"What I do when I'm not making Art."

I knit.

I knit blankets one shape at a time. Usually, squares or rectangles, sometimes triangles. I knit until I have had enough of knitting, or knitting that colour /s, that stitch, or that pattern. Then I start another one with a different shape, colour or texture.

In the past the wool (and it is wool) came from Op shops but finding wool now is a rare occurrence now. The main source of wool is now my friend’s mothers; Susanne Bartos’s mother, Yvonne, was a great knitter and Wendy Teakel’s mother, Beatrice, was a great collector of wool.

The accidental and chance play a big part in the blankets; what wool I have to hand, any thickness, what I feel like knitting, then months later when I think I have enough pieces I sew them together. As you can imagine with such a random process, there are no neat fits, then more shapes are knitted to fit the gaps. When its big enough it’s finished and the overall shape is not regular. In the process I ignore many of the ‘rules’ of knitting.

As many knitters know, knitting calms anxiety and relieves stress, initially it was the process not the product and I made the blankets for me. But there comes a time when there is enough in one house. So, I started to make one for a person. I would think about them, what they wear, what they like, where the blanket will go when its finished & what wool I have at that point in time.
It takes months of knitting to make a blanket, it’s an act of love.

For me knitting has been a quiet private activity till now, not a public one like art and so it is with some trepidation that I show them in a gallery where art is usually seen. I hope people also gain some pleasure from seeing the results of this process and also insights into what I do when I’m not making art.

- Noelene Lucas