Sculptural Crochet
Let me give you a (somewhat) brief account of my history with crochet: in 2002 a few of my coworkers taught me how to crochet so I could participate in a charitable donation for Warm Up America. I quickly grew bored of squares and rectangles and checked out a book from the library that was chiefly a pattern book, but had a short section that showed how to do slip, double, treble crochet, and how to read patterns. From there I started a hat business. Heheh. I did everything on the up-and-up and threw in the towel the first time I had to pay business taxes. So now I just make weird sculptural crocheted art that sits around my house.
I started a collection of crocheted body parts - only the interesting bits of course - imagining that I would one day show them in a gallery. In March, four of our friends took us out for our Birthdays for sushi and Second Saturday. We were going to stop by an art show that advertised that they had weird fiber art. My girlfriends convinced me to bring one of these parts so I could show the artists my own bit of weird fiber art. We walked into the restaurant and I saw this item in my purse, out in public. It looked hilarious! So I nudged my friend Dennis to say, “How ironic?” only to have him grab the thing and shake it around for everyone to see! Of course, two guys at the bar just happened to be staring directly at us when this happened and whooped and hollered so anyone who hadn’t noticed could get a glimpse. I almost died! Dennis said, “I thought you wanted me to do that!” ??? On the way out the two guys told me to have fun with my toy, to which I lamely replied, “It’s art!”
Anyway, sculptural crochet is my favorite craft and I was really excited when I found an amazing article on this topic by a wonderfully talented and generous artist that I could share with you all. Jessica Polka exemplifies the reason that I started this blog. I wanted to tout people just like her: talented artists who generously share their knowledge with the rest of us. And I just love her aesthetic sensibilities. Her alias, Wunderkammer, “is a reconsideration of a ‘cabinet of curiosities:’ crocheted specimens from early natural history collections and embroidered fictive science textbook illustrations.” LOVE that.
Jessica wrote her article on the art of sculpture using crochet, basing it, “on a cabinet of crochet ‘elements’” that she created for workshops. The article contains, “lengthy descriptions of how various combinations of stitches can be used to make more complex forms,” and “pseudo-patterns for each one of the sample pieces, so you can create a cabinet of your own if you like, which might be a fun way to familiarize yourself with the techniques discussed.” In other words, the article will clue you in on how to make your own 3D fiber sculptures!
Heck yes we would like!
Please check out Jessica’s article, the site where it is posted, her blog, and her Etsy shop - where you can purchase full patterns for some amazing sea creatures! Thank you, Jessica - you rock!
Techniques detailed in the article:
A few of the patterns available in her Etsy shop:
Related posts:
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Wow - that is some cool crochet! I learned how to crochet when I was a little kid from my grandmother and after a few squares and a scarf i was done! I picked it up again about 10 years ago and I still go back to it once in a while - when knitting and sewing aren’t keeping me busy!
Thanks for this article - it’s great!
This post is so inspiring! I cannot keep my concentration on squares long enough to complete a small blanket, but I ‘d really love to get past that someday! The shadow box blows my mind and the jelly fish is my favorite so far! I’m off to go check her site…. but I’m super curious to see more of your body part fiber sculptures! Where/when can I get a peek?!!
[...] a week ago I sent Margaret, our Stitched-Up crochet expert, a link to a post by Julie on the Stitchify blog about sculptural crochet. I was very impressed by Julie’s work and knew that if anyone would be able to do it too it [...]
some example of forms
I remember my Grandma sitting for hours crocheting when I was a child. She tried many times to get me interested in home-crafts. Sadly, she’s no longer with us, but I think that she is the reason that as I’ve gotten older I’ve taken to embroidery.