Jibbe van Schie

Hide and seek

Hide and seek is a project that creates a visual relationship between knitted fabrics and animal hides.
The initial interest was sparked by the shrinkage of knitted fabrics. When making textile samples I witnessed my creatures as they grew larger, yet the moment I took the sample of the knitting machine it shriveled up and died.
I made a small publication comparing my collection of “hides” to images of actual animal hides.

Triggered by my discovery I became fascinated with the way knitwear can shrink, and a square will never be a square. I wanted to gain control of this process, controlling the shrinkage, and knitting squares that shaped themselves into a something new.
In order to achieve this goal I wrote a program that translates images into knitting-patterns, and after a lot of samples, simulations and rewritten programs I managed to achieve this goal. I worked together with “TexttileLab Tilburg” to make my hides come to life.

Square knitted pieces, that are far from square or flat once they leave the knitting machine.

stretched knitted hide 1 stretched knitted hide 2 stretched knitted hide 3 stretched knitted hide 4 stretched knitted hide 5 stretched knitted hide 6 stretched knitted hide 7 stretched knitted hide 8 knitted hide 1 knitted hide 2 knitted hide 3 knitted hide 4 knitted hide 5 knitted hide 6 knitted hide 7 small publication