I was born in Middlesbrough and whilst at College and during my foundation year, I developed a love for knitting. I decided to study Textile Crafts at the University of Huddersfield, where I specialised in knitting. This enabled me to further my knowledge in machine and hand knitting. I became fascinated and captivated by hand knitted fabrics and knew this would be the theme for my work, making knitting contemporary and extreme.
During my time at university I undertook a placement year at Thomas B Ramsdens. They are a hand knit yarn company, who produce yarns and patterns in which the public can buy and hand knit their own garments.
I was part of the design team who created these patterns. From this experience I learnt how to understand a knitted pattern, write a basic pattern, learn about the tension of different yarns and detailed information about the wool industry. This placement year developed my knowledge and skills in hand knitting and helped me to push my practice further.
Within my practice, architecture has always been an influence. This led me to look at negative space and how this creates interesting shapes and shadows.
I have always had a fascination for bigger hand knitted fabrics and I had a strong desire to express this within my work. I create my initial designs on a smaller scale to enable me to focus on the important part of my work, which are the techniques. I enjoy solving the technical problems and writing all the patterns. The final designs are then developed into big chunky knitting, which have been created with a strip of knitting, which is five stitches in width of Super Chunky yarn.
One of the most important pieces of information I have learnt during my time in the wool industry and my final year of University, is that you should always keep a track of every pattern as there may be a need for it to be re-knitted or altered.
