The detective & the jumper - an update

Previously on this blog: The knitted detective

The Killing II has now arrived on our screens, and the jumper is yet again taking centre stage, as Ginny Dougray reveals on the Radio Times blog:

'I've only seen the first two episodes - and am gripped, once again - but cannot help remarking on The Sweater, which is not the beloved Faroese, black-on-white knit of old but a cheery, cherry-red. "There's this rule, you know, in the bones of every person doing what I do, that you should never give the audience what they want," says Grabol. "It's like an artistic law - you shouldn't repeat yourself, because then you're dead creatively. So there's a sense of 'They want the jumper? Well, they're not going to get the jumper!' "


Find about more about Lund's jumpers

Products with love

Today I am launching an internet shop, Solveighs Textilkabinett at DaWanda,the website for 'products with love'.

You find my Textilkabinett @
http://en.dawanda.com/shop/mirabilia-domestica

If you have seen any other work of mine that you like on my blogs or website, I am happy to list it and sell it via the Textilkabinett.

Enjoy your visit, and if you like it tell others about it.

Psyche

Butterfly and moth are of the same family. Airy and light, colourful or camouflaged, fragile or furry, fluttering in the sunshine in search of nectar, seeking the light in the darkness of the night, they are symbols of the spirit, of metamorphosis and the cycle of life. In myth, Psyche wears butterfly wings and moths are said to be the souls of the dead.

More moths & butterflies

Pink fluff, fur & feathers

While in Eastbourne the deafening noise of planes fills the summer air and the Royal Air Force hands out stickers to promote their trade to a new generation of heroes in the making, only a few miles down the coast their colleagues march amidst rainbow colours, pink furs and feathers to the sound of music in a different kind of celebration.

Images of Brighton Pride 2011

Der unendliche Faden - The never-ending thread

Der unendliche Faden - The never-ending thread - is the title of an installation by Thomas Hauck & Sabina Kaeser at Kunsthaus Kannen/Germany.Visitors are invited to add to the web of threads that stretches through the grounds around the Kunsthaus. While each thread in itself is finite, joined together they create a continuously growing web of infinite potential, only ending when people cease to work on it.

"31. Mai 2011 – 05. Juni 2011

Zum Auftakt der Ausstellung „Art Brut und Textil“ entsteht vor dem Park im Kunsthaus ein riesiges Netzwerk. Jeder der Teilnehmer kann seine Wolle selbst mitbringen und Freunde zum gemeinsamen Vernetzen einladen. Ins Leben gerufen wird die Aktion vom dem Installations- und Performanceduo „DAS ARCHIV“, das aus Thomas J. Hauck aus Berlin und Sabina Kaeser aus Zürich, besteht."

images of the installation

More information on the installation and the Art Brut and Textile exhibition
Gestrickt, geklebt, geknotet ...
(Knitted, glued, knotted)
Kunsthaus Kannen/Germany
5 June – 25 September 2011

The handkerchief of time

“If you take a handkerchief and spread it out in order to iron it, you can see in it certain fixed distances and proximities. If you sketch a circle in one area, you can mark out nearby points and measure far-off distances. Then take the same handkerchief and crumple it, by putting it in your pocket. Two distant points suddenly are close, even superimposed. If, further, you tear it in certain places, two points that were close can become very distant. This science of nearness and rifts is called topology, while the science of stable and well-defined distances is called metrical geometry. Classical time is related to geometry, having nothing to do with space, as Bergson pointed out all too briefly, but with metrics. On the contrary, take your inspiration from topology, and perhaps
you will discover the rigidity of those proximities and distances you consider arbitrary. And their simplicity, in the literal sense of the word pli [fold]: it's simply the difference between topology (the handkerchief is folded, crumpled, shredded) and geometry (the same fabric is ironed out flat). […]
Sketch on the handkerchief some perpendicular networks, like Cartesian coordinates, and you will define the distances. But, if you fold it, the distance from Madrid to Paris could suddenly be wiped out, while, on the other hand, the distance from Vincennes to Colombes could become infinite.”

Serres, Michel (1995). Conversations on science, culture, and time / Michel Serres with Bruno Latour; translated from French by Roxanne Lapidus. The University of Michigan Press, p.60, 61

more handkerchiefs

Strick-Liesel

"Strick-Guerilla - Die subversive Kraft des Strickens
Sie kommen in der Nacht, wollen verstören, wachrütteln. Sie nennen sich 'Strick' und 'Liesel' - und das ist Programm. Die beiden Künstlerinnen stricken ihre Werke: Plakate, die an strategisch wichtigen Orten in diversen Städten angebracht werden und gegen Atomkraft protestieren. Das Künstlerduo gehört zu einer weltweit agierenden Strick-Guerilla. ttt forscht der subversiven Kraft dieser alten Handarbeit nach."

[Knit-guerilla: the subversive power of knitting
They come in the night, want to disturb, wake us up. They call themselves 'Strick' and 'Liesel' - and that's the program. The two artists knit their works: posters that are put up in strategically important places in various cities in protest against nuclear energy. The artist duo are part of a world-wide movement of knitting guerilla. ttt investigates the subversive potential of this old handicraft.]

Titel, Thesen, Temperamente, ARD/NDR, 3 April 2011
http://www.ardmediathek.de/ard/servlet/content/3517136?documentId=6868262

Flat pack

A flat-packed chair for the installation 300 Spectators by Goett & Hoad. To follow the chair into the gallery and find out more about the work, go to

http://solveighgoett.blogspot.com/search?q=300+spectators

London 26 March 2011 - March for the Alternative

Under a sea of flags and banners half a million people took to the streets of London to protest against the ruthless spending cuts imposed by the UK government.

For images from the march, go to http://solveighgoett.blogspot.com/search?q=26+March+2011

ein wunderschöner Textilkreislauf - a wonderful textile cycle

" ... heute war Stoffparty mit den Gütersloher Nähweibern. Stoffe, die man irgendwann gekauft oder geschenkt bekommen hat, aber nie verarbeiten konnte oder dann doch nicht mehr wollte, wurden wie bei einer Tupperparty präsentiert und verkauft. Die Tageseinnahmen gehen an den Kinderschutzbund. So weit die ganz einfache Beschreibung ...
Ich habe das Paradekissen gekauft.
Nicht etwa, weil ich es dringend benötige. Es ist genau das alte kaputte Paradekissen meiner Oma, dass ich vor Lichtjahren (lange bevor ich zum Nähweib geworden bin) mal auf einem Flohmarkt an eine nette Frau verkauft habe. Und genau diese nette Frau wollte sich heute auf unserer Stoffparty davon trennen, weil sie nie ein passendes zweites Kissen gefunden hat.
Ist das nicht ein wunderschöner Textilkreislauf?”

[... today we had a fabric party with the Gütersloher Nähweibern (sewing women). Fabrics once bought or given but never used in any project for various reasons were displayed and sold like at a Tupperware party. The takings of the day were donated to the association for the protection of children. So far, so good … I bought a Paradekissen (decorative pillow case).
Not because I needed it. It was the very same old and torn pillow case of my grandmother that light years ago – long before I became a Nähweib - I had sold on a flea market to a very nice woman. Now this very same nice woman wanted to let go of it today at our fabric party because in all those years she didn’t manage to find a second pillowcase to match.
Isn’t that a wonderful textile cycle?]

K.G., 19.3.2011

The knitted detective

“For fans of The Killing, BBC4's tense Danish thriller currently airing on Saturday night, there's only question bigger than whodunnit: "Why does Sarah Lund always wear that thick patterned jumper? And also, of course, where can I get one from?"
Now, happily, the first mystery can be, erm, unravelled. Sofie Gråbøl, the actor who plays Lund in the show, laughs delightedly at the idea of British fans becoming obsessed with the detective's jumper.
Danish viewers also went crazy for it. " Everybody wanted that sweater," she says. "The company in the Faroe Islands couldn't keep up."
It was Gråbøl who decided upon Lund's attire: "We had a costume meeting and I saw that sweater and thought: 'That's it!'," she says, despite the jumper being decidedly unpolice-like. "The reason it's so perfect is because it tells so many stories. It tells of a person who doesn't use her sexuality – that's a big point. Lund's so sure of herself she doesn't have to wear a suit. She's at peace with herself."
The knitwear also has personal memories for the actor, who was brought up in the 70s in a very hippy-like environment in Copenhagen. "I wore this sweater and so did my parents. That sweater was a sign of believing in togetherness. There's a nice tension between those soft, human values and Lund being a very tough closed person – because to me it says that she's wanting to sit around a fire with a guitar; it gives a great opposite to her line of work and behaviour."

The Killing: Sarah Lund's jumper explained

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/mar/10/the-killing-sophie-grabol-sarah-lund

more knitwear