Laval est Bleu

While in Montreal, I met with Stephanie Heureux, the director of Galerie Diagonale. Diagonale one of the very few, if not the only, not for profit fibre arts galleries in Canada. In December they are having a fundraising event that includes asking artists to contribute a small work based on the theme of "blue" or in their case "bleu".

I decided to contribute a piece that was as much about doing some Knitting Sprawl experimentation as anything else. I started with a photograph I took of a new development in Laval, Quebec.



Then I boxed out a square and photoshopped on a grid pattern.



Then I experimented with knitting in fair isle. First I tried to copy the photograph nearly exactly, using a combination of fair isle and intarsia techniques. That was a quick recipe for madness so I tore it out after about an inch. I decided to be broader in my interpretation of the photograph and more traditional in my fair isle technique. Also, no intarsia (what was I thinking with that anyway?).

Here is the result:



It's ok. I think I will send them the three pieces as one piece. But as far as Knitting Sprawl goes, I am not so happy with it. I really am not interested in making such a direct translation of photograph to knitting pattern. This isn't about technical knitting achievements (as if!). Somewhere in all that process, the poetry was lost.

So, I will have to keep looking. I know Laval is in there somewhere.