Saturday, August 28, 2010
Studies for a Tapestry
I have wanted to knit a tapestry--a knitted painting--for some time now and have taken some few small steps to start.
My original plan was to work on a single, large piece, the image of which I have been carrying around in my head for several months. But I realized that it was too large a project to jump into right away, especially since I don't really know what I am doing.
So I decided to start with a series of small knitted studies as a way to work out the issues and problems--and to practise. A lot like knitting a swatch, only larger and more complex.
The large piece I have in mind is a northern scene, an echo of the pieces I have been working on for the upcoming Far North Collection. The studies will be much smaller, more intimate. I am calling them the "Northern Lake Series".
The first step was to create a palette of colours to use. It took some hours to search my yarn stash for just the right colours and to wind them into small, manageable balls. But I enjoyed every minute of it. It basically amounted to playing with my yarn. How lucky that I have such a huge yarn stash!
Blues and greys and mauves for the water; browns and rusts and yellow and gold for the rocks along the shoreline; greens and browns and greys for the trees and back to blues and greys and white for the sky. I will be adding more colours as I discover them in my stash.
I have made a start. The first challenge is to knit the water: ripplets of blue and grey, with patches of white and off-white. I started with a Provisional Cast-On, to give myself some options, in case I change my mind and want to knit in the opposite direction, too.
There is no grand plan for the pieces. No charts to follow, no directions, nothing pre-calculated. Just casting on and knitting and taking a journey with knitting. This is pure, organic knitting. I am working with all my meories of all the northern lakes I have ever visited.
Here are my first few rows:
I had planned to use some textured stitches, but I am liking the way Stockinette is working so far. We'll have to see how it shapes up as I go along.
Now for a good chunk of time so that I can concentrate on this and really get going with it.
I'll keep you posted.
