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The World of Illusion Knitting

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PICKING UP THREADS

This was written in
2007
so is now very dated

During that summer we met the most amazing Canadian knitter, named Debbie New. We had been introduced to Debbie’s work some time before this by another well-known designer who thought we would have a lot in common. She also told us that Debbie and her husband John spent every summer on a narrow-boat in East Anglia.

I didn’t contact Debbie when I first heard about her but I was to come across her work in a situation that compelled me to find out more. A sock competition was organised by one of the American knitting magazines. Debbie had two pairs of socks amongst the winners. Americans are very keen on knitting socks but I have to admit that I have never had any interest in them. Debbie’s socks were different. One pair were garter stitch swirls locking together to form the sock shape. I was fascinated by the way she had taken what I had been using in straight-line shapes to create curves. These were what I really wanted to know about. How did anyone get their head round where these swirls might go?

The second pair of socks had been made as a joke – they were made of liquorice. We had always maintained that knitting could be done with anything that could be made into a string but we had never thought of anything like this.

We contacted Debbie and John and were invited to join them on their boat. The barge was at a mooring at the Canal Museum at Stoke Bruerne so that was where we went to find them. It was instantly obvious that we did have a great deal in common. Debbie was also a maverick though her work was far more imaginative and avant-garde than ours. We laughed continuously in the midst of mathematical and scientific discussions and every time we have met since has been exactly the same. Debbie is a very talented lady with a whole range of other achievements to her credit. In addition to being a renowned scientist she had also been a professional musician, not to mention being the mother of eight children. Her musical talents were obvious that day as she demonstrated strange oriental instruments she had made herself. I’m not much of a musician but Steve soon joined in ‘making music’.

The inside of the boat itself was an unbelievable sight. It must be difficult enough living a ‘normal’ life in such circumstances for three months every year. In addition to all the everyday clutter one would expect, it was strewn with work-in-progress. There were strips and blocks of knitting everywhere and, hanging from bars along the side of the boat, there were skeins of drying yarns that had been dyed in a range of beige and brown shades. They were parts of a mammoth work which had already been completed once and was now to be extended. It was a massive picture of Debbie’s grandmother. She had imported an old sepia photograph into her computer and blown it up until she could see the pixels (small coloured blocks) that made up the picture. She then set about dyeing yarn to match the colour of each individual pixel. The finished piece is so large you have to be a long way back from it to see it clearly. At that distance it is a perfect reproduction. Debbie came up with a very good idea about how to view it from closer, which would work equally well for our use. Her idea was to use one of those spyglasses for seeing who is outside your door but to use it turned round the wrong way.

As you might imagine, a waterside museum on a summer’s day is quite a tourist attraction. After lunch we decided to work our way up the canal, through a set of locks, from the mooring to the museum. During lunch we had heard the story of the liquorice socks and how thoroughly Debbie had researched the materials. She had discovered that British liquorice is more flexible and does not dry out as quickly as American or Canadian liquorice. The very best came from Woolworths. Not content with that, she had tracked down the suppliers and discovered it originated in Holland. Now she had a surprise for me. As we set off she handed me needles and liquorice so I could try for myself. Her advice was “If it goes wrong, destroy the evidence – Eat it!”

John was steering the boat; I was sitting right on the front in full view to the world; Debbie and Steve were walking the tow path and operating the locks. Locks always gather spectators and these were no exception. As we came up to each lock Debbie and Steve started making very loud comments about this strange woman who appeared to be knitting liquorice. Sitting knitting on a narrow-boat would have been startling enough to some people. Now everyone stopped and stared and the two miscreants pretended they were nothing to do with this boat. It was one of the more surreal experiences of my life.

14a. ECCENTRIC KNITTING