“In the Loop”: Challenging and Disrupting the Stereotypes of Knitting

Abstract

The establishment of the Knitting Reference Library at Winchester School of Art Library alongside the overall critical mass of resources held on the single theme of knitting by the University of Southampton provided the starting point for a series of international interdisciplinary conferences entitled “In the Loop.” Since the first conference held in 2008, In the Loop has contributed to challenging and disrupting the prevailing stereotypes revealed as associated with knitters and knitting. Through a wide range of themes, speakers have explored the diversity of approaches to knitting, bringing together delegates from across the generations and proving there also to be worldwide interest. Knitting has thus been presented as multifaceted, not for any one single group, or confined by period or place. It has the potential to initiate discussion and new thinking around hierarchies of art and craft, the domestic and industrial, the personal and political. It is here that In the Loop has been able to focus activity within the context of archival, bibliographic, and object collections.

Keywords:

• knitting
• Knitting Reference Library
• knitting patterns
• In the Loop
• Montse Stanley
• Richard Rutt
• Jane Waller