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.