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Unravel: Revaluing the Craft of Knitting For New Emergent Design Contexts Within a Post-Industrial World

This journal paper selected for publication by experts in the field of craft practice for Vol 2, Making Futures on-line journal (March 2013), argues that the Textile Designer can make a more expansive contribution to Design Thinking methodologies than previously considered.

The paper examines the craft of knitting and how it can transcend traditional boundaries of practice and transfer knowledge from one discipline to another. Through discussing current core writing on craft practice, for example Sennet (2008), the paper explores the “domain shift” where the principles central to a particular craft can be applied to another. Knitting today successfully navigates between practice, artefact, and narrative and as a metaphor for social change. A cultural phenomenon, knitting derived from the everyday domestic activity and over history has played an important role within the community, from patriotic knitting to ‘guerrilla’ knitting and performance. The image of knitting however, according to Black (2010) has been largely neglected within design and academic research due to its strong association with domestic life. Today, in the face of so much complexity, an understanding of a designer’s core craft skills is paramount when working in trans-disciplinary environments. Within this new context a re-evaluation of the role of knitting is argued to fully appreciate the contribution that the craft can bring to current and emerging design issues. Through examining contemporary examples of craft practice together with designers working across traditional boundaries of knitting, Steed seeks to challenge past perceptions by re-valuing the craft of knitting and discusses how the role of the designer can expand in keeping with relevant 21st Century design issues.

Acknowledgement of Steed’s specific contribution to textile knowledge has been made through examples of peer esteem including invitation to present as keynote at In the Loop 3.5 Making Connections Shetland Arts International Textile Festival http://www.shetlandarts.org/whats-on/festivals/international-textile-festival/.