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[Left: Ilana modelling one of her coats. Right: Marian Poller and Ilana] On Tuesday, June 26, 2001, we had about the most inspiring and fantastic day out I can recall I've ever had, including not just in Israel, but also abroad. Those of you who couldn't attend lost out on something irreplaceable.
We met with Ilana Schutz, who is young in looks and spirit, but very experienced in her knitting ventures. She first became known as a professional when she won first place in the knitting design contest sponsored by Vitalgo in Israel. Around 1990, she was hired to design for them and within a short period of time she had sole charge of designing all the garments for their publication. When Vitalgo folded, she continued designing and knitting on her own as well as having knitters in Jordan make up her sweaters for retail sales. For a period of time, her garments were available in Japan. Ilana now sells her creations at knit fairs and is now working up a collection for the Design Fair in NYC in the fall. Her work is amazing.
Ilana started life in Germany, moved to Israel at age four and then moved to England as a teen, where she studied in a girls' school, where knitting was commonplace. Later she studied at St. Martin's School of Art in London and then returned to Israel when she was in her early 20s. She loves to travel.
She loves colors and uses all of them, but not all at once. Her knitting is mostly on the machine but with hand-finishing. She also combines crochet with knitting in some of her garments. She seems to have been years ahead of everyone else, who are only now catching up to her on this technique. Check out some of the Vitalgo publications after 1990 and you will see her designs, some with crochet and knitting combined.
She will often buy a ball or two of a special yarn and use it as the basis for a stunning garment where the other colors coordinate with the basic one.
Ilana never throws anything away as the scraps can still be worked into something. She uses a lot of coned yarns sold to professionals. These yarns are quite thin and she combines several together either with a ball winder or just working them off the cone. She also showed us a garment using the "magic ball" idea where she combined all kinds of yarns of similar colors, in this case gray. She measured out long lengths of each color, based on her telephone number, wound them into a ball, tying the ends into square knots, and proceeded to knit up a garment in the resulting uneven stripes. [Editor's note: Kaffe Fassett is usually credited as the originator of the "magic ball" technique, although it's not clear whether he came up with the name. See his Glorious Knits (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1985), p. 140.)
Her main tool is a huge Brother machine, which she works by hand. It gives her the homemade look which she wants. She designs by hand and uses notation resembling the Japanese patterns. She finds this preferable and much easier to writing out each garment. Each pattern has a good sketch and yarn samples stapled to the pattern.
Her garments are notable for their unusual shaping and for the way she knits them avoiding a lot of sewing. One garment we saw was knit in 3 long strips, sewn together with openings left at about 2/3 of the way along the seam for the arms, and which she later picked up stitches for and then knit the arms to the end, adding crocheting around at the edges. The result became an amazing coat with a hood that could be worn several ways. The yarns she used were several different coned industrial yarns combined into one.
She showed us some gloves she has made and we saw that while she loves bright colors, she also finds uses for the more subtle ones, too. I was very interested in one sweater that uses a lot of variegated yarns combined with a solid base color. It was knit sideways at the bottom, while the top half was knit picking up stitches on the sides of this piece, and then knit in a black yarn with some stripes here and there. This ended with sleeves that she started by picking up from around the top section.
This summer she bought some nice Dutch cotton yarns and has knit some lovely simply-shaped sweaters or short dresses or even outfits that combine a skirt with a halter top. These yarns all worked out into interesting diamond patterns as she knit them up.
Her yarn collection is organized in her head. She keeps wool in one section, cottons in another and separates the groups into color groups. Cones are a bit disorganized being all over the place. Her yarns come from all over the world. She mentioned Silk City in Paterson, N.J., as a good source.
Ilana has an extensive unusual collection of materials, some on knitting, but more on textile or art to inspire her creativity. She doesn't own the more recent knitting books. She uses straight knitting needles, but prefers circulars for seamless knitting. She also works with lots of colors in a garment and has lots of bobbins already wound with colors and she said it doesn't bother her. (When I use them, I get all tangled up.)
Ilana carefully watches the fashion news on-line or on TV for up-to-the-minute ideas. She taught herself to crochet from a book. Her lovely home, designed by her architect husband, overlooks the sea from many directions and she has found some lovely Kurdish rugs that are completely embroidered over the basic weaving. These are scattered throughout her home.
The book she said was her best one was given to her by her mom: Good Housekeeping Step-by-Step Encyclopedia of Needlecrafts by Judy Brittain, 1979, Ebury, ISBN 0 852231644. (I have located several copies on ABE and have ordered them already, but there seem to be loads more and it's not expensive either.)
She gave us the name of a great yarn store in Haifa: Merkaz HaTzemer Hartman located on 107 Yafo. Phone is 04-8523102. Hours seem to be long and this store has a long history and is located in a former Turkish prison not far from the new bus station and railroad terminal.
I also came away with several pages illustrating her gorgeous sweaters.
These two photos are reprinted from the Lakiya Project brochure, courtesy of Ms. Roz Willey-Al'Sanah, co-ordinator of LAKIYA - Negev Bedouin Weaving
On May 30, 2001, the Jerusalem Fiber Craftsmen organized a day trip to the Joe Alon Bedouin Museum at Kibbutz Lahav and to the Bedouin weaving and embroidery workshops in Lakiyah. The trip was great. Only twelve people were in the group, including my husband, Yosef, and my granddaughter, Pnina. Many people are hesitant to travel these days. As a result the traffic was light and we made excellent time. Orna Goren, the director of the Joe Allon Center, was our guide at Lakiya, at Naomi Wind's exhibition, and at the close of our day with our view from the watchtower of the center.
I was particularly impressed with the women who had set up the cooperative for the women of their town to begin the embroidery workshop. Six of them were from one clan. Now 182 women take cloth and threads home and bring back finished pieces and this includes women from all eight clans in the town, which led one member of our tour to comment later, that if Israeli and Palestinian women were running the peace negotiations, we'd be in much better shape today.
At the weaving workshop, women demonstrated the entire process from spinning to plying, wetting, and dyeing to weaving. A Bedouin woman worked on a narrow warp in a ground loom, using a gazelle's horn to open each shed. The warp was stretched between two beams and lay horizontal, on on the ground. One shed was separated by a round rod, the other raised by string heddles attached to a stick. The weaver used a batten (aka "weaver's sword") to separate the shed in operation at the moment. [editor: The closeup of the spindle shows that the whorl is not round but oblong in shape.]
One participant of our tour commented in the dye room with all the color full hanks of yarn, "Now I am in the Garden of Eden!" The weavings are warp-faced rugs and bags in luscious colors, not only traditional combinations, but all attractive; the embroideries are based on patterns from those traditionally used on Bedouin women's dresses, somewhat enlarged, using a wider range of colors than in the dresses and made up into bags of various sizes and wall hangings all on black fabric. Some use cross-stitch, directly on the fabric, others are made over needlepoint canvas (basted to the black fabric and removed, thread by thread, once the embroidery is completed). All the work is beautifully finished.
The Lakiya centers were started by six Bedouin women who noticed that with the change to living in houses in town, the women were cut off from the contact with other women that they'd had while herding flocks of sheep and goats, meeting at the well for water, and wandering freely between tents. Men avoided meeting with women other than members of their immediate family, here in the houses. The women were isolated, and they had no goals for their weaving, as they'd had when living in tents. As their project expanded they have been able to organize things with the profits, like bus trips for the participating women, none of whom had ever seen the sea before.
We had lunch on low tables, sitting on square stools in a cave that dates back to Second Temple times, featuring the best labeneh (concentrated goat yogurt) I've ever eaten, fresh hummus, techina, and a tomato salad, served to us in groups of four, on a thin, large, round pita spread on a round brass tray. Each person got his or her own pita to tear up and scoop into the goodies. There was fresh water from local wells, orange drink, VERY sweet tea and bitter coffee and honey cookies.
Later, we had a guided tour of works by Jerusalem fiber artist Naomi Wind, depicting soft spears (which look humanoid) and large knitted shapes draped over suspended, jute-covered spheres, including a video interviewing her and showing how she creates her pieces. She calls them "Noms" and we were supposed to figure out what that means. Most people thought that it relates to her name "Naomi." [note: The lecturer in the picture on the left is Orna Goren, director of the museum. The people who appear in the picture on the right are members of the Jerusalem Fiber Craftsmen, not the Oasis Guild.]
We had a half-hour guided tour through the museum, which I'd visited many years ago, and I continue to revel in the riches of their collection. There was a talk and coffee made by an elderly Bedouin raconteur, a view from the watchtower with a description of the surrounding countryside, and then home to Jerusalem in the chartered mini-bus. A full and satisfying day.
Contact details: PO Box 1588, Omer 84965
tel/fax: 050-210-327
e-mail: lakiya@netvision.net.il
Office hours 8:00-13:00, Sun-Thur.
I do not like it Sam I am,
I do not like the squares of the Horst Schulz man.
I do not like to make the box,
I do not like to weave in ends till my finger locks
I do not want to make the square
I will not do it,
No I won't
I won't won't won't.
Oh, yes you will said the clever book
You will like it, take a look
It's easy, quick and lots of fun
It's easy quick for everyone
You will make them in the chair
You will make them near the stair
You will forget to comb your hair
You will weave in all those ends
Who needs to spend time with their friends?
Who needs to worry about when suppertime ends?
I'm your friend said the clever book
I won't care about how you look
It's me you want to study by the brook
We'll sit together you and me
I will talk and your ends you'll weave.
Okay, all right! I Give! I bend!
I will become a square knitting friend!
I will make the colors Blend!
Il make green, blue and purple yarns blend, blend blend!
I'll make them while my garden grows
I'll make them as I scratch my dog with my toes
I'll give up work and church and school
I'll make afghans by the pool!
I think it will be so very cool
To follow on this daily rule:
Knit, P3 and then knit back
Knit, P3 and then you may have a snack
Cast on, pick up, slip and knot
make the squares and forget me not.
© Marge (ZANDRE35T@aol.com), 2001
Then there's a great all around designer called Diane Zangl. I always look forward to anything she does as she's very innovative. I have a great vest from her I made twice (from a Knitter's issue) and it was so exciting as she has you open it up at the center steek and then do cables up both fronts at the opening. We're really lucky as there are some really great designers right now. Anyone who can teach me something new or do something that excites me is fabulous for me.
And also of course Kaffe Fassett who taught me one of the most important lessons, which is not to use bobbins for adding other colors. I hate bobbins. With his technique I found I could do lots of great sweaters using lots of colors. And if I'm mentioning Fasse, I ought to go on to Horst Schultz, whose books I only have in German but am waiting now for the English editions to arrive. I am not sure just how innovative he is as his ideas have been around for a long time and there are others such as Irene York who have been doing stuff like his.
And finally, I almost forgot Irene York. I love her designs. She's very modest. Just recently she started combining crochet with knitting. I've ordered some of her recent kits inspired by her winter stay in Mexico. Have a look at them online: http://knittingbasket.com
Nonetheless, here are some designers I like, whether or not I've knit their garments:
Color: Kaffe Fassett, though I've never actually liked his garment styling, Alice Starmore in her more subtle days; Katherine Alexander, [sigh] just plain sublime; has a masterful sense of color and control of fiber.
Garment Styling: Norah Gaughan, hands down my favorite classic stylist; Beth Brown-Reinsel, my favorite traditionalist stylist.
All-Around: Deborah Newton, the woman is a bucketful of influences and ideas and makes them all her own; Meg Swanson, invent or unvent, IMHO-she's pushing traditional techniques to their limit; Debbie New, she's boldy going where no knitter has gone before.
There are others, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind.
I admire Lily Chin because of her versatility; you never know what she's going to come up with, and you'll either love it or hate it. If I had to characterize her work (no easy feat) in general, I'd say that her conscious use of mathematical principles, through shaping and construction and proportion, seems to be most consistent. Yet, I've never felt remotely tempted to knit any of her designs.
