Interview with Cosette Cornelius-Bates!

POSTED BY Lee Meredith, 25 June 2008

 

 

I'm so excited about the release of Knit One, Embellish Too by Cosette Cornelius-Bates (aka Cosy), having been an admirer of her work through her blog for awhile now. Cosy is an amazing accessory designer/knitter, and yarn recycler and spinner. While I know not all you threadheads are knitters, I thought everyone would appreciate Cosy's love of recycling and reusing, as well as the unique style she gives her work with both design choices and embellishment. Even if you have no desire to knit your own stuff, you may be inspired by the book to embellish items you already own to give them a personal touch! 

And without further delay, the mini-interview I did with Cosy... 
As a follower of your work for over a year now, I am amazed at how your embellishments and design elements rarely seem to repeat, and as some of your pieces I love the most are the especially unusual or unexpected concepts, I wonder about your creative process. Do these designs just come to you, or do you look to outside sources for inspiration? If you're dealing with a creative block, where do you turn to get the ideas flowing?

I think that part of the reason that I don't repeat much is that there are so many different ways for one hat to be different from another. You might say that yarn selection is layer one of each hat (this includes spinning, dyeing etc). Layer two, is the shape of the hat. And the final layer, is what is added afterward. Depending upon which layer you're talking about, you'd get a different answer to the inspiration.

With the first layer, I am mostly inspired by the way that particular colors or textures go together. Sometimes I will see two colors together and think that they need to be a hat, but more likely, I collect a bunch of little balls of wool and start mixing and matching. My favorite way to choose colors is to see balls of wool accidentally together somewhere. This first layer comes pretty naturally to me. Even if I am focusing on several other things in life at the time, I can always put some colors together and knit.

The second layer is more complex since I work hard to make hats that people will actually wear. This layer has more to do with what will work on a head (or what I think will work on a head).

The third layer, is where everything comes together - where I start looking at the hat like it's a painting and search for what it needs to make it complete. The inspiration for my embellishments comes from the colors in layer one, the natural world, a comment that someone said in passing, a particular button or something I believe deeply in. If I have creative block, I just keep on working. One thing that I find nice about having so many layers to my pieces is that I can make hats any time and then later, when I have the energy or am inspired I can finish them. Take right now, I probably have 10 hats sitting around my yarn room just waiting for me to put the finishing touches on them.



One of my favorite things about your book is that you have a whole section on recycling yarn by unraveling sweaters. Can you talk about the roll recycling plays in your life, not just with knitting, but with your general fashion decisions and individual sense of style?

I jokingly call my mother the queen of all garage salers. If she instilled anything in me as a young girl, it was the joy of finding something useful and interesting that someone else doesn't need anymore. I don't know if she was so pleased when, in high school, I decided that my Dad's old jeans which were way to big for me, were that useful and interesting thing. But none-the-less, to this day one of my favorite things to do is garage sale with my mother on Saturday mornings in my hometown.

Because my husband and I choose to live poorly, but do what we love to do, recycling is not only a fashion decision, but also a necessity in our lives. Wool is expensive. Plus, it is more fun to find unique and interesting fibers that no one else will have in a sweater just waiting to be recycled.

Our wardrobes have been collected, rather than passing from season to season like much high fashion. They never go out of style to us :) I have dresses that I bought in high school. Ben has his dad's old suits, that he moved the buttons over on to fit him better. By recycling, collecting, and passing things on to others, our wardrobes are actually more connected to who we are, even if we only paid a dollar for that t-shirt.

While I don't find materialism fulfilling in general, there is something so fulfilling in finding something lovely that others don't find worth in - and also, I must add, in finding something unique and interesting in a world where so many things are the same - from our clothing to our landscape.



Why do you think it's important for our generation to keep knitting alive? What advice would you give to a beginning knitter, or someone considering trying out the craft?

I think that it's important to keep all handcraft alive because through it we remember our history and those who came before us and we maintain a connection to the earth and the other creatures upon it. There is a depth of meaning in the handcrafts that we barely get anywhere else now-a-days.

To a beginning knitter I would say to take the plunge. This is not a life or death situation, the worst that can happen is the ripping out and the re-starting. If you're having difficulty, get a good teacher... some of us were just not meant to learn from our mother or grandmother. And maybe, don't start with a scarf unless you really like wearing scarves - they can be tedious.

I hope you're now inspired to go unravel a sweater and knit yourself a one-of-a-kind hat! And if you do, don't forget to share it here with us!

(All photos are by Cosy from her flickr.)

fashion, recycle, knitting, embroidery, hats, book, reuse, yarn, interview