A great session on Saturday creating sweet little fascinators for all those weddings we’ll no doubt be attending over the summer! We were really inspired by the fantastic collection of hats and fascinators on display in the Gallery of Costume. We had a great spread of embellishments to add to the knitted/crocheted bases and it was great fun putting them together and showing off the results!
Close Knit, Saturday 29th March at The Gallery of Costume, Platt Hall
The Gallery of Costume ‘s stunning collection of hats has some amazing and inspiring pieces. Come along and have a go at creating a fun fascinator as we go for glamour and show off our sophisticated chapeaux!
Please come along!
February 22nd, 2-4 pm, The Gallery of Costume, Platt Hall
Brrr ! It’s cold out so come indoors and let’s work on some cosy knits as we explore the Gallery of Costume’s collection to see how people used costume to keep warm in the bad old days days before central heating. We will brighten up the dreary weather with some hot colours drawn from Joana Vasconcelos’s ‘The Time Machine’ which is the must-see bright new exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery.
January’s Close Knit workshop was dedicated to the Manchester Satellite Reef Project which is currently on display, and in progress, at the Manchester Museum.
There certainly was a super turn out, and it looks like crochet is getting popular, as 20 or so eager crafters turned out to take part and contribute to the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project.
It was great to see the diversity of crochet pieces being made during the workshop, as well as watching those of you who turned up to learn and create your very own Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef. Learner crocheters learned how to chain stitch, make double and treble stitches and then used these new skills to create a free formed piece of crochet. The pro-crocheters amongst the group went on to to create some fabulous crochet work from the project pattern sheet and from their own pattern sources. We’re now looking forward to adding them into the project at the museum and watching the project grow and change once again.
If you haven’t already seen the Coral exhibition and Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project, there is plenty of time to visit the Manchester Museum on Oxford Road. And you can contribute to the project until March 2014.
Slippers! Inspired by the wonderful shoes that make up part of the Gallery of Costume’s collection, November’s Close Knit got festive as we made slippers for snuggling down in over Christmas. Using spa slippers as a base together with a brilliant little i-cord knitting machine, we cut some corners but came out with all we needed to complete a quick pair of slippers at home!
January 25th 2-4pm Gallery of Costume, Platt Hall.
A chance for our knitters to work with ArtYarn’s Rachael Gwilliam, learning the joys of crochet as we create some crochet coral for exhibiting on the Manchester Museum’s Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef. This session will take place at the Gallery of Costume where we will have the opportunity to look at how similar natural forms are used as inspiration for fashion designers.
…will be at the Gallery of Costume on Saturday 30th November between 2 and 4. We’ll be making slippers and looking at some footwear from the gallery’s handling collection. Hope you can come!
We were back at The Gallery of Costume for October’s workshop and making jewelry was the order of the day! The collection of handbags, particularly the metallic ones, together with the metallic fabrics used in the exhibit of 1980s outfits, inspired the workshop. The group enjoyed having a look at the exhibits with some members having owned similar dresses themselves.
The jewelry pattern was chosen to challenge the group and learn some new stitches, and it certainly did that! There were a few frustrating moments but we all got there in the end! Next month we’ll return to some simpler patterns to give us a bit more of a chance to have a chat 🙂
September’s session drew inspiration from Alison Erika Forde’s exhibition ‘The Tallest of Tales’ at Manchester Art Gallery, an eery collection of paintings and disconcerting installations which elicit dark but whimsical memories from childhood dreams and fairy-tales. We attempted to draw on the colours, motifs and words evoked by the paintings to lead our colour-work. Although we didn’t have enough time to make any big pieces, everyone learned something and had a good chat in such a stimulating environment!
…will be at Platt Hall between 2 and 4pm. We’ve had a slight change of direction due to materials not arriving in time and so this session we’ll be knitting jewelry (and making slippers next month). Apologies that this post is last minute -we’ve been waiting to see if the slippers would arrive! The jewelry will be a lovely project. We have some beautiful metallic yarns and jewelry fixings so why not come down and make yourself (or a lucky friend) a gorgeous gift!
Hi All!
September’s Close Knit will take place at Manchester Art Gallery on Saturday 28th September between 2 and 4pm. We will be inspired by the storytelling of Alison Erika Forde’s The Tallest of Tales exhibition and the use of text in pieces from the Gallery of Costume’s collections.
Please come along, beginners and experts alike, and have a go at creating your own knitted story samplers.
Hi Close Knitters! June’s session will take place at Manchester Art Gallery on 29th June between 2 and 4. It will be hosted by Bev Hogg who will be talking about a wonderful knitting themed painting from the gallery’s collection.
This month’s Close Knit took place on a lovely sunny day at the Gallery of Costume and was inspired by one of the beautiful dresses on display as part of the ‘Knitted Elegance’ exhibit. Alice Temperly designed the gorgeous black dress that uses lace knitting techniques to create a diamond motif in the bodice and arms, and a wave-like form in the skirt.
We used a similar stitch pattern to that used in the skirt, introducing the ‘yarn over’ (yo) stitch that is used in lace work to create decorative holes in the knit. The aim was to create a small pouch that could be used for a mobile phone, as a glasses case or, for the really fast knitters, a handy cover for their telescopes!
We were also lucky enough to have access to some of the pieces not on display in the gallery at the moment: two pairs of stunningly delicate socks knitted for a toddler around 1865. We must be one of the only a few knitting groups in the world who have such an amazing resource to draw on and inspire us!
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Close Knit Manchester 