This month we had a presentation about the knitting archives and collections at Winchester School of Art which is part of Southampton University. The speaker, Linda Newington, is the librarian who has charge of the various collections and an extensive knitting patterns collection.
She told us about the collections of designers Jane Waller, Richard Rutt and Montse Stanley which contain both artifacts collected by them as well as printed material and photographs. Linda showed us slides of various artefacts from the collection and explained the items and how the collections were acquired. She also showed images of the work of current and past students at the Art School who had specialised in knitted textiles and how they used the archives as a resource.
The library puts on a conference called In the Loop which in 2012 will be in Winchester:
IN THE LOOP 3 – THE VOICES OF KNITTING
5-7 September 2012 at the Winchester Discovery Centre
There was much interest in the collections and there was an extended and wide=ranging discussion after the coffee break, then we thanked Linda for her most interesting presentation. A visit to see the collection was arranged for next year.
At the end of the meeting there was a show and tell session with some lovely items displayed by members:
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A smashing waistcoat knitted by Gillian in acrylic black mohair using various oddments for the stripes. |
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This beautiful hand knitted pram blanket is from a handwritten pattern that Barbara was given by a lady who knitted it from memory – she then wrote this down when Barbara asked her if she had a pattern. |
