September 27, 2023 · Made by Shruti
Murasaki
inspired by Cicada sound
Hello there. Happy September. Summer has officially departed, and Autumn has begun in Japan. This time the theme is interesting - a Japanese thriller book. The book is about obsession, envy, desire and stalking. I was hooked up on stalking or following someone, and coincidentally it paired with a cicada sound, it follows everywhere throughout summer. It sounds lurking in hindsight. For this project, I was adamant about using shades of purple, and my first instinct was to skirt because of the title. I began with a preconceived idea, but the result was something I wasn't expecting, similar to other projects I have completed.
The initial swatch came out with the idea of restriction and the ensuing line. But I decided to discard it after I couldn't get across the swatch zone. I created multiple variations to find some interesting elements, but it was to no avail. I had dull to light colours, and they wouldn't respond. Initially, I thought the problem was yarn, so I got a darker shade of Purple. Then, I ordered new needles with 15mm, 25mm, and 30mm needles. I struggled to get moving and knit, but it wouldn't pass the swatching phase.
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A day before leaving for Karuizawa, I went back and forth with my swatches and was stuck on the long strip I knitted but never went past it. I had a component, something in purple, to convey the idea of stalking or simply following someone that goes as a continuous obsession until it reaches its end, adding the theme is dark, and the cicada sound has the same feeling of dense sound following from the start to the end of summer. I was so close to the idea but still couldn't grab it and the moment I was waiting for presented itself like a golden egg. To knit a continuous long strip of dark purple, and drape it around a mannequin or existing garment.
It began with cotton yarn, progressing from using a single strand to doubling it, and experimenting with different needle sizes. The resulting fabric was flimsy and didn't hold its shape well, with larger holes rather than the dense texture it created a sense of openness in the fabric. I switched to wool with a slight fuzziness, but it turned out to be too dense. I aimed for small holes with fuzzy fibres poking out. As I continued knitting, I stretched the strips, and that provided the solution. I randomly increased and decreased the number of loops. I played with strips and crocheted them using cotton yarn. For the back, I decided to simply tie it up like a corset and crochet randomly, and leave a long tail for continuance.
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Shruti