During this session, I re-introduced the project to the newcomers, explaining the root from the thesis and the history of knitting as a slow craft and pulled a parallel with how fast paced the world feels nowadays.

Two of the three people present had less experience knitting, so I showed them different ways of knitting and purling to find the most comfortable way for them to get it. One of them ended up going with the Portuguese techniques, as it was the way she had learned from her mother a few years ago. She took over Misha's section from the previous week. The other one took a few minutes to get back into the muscle memory of the craft, and then it all went smoothly for her. She might be twisting her purls or knits, because there's a visible change in texture between the portion I worked on last week, and her current work. At first she looked worried about it, but I assured that was actually exactly the kind of bumps I was looking for in elaborating this project: the fact that even following the same pattern, and working in the same space, individuality transpires.

Kim also started immediately working on a colourwork section, which is very impressive. Along the way, we decided to introduce the notions of catching floats behind her work to ensure an neater finish. Their choice of yarns made it visible from the right side of the fabric, which I personally love; how magical is it to see the inner structure of what you're working on?

Present during the workshop:
Kim
Ieke
Diana
Tessa

This first workshop only had one participant and me, which was a bit scary at first, but it ended up becoming a sweet opportunity to have a heartfelt conversation. We covered the topics of The Game Of Wool TV show and how unsatisfied we were with it as viewers. The time and efficiency aspect of the competition and the inadequacy of the challenges were our main complaints. We also talked about the differences in weaving and knitting as techniques, and how one was industrialised and one was not.
This brought us to analyse how being a male or female in the textile art field could be stereotyping in both situations. Our point was that textile and fiber arts have been historically dominated by women, but never recognised as worthy of beeing seen as art. Introducing a man artist in that field would give him the opportunity to invoke the common artefact of the Male Genius, alienating him from the craft history of fiber arts. We worked on two panels of the tapestry, making little progress, but enjoying the slow process of it all. The two hours flew by, and we were both baffled by how quick time passed!

Present during the workshop:
Misha
Tessa