, with an official opening at the gallery from 6-8pm, and runs until 14 September 2014.
7 Beaumont St Islington Newcastle NSW
