Cable Knitting Needle
By: O.A.
Project Status: Complete
I am a third-year history major who enjoys knitting, especially honeycomb cables. Last year, when I embarked on my first cable-knit sweater project, the process of knitting large stretches of honeycomb cables got me thinking about the shortcomings and advantages of various cable needle shapes. The repetitive, iterative process of knitting things allows me to test slightly different methods and arrive at choices that balance personal preference, objective optimization, material constraints, and the overall project's aesthetics and function. This is similar to when I figure out the best way to design a very simple cable needle, or when I try to translate complex SVG paths into a physical drawing with a Cricut machine. Knitting is quite simple -- just yarn and needles, ultimately -- which makes it an excellent sandbox for testing novel ideas and processes.
The land on which we gather is the unceded territory of the Awaswas-speaking Uypi Tribe. The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, comprised of the descendants of indigenous people taken to missions Santa Cruz and San Juan Bautista during Spanish colonization of the Central Coast, is today working hard to restore traditional stewardship practices on these lands and heal from historical trauma.
The land acknowledgement used at UC Santa Cruz was developed in partnership with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band Chairman and the Amah Mutsun Relearning Program at the UCSC Arboretum.