Alternative Knitting Panel

I'm finally getting around to posting about the Alternative Knitting panel I mentioned before at the Museum of Art & Design. Unfortunately, I missed the first 1/3 of the event, so as you can see, I didn't exactly have a good vantage point. I caught the tail end of the first panelist's presentation and that was probably the most interesting one. I did manage to look at some samples of David Cole's knitting with lead, kevlar, and other such fun stuff. I wish I had seen the lead knitting process...

The second person to speak was Takako Ueki of Habu Textiles--which I have been dying to go to--and she discussed knitting with stainless steel yarn (generally wrapped in silk) as well as paper and bamboo yarn. A lot more delicate than lead, but definitely much more feasible for someone like me. The interesting thing about the stainless steel yarn is that it retains shapes and--I may have gotten the details wrong for this--if you try felting it, the steel will start to show through the silk. The paper yarn sounds like it would turn out interestingly but I would be too afraid of it falling apart on me because I'm paranoid like that. Though supposedly they treat it or blend it with something else so that won't happen.

Lastly was the qiviuk person. We got to hear all about the plight of the arctic muskox. To be honest, this was around the time I started wandering around the exhibits (good thing too, because they closed everything up not even 5 minutes after the panel ended). I feel bad for saying that now because I did win the baby skein of yarn and all. So the last panelist was Linda Cortright, who is the editor of Wild Fibers Magazine. The muskox were a diminishing prehistoric species, but from what I gather (no pun intended... really) it seems that they're making a comeback now.

But, as I said, I missed a chunk of that discussion because I was busy taking these pictures. I apologize in advance for the poorly focused pictures. Apparently photography is prohibited in the museum, so I had to sneak these. Let's hope no one finds these pictures and tries to take them down...