We are delighted to announce ‘Knitting in the Round: Hand-Knitted Textiles and the Economies of Craft in Scotland’, a University of Glasgow network supported by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
The network will develop collaborations between a range of sectors: business, heritage, education, tourism and culture and arts; and will explore how historical understandings of knit as an economic, creative and cultural practice inform modern and contemporary uses of this textile practice.
Knit is the pin-up craft for sustainability, creativity and authenticity. Knitting in the Round will investigate the transformation from small-scale, home-based craft production to one of Scotland’s most identifiable brands and it will explore the relationships that knit facilitates: between young and old, across continents, between practitioners and researchers, producers and consumers, in the Scottish and international context. Through a series of events combining practice and theory we will interrogate the meaning of knit in the present and the past. The result will be greater public understanding of the ways in which knit contributes to the Scottish economy, to health and wellbeing and to cultural enrichment.
The core network team consists of Lynn Abrams and Marina Moskowitz, both of the School of Humanities, University of Glasgow, and Roslyn Chapman, currently researching a PhD on the history of Shetland lace knitting.
Our collaborators are: Carol Christiansen (Shetland Museum and Archives); Frances Lennard (Textile Conservation Centre, University of Glasgow); Di Gilpin (knitwear designer of Di Gilpin Ltd); Laura Stevens (archivist at Glasgow Women’s Library); Fiona Scott (MakeWorks).
We will be holding a series of public and community-based events over the course of 2014-16 including events to coincide with the Commonwealth Games and the anniversary of the start of the First World War, a knitter in residence at Glasgow University and workshops exploring the diversity and heritage of Scottish knit. All events will be announced on this site.