Today, perhaps the very best place to see contemporary fine hand knitting is at Textures on Montana Street in Santa Monica, California.
Jane, the owner, was an integral part of the Three Bags Full sweater store in San Francisco, California. Three Bags Full closed a couple of years ago, In many, ways the new store is better.
Textures is a fashion boutique. They are not the blue wool sweaters you would buy in the shops of Saint-Malo. Mostly, the fabric weights are less than what Three Bags Full carried in SF (because it is in Santa Monica and only 8 blocks from the beach.) However, it is also only a few miles from LAX, and many of Jane's customers travel frequently to the southern hemisphere, so Jane carries summer and winter weight objects, all the year round.
While they are very nice, Jane manages to keep her prices much lower than what I have seen for similar objects at places like Neiman Marcus, Saks, and other designer fashion boutiques. And, nobody else has the selection and range of fine hand knit objects that one can find in Textures.
Many of the objects are so finely knit and shaped, that a drawing of the object gives no clue that the fabric is knit rather than woven. When objects are knit by skilled professionals, paintings, drawings, and sculpture cannot indicate whether the clothing was knit or woven. Objects produced by skilled professional knitters are much better than the objects that we see produced by amateur / recreational knitters. On the other hand, these days we do not see much fine work by skilled professionals.
All of which brings up the question of: "Why we do not see more finely knit objects produced by recreational knitters?" Yes the professionals have more skill, but amateurs have more time.
Jane, the owner, was an integral part of the Three Bags Full sweater store in San Francisco, California. Three Bags Full closed a couple of years ago, In many, ways the new store is better.
Textures is a fashion boutique. They are not the blue wool sweaters you would buy in the shops of Saint-Malo. Mostly, the fabric weights are less than what Three Bags Full carried in SF (because it is in Santa Monica and only 8 blocks from the beach.) However, it is also only a few miles from LAX, and many of Jane's customers travel frequently to the southern hemisphere, so Jane carries summer and winter weight objects, all the year round.
While they are very nice, Jane manages to keep her prices much lower than what I have seen for similar objects at places like Neiman Marcus, Saks, and other designer fashion boutiques. And, nobody else has the selection and range of fine hand knit objects that one can find in Textures.
Many of the objects are so finely knit and shaped, that a drawing of the object gives no clue that the fabric is knit rather than woven. When objects are knit by skilled professionals, paintings, drawings, and sculpture cannot indicate whether the clothing was knit or woven. Objects produced by skilled professional knitters are much better than the objects that we see produced by amateur / recreational knitters. On the other hand, these days we do not see much fine work by skilled professionals.
All of which brings up the question of: "Why we do not see more finely knit objects produced by recreational knitters?" Yes the professionals have more skill, but amateurs have more time.
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