Knitting
chair dress
What I wanted to emphasise with these designs is the change of shape/form that is possible through the technique of knitting.
As starting point I chose the principal of circular knitting for the “chair dress”. The wide upper part and the narrowing in the “waist” in Arne Jacobsen’s chair, make it especially interesting for this “dress”
The 2-colour effect comes from plating.
Because with circular knitting the yarn and the number of needles determine the size, and you cannot change this, I have developed the idea further by means of a kind of circular knitting on a flatbed knitting machine.
The idea for the chair-dress originated in a sample for a ‘tube top’. This is a stretchy little sweater produced with elastic yarn on a circular knitting machine with a small diameter. The resulting tube knit I pulled over an Arne Jacobsen chair. Interesting feature of this chair is its broad top, its slimming waist, and its again broadening seat.
The elastic I wanted to replace because of its limited durability. I alternated the stitching of the knit in face- and back loop, which also creates stretch. However, this was not completely to my satisfaction, which is why I also made a variation with increases. The work is knit from bottom to top.
Plating is a technique to produce a knit that has a different colour, or type of yarn on each side. Two different yarns are knitted at the same time. One yarn always covers the other; this is achieved by a yarn feeder with two openings.
On a flat-bed knitting machine the yarn, by means of a yarn feeder, is inserted into the needles and passes a needle bar from left to right and back. A bar is a metal surface with needles.
On a V-bed knitting machine you have an upper- and an under bar.
You can knit the yarn from upper bar to under bar which produces a kind of circular knit.
