In the German artist, Rosemarie Trockel’s, (b.1952) pencil drawing, The Wupper Country Club (1989), she draws a girl walking in the countryside uttering the words “We knit what we see!” I find myself now living in the countryside, rarely walking in it and not knitting what I see. I knit what I feel. Knitting is my way of interpreting, communicating and coming to terms with, the world that we inhabit. It sits between me and my internal world and the physical world around me like some form of knitted comfort blanket.

Knitting has long held associations with practical function, the production of garments to keep us warm and comfortable. Like many people I have a desire to own functional, knitted works, but I have no desire to make them. When I was pregnant I was continually being asked what I had been knitting my baby. I had knitted nothing. Guilt got the better of me and she received a jumper, then depression and she received some giant pram trousers. In 1999 I exhibited my series of Odd Sweaters, at the Crafts Council Gallery in London. These sweaters are not garments to be worn but to “visually discuss” ideas about normality and conformity. One visitor to the gallery remarked that it was “such a waste”. Our need to justify objects through function is great, but our actual needs aren’t. Who really needs another jumper, cushion yet alone tea-cosy? Most of us in western society have far more than we need. Function is a fiction in our desire to knit. However the emotional function of knitting is another matter all together.

In this paper I will reflect upon my own knitted works and my use of knitting to explore and communicate my thoughts about perfection, death, motherhood, gender inequality and what it is to be human. Common issues explored through a common art.