Process images
Yarn collection for the Forest project
Haunting thrift shops – locally and everywhere I travelled – yielded a huge harvest of yarn, as well as a substantial collection of knitting paraphernalia and plenty of technical information about yarns.(Photograph: Lyn Richards, 2020)
Organic texture
Knitting together multiple yarn strands of varied textures, hues and finishes creates organic effects that evoke the experience of the forest. The complex textures produced by combining novelty and specialty products such as mohair, eyelash, feather boa and chenille become still more dynamic when metallic filaments are woven into the mix. (Photograph: Lyn Richards, 2020)
Assembling the multi-strand yarn bundles
To avoid tangles while knitting with up to a dozen strands, it was helpful to bundle the strands in advance. (Photograph: Lyn Richards, 2020)
Too much to knit by hand.
Ten foot tall trees are heavy work, and twenty of these require too much knitting for one person in a short period of time. My friend, Ila suggested using a knitting frame, but this was too small to accommodate my multi-strand yarn bundles. So with Doug Buis’ help, I developed an over-size, wooden knitting frame. This proved heavy and awkward to work with, and needed a support structure and a way to rotate the work into easy reach. (Photograph: Lyn Richards, 2020)
Necessity mothers another invention: the knitting wheel
Attaching the over-size knitting loom to an upside down bar stool to the wooden knitting frame solved the support and ergonomic issues. Replacing the bar stool seat with some plywood covered in Stopp (there’s always an Ikea solution) allows comfortable knitting on a frame that easily rotates with a gentle kick — without sliding away. (Photograph: Lyn Richards, 2020)
Only Lyn can knit a tree?
The knitting wheel won’t serve every aspect of knitting a tree. The branches are knitted separately with super-sized needles, then stitched around the branch and attached to the bole – except when in a hurry just before showing. Here, I’m finishing a branch by knitting directly onto the tree.
(Photograph: Lyn Richards, 2020)