Knitting Heritage Museum Symposium Registration Opens This Week

Tonight I am struggling to finish up the online registration system we will be using to enroll folks in the Symposium: Knitting Heritage Museum: A Work in Progress! to be held Nov. 8-10, Madison, WI

Thanks goodness for our founding sponsor: The Yarn Group of TNNA, and our generous co-hosts, the Wisconsin Historical Society.

I am stoked! What a line-up to entice people to convene and begin the process of forming a museum to honor our knitting and crochet heritage, and laying the groundwork for the future. I created the image below to be the symposium’s banner.  I could have used objects already in a museum, but the copyright issues made using the heritage items  that I have been collecting the easier course.

[okay - so the red socks, truly a work in progress, are my original design: think heritage in waiting. . . ]

Sometimes you have to make your own history: A Child’s Sweater knit by a Danish Grandma in 1960, 1930′s hand knit lace doily from Germany, original design socks, and a touch of Tunisian Crochet, a new stitch created by Sheryl Thies

Are you interested in identifying, preserving or displaying knitted or crocheted objects?

Knitted and crocheted objects, works of the hand and heart, provide snapshots of the ethnic traditions and socioeconomic status of the maker and wearer. An infant’s christening gown celebrates an intergenerational milestone. An intricate Shetland shawl or Bohus sweater knit for hire illustrates the often unsung ways women supported their families when male incomes disappeared. A sock, knit during wartime, connects the maker at home to the warrior at the front.

These often humble and utilitarian items were worn, passed down from generation to generation and sometimes donated to a local or regional museum. Many museums have these items in their collections but are unsure how to preserve, categorize and display them.

Join us to explore:
•    Engaging a segment of the population not now actively being served.
•    Using the internet to build a dynamic relationship between museums and knitters around the world
•    Harnessing skilled expertise, not necessarily available from staff or consultants, to allow passionate practitioners to share their knowledge and so elevate the status and appreciation of knit and crochet.

Symposium attendees will:
•    View a special exhibit created by the curators of the Wisconsin Historic Society’s Textiles and Costume Collection and UW-Madison’s Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection.
•    Participate in interactive forums and discussion groups to develop a vision and collection scope for an initiative to preserve, document and share knitted and crocheted objects.
•    Hear speakers including Dr. Susan Strawn, author of Knitting America: A Glorious Heritage from Warm Socks to High Art, and Melissa Leventon, principal of Curatrix Group Museum Consultants and Appraisers; Consultant to the new Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles in Bangkok (opened May 9, 2012).

Who Should Attend
•    Textile museum curators, textile researchers and students
•    State and local history professionals
•    Yarn industry professionals
•    Knitting and Crochet designers
•    Art patrons and collectors
•    Custodians of knitted or crocheted objects
•    Women’s Studies researchers
•    Passionate practitioners
And anyone who has ever thought that Knitting and Crochet deserved a museum, but didn’t know where to start.

Our registration page with Regonline will go live in the next 48 hours.  When it does, go to http://www.regonline.com/knittingheritagemuseumaworkinprogress to sign up to join us, for an historic kick-off for creating a place to Collect Preserve Research and Share Our Knitting and Crochet Heritage! I hope you’ll join us. There is much work to be done, and no time to waste!

The World Needs a Knitting Museum

As an addicted knitter and crocheter, lover of textiles and enthusiastic visitor of museums, I have frequently attempted to combine my passions.  Repeated disappointments have long caused some serious musing:

Why are knitting and crochet so often treated like the illegitimate stepchild, the crossed-eyed cousin concealed in the attic?  As I have plunged into the world of Museums, I am learning there are very legitimate reasons: lack of resources, backlog of objects waiting for processing, different criteria for cataloguing, costume vs textiles expert . . . .

But the gnawing question was: Can this be addressed and resolved somehow?
My answer:  The World Needs a Knitting Museum!
I am planning to use this blog to focus on the process of creating an entity to collect, preserve, document and share our knitting and crochet heritage, and record my journey of exploration.  I hope to gather the talents of fellow travelers along the way. I hope you will engage with me in this conversation and process.

I visited a museum focused on the history of the city in which it was located.  The name and location are irrelevant to the experience.  My husband and I had a special opportunity to get behind the scenes ( lucky us!)  With little notice, we dropped by for a mini tour.

We met with a staffer long involved with exhibits there, and during the conversation, I mentioned my interest in establishing a Knitting Museum.  She paused, pondered, and replied definitively “Well there aren’t any Knitting Museums,” as though there never could be either.  Bemused, I responded:  “My point exactly!”

We actually got to see the Costume Department. The development coordinator,  had forgotten to give our guide advance warning when we made our visit plans.  Our guide apologized for not having prepared, and gamely offered to find a couple of knitted pieces in the collection to share with me on short notice.  We followed her down to the basement; – though the development coordinator had worked for the Museum for six months, he had never been down to the Costume Department.

Our guide searched through several drawers, and then triumphantly pulled out her favorite, red wool scarf: fringed, with a reindeer and the name “Robbie” cross stitched on the surface – “P L A N   A H E ad” style.  It was quite charming.  Poignantly, however, it wasn’t knitted.  It was made using another technique called “Tunisian Crochet” – a crochet technique, performed with an extra long crochet hook.  Those who don’t indulge in either knitting or crocheting would not be vexed by this.  To fans of either one, there is a crucial distinction, and I was both disappointed and triumphant:  the encounter proved my case that knitting just wasn’t getting the respect I believe it deserves.

Our guide was a great sport about it.  She had, after all, accommodated my request to look at “knitted” items without any prep time, and she had acknowledged that, though her mother was an ardent knitter (of dishcloths), that she didn’t know anything about it.   I had a hook and yarn with me, so as we talked, I worked up a swatch in Tunisian Crochet to demonstrate how it differed from knitting.  The guide and I will try again, on another visit with much better advance warning.

I share this account of my visit, because it so perfectly illustrates what motivates my yearning for knitting and crochet to have a place of their own.  The experience has left me with a big smile, to be handed such a perfect example of what knitters experience when they try to interact with textile collections. For me, it underscores the need to change the way knitting is collected, documented and shared  with the public.

Has anyone else experienced this?  I look forward to your input on the need for a Knitting Heritage Museum.