Knitting in the New way
Unexpected Knitting
Debbie New (Schoolhouse Press)
AUD$78/ISBN 978-0942018226
Once you wished you could spend every minute together, but the relationship has become routine. You used to be so easily seduced, but nothing seems to ignite that flame of passion these days. You've tried every technique you know, there are stacks of well-thumbed magazines under the bed, and that drawer full of aids has gone unused for months. Could it be a mid-life crisis?
Don't reach for the HRT just yet, and there's no need to run off to Greece like Shirley Valentine, in search of an affair. (And anyway, haven't you already tried the continental method?) When the thrill has gone from your knitting, when you think you've done it all, there's a simple remedy: try some knitting in the new way—Debbie New's way.
If you have not been fortunate enough to sample one of her workshops, you could do no better than to study her book Unexpected Knitting. I do mean to use the word study—this is no ordinary knitting book, and knitting is an inadequate word to describe what Debbie New actually does. She is, all at once, an artist, a scientist, a teacher and a pioneer, and some of her published techniques have already become part of today's knitting currency. A quick search of the internet—even in major international yarn companies' pattern leaflets, and hip new knitting books—and you'll find countless variants of Debbie's scribble lace.
But are you familiar with swirl knitting? Or cellular automaton knitting? Have you ever tried virtual knitting? You say you're a sock knitter? Well, the 'Better Mousetrap Sock' is definitely not your regular sock. The word no doesn't appear in Debbie's vocabulary: if you can imagine it, you can knit it. And if a suitable technique doesn't already exist, you can invent one.
One mind-boggling technique of Debbie's devising is labyrinth knitting: one long, narrow piece of knitting, with mitres in pre-determined positions. But simple it isn't—a glance at a schematic for a labyrinth-knitted garment will show the cast-on edge snaking its way throughout the garment, covering a distance of several metres. It will take multiple circular needles to cast on and work the number of stitches required. I'm breaking into a sweat (or could that be a hot flush?) at the mere thought of it.
While it was an eerie coincidence that I left home to travel to one of Debbie's Australian workshops on the very day of my 50th birthday, I feel pretty sure that I'm not heading towards a mid knitting-life crisis—at least not until after I've found my way through the challenge of labyrinth knitting.
—Sarah Durrant
...Designer Sarah Durrant is also a purveyor of Colinette Yarns and blogs at Knitterly Notions.