Knitting Nation

I like to knit. My obsession with knitting started in high school fashion class , after we were done making pajama pants for our main project our teacher Ms . Stone sat us down and taught us how to cast on and off and stitch and pearl. I was hooked right away , the sound of the needles clinking against one another, the gratification of making your own fabric and the knowledge that you could make almost anything you could set your mind on. I started knitting all the time, Stitch and Bitch became my favorite book and all my friends got scarfs for Christmas.

This is why when I saw knitting nation on the list of class links I jumped at the chance to write about it. Now I've heard of Knitta, Please before, a group that goes around doing what is called "Knit Graf , a type of graffiti that involves knitting around or on public objects. I was expecting something similar when I clicked on Knitting Nation, but was surprised when I found out differently.

examples of Knitta, Please works

Knitting with a machine is something I have no experience with. I feel like it takes the fun out of knitting. Instead of letting the yarn run through your fingers and wrapping and pulling it around itself over and over you become more of a guide. You tell the machine what and where to knit well the machine does the work. No longer is the object being created solely yours but it becomes a product of the machine.

One of the reasons I love to knit and sew is because it makes me feel connected to what I wear. Going to the store and buying clothing gives you a connection to the process of buying the object, you don't know where it was made or how. You become disconnected with the process of production. I think this is one of the dialouges that Liz Collins is trying to create. By setting up knitting installations where a group of similarly dressed people sit over knitting machines , knitting . Here the work that has been outsourced away is shoved back into our faces. We become aware of ho much work goes into the clothes we wear. How long someone has to sit hunched over a machine , so that we can wear the latest styles. Liz also uses a lot of iconography in her work like the American flag. She uses it as a way to display her frustrations with a government and war that she doesn't agree with.