Ravelling in queer history

Local queer artist and guerilla knitter Denise Litchfield hopes to take out this year’s Sydney Design 09 Festival in August with a rather -˜cosy’ installation piece on the Taylor Square North’s toilet block.

Litchfield is looking to the queer community to help achieve her goal of covering the heritage site with yellow knitting and crochet produced by GLBT people.If the phrase -˜knit one purl one’ means something to you, get in touch. Even if it doesn’t, Litchfield said she can incorporate even the simplest knitted square into this work which is to be as much about community as design.

It’s mainly just to have a bit of fun, I wanted to knit around a space and I wanted to do it to a building that was a bit absurd to go with the nature of what it is, she told Sydney Star Observer. The project will come to fruition on August 8.

It’ll be a giant cosy in a way. People have been going to the blog [theknittedconvenience.blogspot.com] and adopting a space to knit a section for and setting up little stitch -˜n’ bitch sessions to bring it together.

I’m a pretty average knitter so people don’t need to worry about that. It’s more about the community effort that goes in. I can patchwork parts in -” we just want to see many people involved in the journey.

Litchfield came to the attention of Design 09 organisers after a Sydney Morning Herald article about the knitting revival movement. Popular in the United States, stitch -˜n’ bitch groups are growing in number in Sydney, including two queer women’s sessions in Newtown and Enmore.

info: The Enmore queer stitch -˜n’ bitch session runs Monday nights at 22 Enmore Rd. For more information on knitting groups in Sydney visit ravelry.com. To get involved with Litchfield’s project visit theknittedconvenience.blogspot.com.