Week 16 - Liz
- Victoria Wells
- 12 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Impatient. Curious. Smart. Passionate.
Liz is a part time resident in Canberra. She lives in Melbourne and commutes to Canberra to work on her PhD. The study brings together her loves of learning, anthropology and knitting. She is working on wool. We meet at ANU at Lab on the first properly wet day in weeks. It is also the uni Open Day. As I sat waiting for Liz the benches outside the cafe filled up with eager potential students and their parents. University Ave has come alive with current students, security staff and staff from the uni, most of which have a takeaway coffee in hand.
I assume, correctly, that Liz is a knitter, from her attire: hand-knitted shawl and a waistcoat/cardigan under a jacket. She parks her umbrella and orders a chai. We get straight into talking about her shawl, a Jackie Verbeek Snow Gum and the Intarsia Reset Cardigan by La Maison Rililie. I can see from the pattern and style Liz is an experienced and accomplished knitter, neither of these items are for beginners.
Liz was taught to sew by her grandmother; she was the only grandchild who showed any interest in making. She has inherited her grandmother’s sewing machines. Although her grandmother did knit it was not her who taught Liz who to do it. When Liz finished uni she was at a bit of a loose end so joined a Forest Campaign to live in the forest full time to stop logging. She had been lent a beanie by a friend to keep her warm but she lost it. She wanted to replace it so asked the two 8 year old Steiner children, at the camp, to show her how to. Liz marvelled that these children who could not read but could craft. She used recycled yarn obtained from unraveled jumpers from op shops to practise the stitches and made many beanies until she was satisfied her knitting was good enough to make a replacement beanie for her friend. She bought some wool. She made the beanie. She made an arrangement for her friend to be given the new one. A group of environmental visitors came to the camp, one wearing the beanie she had lost. She found out the man had found it on a ticket machine at the city train station some time before. She offered her newly made beanie as a swap so she could return the original to her friend. The man accepted. Liz returned the original beanie to its owner.
Liz did not do much crafting after she left the forest until she got into knitting after COVID lockdowns. As the country learnt how to stay still for a moment Liz took up building Lego. This was not as satisfying as she had hoped. She liked the making but there were disadvantages: the finished items are not aesthetically pleasing to look at, they are made of plastic and come wrapped in more plastic. Making the Lego told Liz that she wanted to make things but not these things so she looked up how to crochet on the internet and found Janie Crow. ‘If that is what crochet can look like, I wanted to make that.’ She tells me. She made the squares for a blanket from an How to Make An Afgan book but it was never finished. Liz realised she loved the look of knitting more and picked it back up again. Learning many new skills from YouTube, she now makes finished garments, everything from socks to jumpers and shawls, and has started spinning her own yarn from scratch.
Liz’s WIPs include Musselburgh beanie by Ysolda Teague, a dishcloth in cotton, the Victorian Mittens by Elenor Mortensen, and a Thru Lines scarf by Drea Renee Knits. All these knits make up into fabrics that Liz loves. The beanie by Ysolda Teague has been made before. Using mohair to bring it together the finished product had the four things, that if you get them just right, make a garment or item, perfection: colour, texture, squisshiness (a crafter’s technical term) and the skill of the hands of the maker. That is how the yarn moves in the hands of the maker. The making of the garments, as well as learning to spin and dye are part of the reflective practice of Liz’s PhD, and can be found on YouTube. The research is delving into the texture of wool and following it from the sheep’s back to the finished garment asking questions on the way that may not be answered but will bring these things into the light. Knitting and crochet are marginalised activities that are done in the home, away from public life. Men’s work is seen and therefore validated.
Liz has visited knitting and crochet groups while learning to do research. At one in Melbourne she had to work around the gatekeeper of the group. The woman who ran the group gave permission as did most of the group but she had to prove her knitting credentials by producing her WIP to one woman. They talked of knitting techniques and colour and form. The conversation opened the door and validated the women and their work. Knitting and crochet can be like a golden ticket.
The Facebook group gives Liz the things other women also belong for: access to shared knowledge, assistance with knotty problems, inspiration. It is a collaborative sharing that puts the work into the world in a safe environment, it also celebrates the finished products. There is a joy when finished items are published, it tells the world ‘This is done, and I made it’. The process of making, sometimes struggling, and effort over time builds self-esteem. There is a resurgence in hand made things at the moment, aided by the internet. Part of this is a hangover to COVID but it is also a reaction against capitalism.
One of the questions Liz is investigating is our ‘irrational love’ of possessions. This idea comes from the academic Jane Bennett who explores the idea of things and stuff having an active engagement with political events and this is not recognised. This theory might also go someway to explaining Liz’s love and attachment to the dinnerplates that are her treasured possession. Owned first by her grandmother they have come to her by way of her mother. The Rose Chintz by Johnson Bros from the Staffordshire Pottery are not kept for best but used daily.
University Ave is now heaving with people, most with umbrellas. The wide pathway is filled with young people dodging each other under those umbrellas. The cafe is full. I pack up my stuff and say goodbye to Liz. She has given me a lot to think about; women’s work, being seen, wool, and, as I walk back to the tram stop my next crochet project unveils itself with each step.
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