Cat Mad Crochet

Estimate reading time: 3 minutes

I pulled Leanne Prain’s Strange Material to share as an inspiration book this week. It’s a book about textiles and art and storytelling. Some of the artists presented are quite overt and use words and photographic images in their pieces to tell a story while others use color and construction choices to convey their messages. The artists work in a wide variety of media, including crochet, so I found this book particularly interesting because I love seeing what can be done in other crafts and thinking about how I can make use of those ideas in crochet.

The book is broken down into chapters focusing on meaning, worn stories, poetic works, protests and politics, remembrance, illustration, fiction, humor, technology, and community. There are also ideas for projects you can try yourself if you feel so inspired.  

Personally, I find Kerry Larkin’s quilts with poems quilted into them particularly captivating. I’m not sure there is a way to make this work with crochet, so I will just appreciate its awesomeness as it is. 

Here are some other images that I love:

This is a detail of a scarf woven by Maria Damon for Ed Cohen. I’ll be honest, the colors are not to my liking, but I find that worn bit very intriguing. How could one create sections of wear in a new crochet piece without compromising the structural integrity of the piece? Chains come to mind, but they are boring. I need to play with this idea. 

Stephanie Dosen of Tiny Owl Knits has a wonderful collection of fairytale and woodland inspired pieces worked in knit and crochet featured in this book (and in a book of her own that I should review someday). I love all of them. They remind me that it’s okay to create pieces from the world of once upon a time and other people will like them too. My own version of real toads in imaginary gardens, I guess: Real garments for imaginary people. Some days, it just seems like the world would be better if I could hold onto a shawl like the one I imagine the princess from the Princess and the Pea wrapped around her as she made her way through the weather to the prince’s castle. Somehow it would make the world a little more whimsical in just the magical sort of way that would make it all a little more bearable. 

I find the immersive nature of the Climbing PoeTree duo’s installation really attractive. So often art is what is pinned in place on the wall or a plinth. To be able to walk among the art and see the pieces move as you walk, changing the shadows and your view must be an awesome experience. Combined with the work below by Jennifer Cooper, who made Buddhist inspired prayer flags out of her father-in-law’s clothing when he passed, make me wonder how I might use crochet to both chronicle some aspect of my interior life that I normally don’t publicize, but also make that a physical experience for others. 

Side note, there is a gourd on my front porch that some bird has stuffed full of cast-off yarn ends and bits of rabbit fluff I have put in the front flower bed. Some bits have been carried off by chipmunks, but many of the little bits I have cut off of projects after weaving ends have largely been taken by this one bird. She has to have the plushiest nest. The rabbit fluff is hard to see sometimes because that rabbit is no longer with me. I’m glad her fluff is bringing warmth and comfort to someone, but I miss my girl.

This book is, as usual for the books I offer peeks at, out of print, but I did find it at my local library, so give yours a try! It’s an interesting and inspiring book!