Needles’ Point
Like paintings and theater, knitting--yes, knitting--needs to be appreciated from a distance. Fine to appreciate it close at hand, but step back too, says Sasha Kagan, a British designer who works in the medium.
Kagan has made a name for herself in a field that for centuries had been full of anonymous craftspeople. Her work is on exhibit at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London until June.
Kagan’s interest in knitting began when she was 4 years old and learned the technique from her mother. After honing her skills through the years, her first commercial success came more than 20 years ago when she designed costumes for a theater group. Encouraged by the interest in custom-designed knits at that time, she started her own company. “I used the medium of hand-knitting simply because I could not find sweaters I wanted. It helped that I came from an art school background and that my mother had been so excellent at handicrafts.”
Her biggest break was due to a Southern California connection. “My knitting story originally began in L.A. when I was discovered by movie stylist Ann Stirling who bought a vest of mine from a store in London for the television show ‘Cagney & Lacey.’ ” Her early commissions included pieces for Cher, Mia Farrow and Lauren Bacall.
“Designs must be important both far away and close up,” she says. She compares a knitted piece to a costume on stage.
“The audience at the back of the hall has to understand the statement the design is making as easily as the audience in the front rows,” says Kagan, whose book “Sasha Kagan’s Country Inspiration” (Taunton Press, $27.95, 2000) contains 44 designs inspired by the changing seasons of the mid-Wales countryside where she lives.
The designer is recognized for using bold colors and patterns, and experimenting with shapes and textures.
“I want people to keep discovering delicious things about the knits,” Kagan says. “I want people to say, ‘I noticed that shape, then that outline pattern of zigzags or diamonds. Then I realized that the diamonds were really made up of the petals of different flowers.’ ”
The earliest known examples of knitwear are blue-and-white patterned stockings found in Egypt that date from the 12th century. Knitting probably came to Europe with the Moorish invasion of Spain. It continued to grow so that by the 17th and 18th centuries knitting was flourishing in Europe.
By the 19th century, hand-knitting had become a popular pastime and the first printed instruction booklets appeared, providing patterns for home decorations and clothes.
“People designing knitwear are now recognized as being creative artists, using hand-knitting as their medium of expression,” Kagan says. “In earlier times, there were those who transformed a domestic craft into something that we consider a work of art, but we didn’t know the names of the creators.”
Kagan says there has been a renewed interest in knitting in the last couple of years.
“I see throws, bedcovers and pillows that have been hand-knitted becoming the heirlooms of the future, as quilts are today,” she says. “People want a piece of needlework made by hand because it has character and soul.”
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Sasha Kagan will make several appearances in Southern California this week. On Tuesday, she will be at L’Atelier, 1714 1/2 S. Catalina Ave., Redondo Beach, (310) 540-4440; on Wednesday, she will be at Velona Needlecraft, 5701-M Santa Ana Canyon Road, Anaheim Hills, for a workshop and book-signing, (714) 974-1570; on Thursday, she will be at L’Atelier’s other store, 1202 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 394-4665; on Friday, she will have a trunk show at Three Bags Full, 716 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 395-5559; on Saturday, she will have a book-signing at Knitting in La Jolla, 7863 Girard Ave., La Jolla, (858) 456-4687.
Kagan’s Web site is at https://www.sashakagan.com.
