Thursday, December 17, 2009
Dialogue with Lynne Barr
Welcome to Lynne Barr, author of Reversible Knitting, to my blog!
Lynne and I got right down to business, discussing her unique approach to knitting and discovering how she can invent new stitches, just when many of us are thinking that there are no more new stitches to invent.
Ilga: You mention in your “Introduction” how working through a weakness or facing an obstacle often sparks your creativity. How does that work?
Lynne: Without sharing my flawed history, I can only say that in difficult times, creative thinking often goes into overdrive. But I don’t think anyone, including me, wishes for hard times in order to be creative. So a painless method to jump start creativity is to take myself outside my comfort zone. Throw obstacles in the path of the usual approach – reject an obvious solution to force another look from a different angle. Sometimes it’s easier to see flaws - but once I recognize them, what will work becomes clearer – so for better or worse sometimes it’s important to just take action. It’s not always comfortable, but it’s that feeling of discomfort that I was implying might feed ideas.
Ilga: I have found that my mistakes teach me more than anything else. When I think I have messed up, that’s when I take a new look at the situation. Maybe this is an example of lateral thinking. But it is often at those times that I get new ideas and then the work progresses into new territory. That’s where the excitement comes for me. Where something I had perceived as negative instead opens up new avenues.
Lynne: Mistakes do seem to offer opportunities for discovery. I had to look up the meaning of lateral thinking, and it seems to be a method for problem solving. One phrase that stood out to me was “A person would use lateral thinking when they want to move from one known idea to creating new ideas.” It makes me wonder how one might discover things that seem disconnected from any known idea.
Ilga: I have described you as an architect or an engineer in the way you have developed new patterns. It is as though you deconstruct the problem or break it down into its components and then re-assemble them. It’s a very analytical approach. You have also imposed your own rules on what would be allowable and still constitute reversible knitting.
Lynne: In the introduction, I did write that I imposed rules on myself, but except for the ban on extra dangling dpns at the end of a row, don’t you think they’re the same guidelines expected from any stitch in any stitch dictionary? And while working within a typical framework, I knew that I didn’t want to reproduce any stitches that had already been done, and this potential conflict between traditional and new required me to use standard techniques in a different way. Again, it comes back to conflict. But I think that the final stitches blended the old and new in a way that makes sense when they’re knit.
Ilga: Your work has such a sculptural look to it. Many of your stitches are three-dimensional. I was particularly fascinated by the section on “Faux Crochet” where you translate the look of crochet with knitting stitches.
Lynne: I’m glad you found the Faux Crochet fascinating. It was an interesting group to work on, and I had hoped that other knitters might enjoy the same spirit of freedom that I thought crochet had to share with us. I always expect some rejection of my style, but I was surprised by negative reactions to an idea. I heard someone comment, “Why doesn’t she just pick up a crochet hook and learn?” Because knitting for me is like a marriage that hasn’t become dull or old, and I still get excited when I discover something new. To pick up a hook and learn crochet would be like starting to date again - beginning at ground zero. Do you find with the skill you’ve acquired over time, that designing is a fuller experience now?
Ilga: I love what you have to say about knitting being like a marriage that hasn’t become dull. I agree completely. Knitting is my first, true love. So I see everything in terms of knitting: the swaying fronds of a palm tree, the arrangement of fonts over a page of newsprint (do you know about Mariane Isager’s “newsprint” sweater in her book Classic Knits?), architecture, furniture, cracks in the sidewalk, you name it. As a knitter, I automatically speculate on how they could be translated into knitting. So, yes, it definitely is a fuller experience now.
Lynne: I admire your devotion to knitting. Rarely is my first thought about knitting when I see something interesting, so maybe I should consider it more of a long, close friendship. But when under pressure to produce, such as for a book, I do look at things more in terms of knitting. I think most of the time my thoughts are abstract and somewhat disorderly, and that may be why it’s difficult to describe my design process.
Ilga: How many swatches do you end up discarding? I find that I have to make numerous swatches, even when working with conventional, tried-and-true stitch patterns, until I am satisfied with one that I can actually use.
Lynne: Aren’t your swatches often knit as preparation for a garment? I don’t often design garments, which I think relieves me most of the time from having to start a project with a swatch. And while creating the stitches for the book, I could tell quickly while working with a small number of stitches whether an idea was working. I knew I would have to knit two samples of each of the fifty stitches, so I rarely worked full swatches until I was ready to make the samples to be photographed. I did want all the swatches to be the same size, with the hope that it would make the photographer’s job easier. But even that task was simplified, because I used the same yarn for all the samples and so had an immediate feel for the needle and stitch number to use. While knitting the first swatch, I wrote the stitch pattern, then checked the pattern while knitting the second swatch. I only tried to be this efficient because there was so much work to complete in a year.
Ilga: As a designer, I am always consulting stitch dictionaries, following the work of other designers, including fashion designers. There is no question that I get some of my ideas from the catwalk, from people-watching, and from the pages of knitting books and magazines.
Lynne: I think you are a true knitwear designer, with a wonderful feel for wearability. You don’t just stick with accessories like I usually do, but you create pieces that women find beautiful and love to wear. This has been confirmed by a friend who is now knitting, and loving, your Antique Lace top. I also look at the catwalk, but I don’t easily make the transition from there to patterns for hand knitters. There may be a growing number of knitters who like edgy designs, but I think they are still a small minority. What do you think? How do you take what you see on the catwalk and create designs that knitters love?
Ilga: Oh, that would take at least another blog post to address. Mostly I follow my delight. If I see something that makes me sit up and notice, like, say, the drape of a collar on a fashion garment, I’ll speculate on how that could be adapted onto a knitted garment. And then I experiment, often going through lots of swatches, until I feel I have something worth turning into a garment. In the process, though, I may be prompted to go in a whole new direction and that collar that I saw three weeks ago is now an asymmetrical shawl with buttons along one side.
How would you like to see others use your stitch patterns?
Lynne: I think I care most about sharing ideas, so I hope they have the potential to be mini-lessons. Maybe knitters will just enjoy working swatches to learn different techniques, or how to make different connections and structures – revealing new relationships between stitches and their neighbors in a fabric. But, if someone wants to use them simply to knit a scarf, that would be great too.
Ilga: That leads to the question of copyright, always a sensitive topic for designers. Only you could have come up with many of the stitch patterns in your book. They carry your signature. How would you feel about other designers incorporating some of your stitches into their own design work? How could you be compensated, or at least acknowledged, for your intellectual property?
Lynne: I don’t expect any financial compensation, and I hope that knitters, both professionals and hobbyists, do use them for their own designs, either as written or modified. In your experience, if the text of a pattern is reprinted in another pattern, does copyright require some written acknowledgement in the pattern? Mostly it’s nice to hear when someone appreciates what I’ve done.
Ilga: Congratulations on your book Reversible Knitting. It is such a beautifully produced book with detailed close-ups of the individual swatches, some of them taking up a whole page. The production values show a deep respect for knitting. This will definitely become one of my reference books for stitch ideas.
Lynne: All the production praise, both design and photographs, belongs to Melanie Falick and her team of designers and photographer.
Ilga: I wish you all the best in your continuing exploration of the knitted stitch.
Lynne: Thank you, Ilga. I appreciate your kindness and the generous support you’ve given me on your blog.
