Mount Royal University Centennial

My mural yarn

Usually, writers don’t get involved in their stories, but in this case I wanted in.

I’m OK at painting walls at home, but I’m not a great artistic painter, so before talking to lead artist Lewis Lavoie from Mural Mosaic I didn’t think I could be involved in this great project.

Thankfully, Lavoie was excited to welcome my artistic skill — knitting.

Last night I chose panel #140 — check out the Mount Royal mural layout — and I plan to knit and then felt my panel.

I make and sell knit/felt bags with swirls so when I saw the photograph of the graffiti panel amongst the subject ideas I quickly grabbed it. New York artist Cey Adams included bold swirls in his piece and I went every day to check on the graffiti piece's progress … it was a perfect fit.

Stay tuned and I’ll keep you updated on my progress.

— Van Wyk, Oct. 7, 2010

Colourful choices

I took my panel to a wool shop and tried to select colours that matched the pre-painted pattern. Usually, selecting wool or yarn is a breeze, but not this time.

Not knowing what piece of the puzzle you are working on really makes you second guess yourself.

I went back and forth trying to decide between colours that more accurately represented the brighter, cartoon colours of the graffiti mural (hanging at West Gate) that is my inspiration, and colours that more closely matched the colours on my panel. Thankfully the staff and my friend who was with me showed great patience.

The panel colours won.

Finding the main blue was the biggest challenge. As a rule, one shouldn’t mix wools, but the best match for the main blue was an expensive alpaca wool from Bolivia.

For the rest of the colours I selected a more affordable wool from Peru. (It is kinda cool that my wool ended up coming from those two countries, because my husband and I just got back from a trip to Peru and Bolivia a couple weeks before this purchase.)

Though pink doesn’t appear on the painted panel, it is my nod to the graffiti work.

— Van Wyk, Nov. 19, 2010

Size matters

Yes, size matters in knitting and felting.

I will not be following the wool’s washing instructions on the tag — in fact I will be doing the exact opposite and washing it in hot water followed by cold water — but I do have to test the gauge.

I knit up a test of 20 stitches and 10 rows on 4.5 mm needles, so I can determine what the overall size should be to cover the panel.

The finished knitted piece needs to be larger than the panel because in the felting process it will shrink.

Shrinking is definitely not an exact science, but at least I have a good guesstimate to work from.

Now, I'll rip out this test square and starting knitting the panel. Wish me luck.

— Van Wyk, Dec. 10, 2010

 All wound up

If you have never knitted, than this will likely sound silly but trust me, working with skeins (twisted bunches of yarn pictured above) is a pain.

Wound balls of yarn are so much easier because they stay put and more importantly don't tangle like skeins.

Because the wool I bought was in skeins, I had been putting off the serious knitting.

Thankfully, I got a yarn winder and swift for Christmas.

These, admittedly odd looking tools allow me to easily convert the skeins to balls.

I know it doesn’t sound like a big difference, but while knitting the above test square I had to have the skein stretched out over the arm and back of the couch and still that did not stop the tangling.

Having the skein stretched all over the place also tripped up both my husband and I, which is perhaps what inspired him to make sure the yarn winder and swift were under the tree!

Now, I can get down to the serious knitting.

— Van Wyk, Dec. 30, 2010

Ugly duckling ... I hope

Well at least I hope this is an ugly duckling — or perhaps a caterpillar waiting to metamorphize into a butterfly.

My knitted panel is now complete. I’ve also knitted up some i-cords which I’ll sew on to mimic the swirls on the inspiration graffiti art mural.

Once it is sewn up, then I felt the piece and cross my fingers.

When knitting you have control of your piece via needle size, yarn weight and type, tension of stitches and pattern. When you felt all you have is faith.

So now that I’ve completed the knitted panel — which is extra large because during felting it will shrink — I basically have to do everything the yarn instructions say not to do. I will wash it in extreme hot water followed by cold, all the while agitating it so the natural fibers bind together. It will also possibly need to be thrown in the dryer.

When I learned to felt in New Zealand, the artist explained that felting started when Egyptians would put pieces of raw wool in their shoes. The heat, sweat and movement of their feet created felt, which softened their steps.

In my case the hot and cold water will act as the heat and sweat. A pair of my husband’s retired jeans will help to agitate / felt the knitting. Obviously, this process isn’t exactly a science and you can never be sure exactly how a piece will react to all the abuse.

Usually I felt things like purses, which are not as size dependent as this panel. Luckily, once the knitting is felted I can cut it, so I’ll have a little control — fingers crossed — with the size.

So why felt it? Well, the short answer is longevity.

A knitted-only panel would likely stretch over time and who wants a droopy panel. Felted knitting is stronger and will stand up much longer.

Wish me luck.

— Van Wyk, Jan. 19, 2011

Success ... at least in my eyes

Yes, it is complete.

Like all felted pieces, there were a few surprises along the way.

After the first cycle of felting, the fibres did not felt enough for me, so I decided to do a second cycle. The result was good strong felting, but it shrunk too much. Luckily I was able to pull and block it enough to cover the panel properly.

The two different types of yarn — alpaca wool from Bolivia and lama wool from Peru — did react differently. The blue Bolivian wool has a unique texture to it and the Peruvian wool didn’t.

This created a ruffle effect along the bottom of the panel. You have to love surprises — now I have a girly graffiti-inspired piece.

To attach the felted piece to the panel, I chose to sew it to a piece of screen and then wrap and staple that to the panel. (I couldn’t wrap the felt around the panel because the mural panels have to fit tightly together to complete the overall image.)

Since the completed mural will likely hang higher on a wall, the ruffles meant viewers could possibly look up under the piece and see the screen. So, luckily I had some left over orange yarn and I knit up a petticoat — OK petticoats were popular more than 100 years ago but it seems more appropriate than slip — for the bottom of the panel.

My finished panel is definitely different than the others and I hope you like it as much as I do.

Now, on to my next project — a friend is expecting twins, so I have to complete two baby sweaters in the next few months.

— Van Wyk, Jan. 25, 2011