Sometimes I’m surprised when I come across amazing knitters I’ve never heard of before — that was the case today when I stumbled upon the enormous works of Dave Cole. Dave, I gather from his CV, is from New Hampshire, went to the Putney School in Vermont and then on to Brown. He takes the idea of enormous knitting and knitting with great materials to a new degree.
The above is a fiberglass bear — the best part about Dave’s site is that he shows his process as well as his finished works. From the looks of it this was not easy to make. Fiberglass I think sort of sheers off little whiskers of itself — definitely not good to get in your lungs.
In addition to fiberglass Dave also works with lead, something not great for your hands and skin. It looks like this is the same sort of flexible lead that you work with when making stained glass though I’m not sure.
What initially caught my eye on with Dave was his installation at Mass MoCA of an enormous knit US flag. His knitting needles put my new crochet hook to shame.
Those are knitting needles installed into major pieces of machinery – a Knitting Machine as Dave named it.
He had a team of people helping him complete the flag — he seems to tend to work with some political undertones but he also largely uses the teddy bear emblem.
Similar to Kwangho Lee it seems like Dave got his start knitting electrical cable, he wove one into an “electric blanket.” He also knit, below, recycled kevlar into his “Bulletproof Sweater.” Clever.
