I’d Knit That’s Kendall Ross knits the thoughts we’re afraid to say
Fiber artist Kendall Ross originally posted her knitting to Instagram to share with friends during lockdown, not to become Instagram-famous. As she quips, “It was like people who have an Instagram for their dog with 12 followers.”
On the other hand, people, the algorithm and large-scale cataclysmic world events are often impossible to predict. COVID hit. Ross didn’t know that she would be finishing her junior year and her senior year too not in person at Pepperdine, but in her childhood bedroom in Oklahoma City.
Between Zooming for class and shelter-in-place rules, she found herself knitting and posting a lot. As most experienced during the pandemic, hobbies were her mainstay, and knitting was jumping into the popular zeitgeist.
As Ross explains, “Knitting was having its moment, people needing stuff to do in quarantine. So I started getting a lot of traction there.”
Her first sweater to go viral was knitted as her final project for a beginning art class for her undergraduate degree. The sweater went so viral that it ended up being purchased and worn by the actress Auli‘i Cravalho, known as the voice of Disney’s Moana and a star in the recent Mean Girls remake.
However, unlike many who picked up crochet or knitting during the pandemic (The Guardian reported a 140% increase in people learning crochet during quarantine), Ross didn’t acquire this level of skill due to COVID-19 isolation. It was a long journey to arrive here.
Knit Together
Ross first encountered knitting and fiber arts through her female relatives. She remembered her mother and grandmother crafting around her since childhood — and it was her grandmother who introduced her to working with yarn by teaching her to crochet as a child.
In middle school, Ross took her first knitting class, and by the time high school rolled around, she was working at the very same company where she took her first class, a now out-of-business yarn shop called The Gourmet Yarn Company.
But when it was time to make a college decision, Ross had a completely different vision for her life: teaching middle school history.
Becoming a history major at Pepperdine, Ross largely kept knitting separate from her studies. That is, until it was time to prepare her undergraduate thesis, which examined the racism Black female knitters experienced in wartime knitting efforts during World War I.
So, with her thesis subject related to knitting, Ross was left with her knitting needles and some soul-searching questions about what she truly wanted for her future — and how knitting might weave into that.
“Then I think being away from [Pepperdine], I was like, ‘If I could do anything, I would just knit,’” recalls Ross.
Despite her confidence in the decision, though, she wasn’t sure what being a “professional knitter” would look like.
“You Call Me Art, But Keep Me in the Gift Shop’’
Many of the major ways people “made it” in the knitting space didn’t appeal to Ross: She didn’t want to design patterns, she didn’t want to sell knitwear at craft shows and she didn’t want a knitted fashion line. So what was left? That’s when her current approach hit her.
“I think for me when it really clicked was taking an artistic approach and viewing every piece as an art piece — and that was a very conscious decision that I made,” says Ross. “What changes with a sweater when someone wears it or you hang it on a wall? Nothing has changed except for the situation.”
Despite positive online acclaim, Ross sometimes faces pushback from not just Instagram commenters but even galleries or art spaces, being questioned about whether what she does should be considered art or craft.
Many of these themes show up in Ross’ older works. A blue and pink sweater vest reads, “It’s just a craft until a man calls it art,” and a black, white and pink v-neck sweater reads, “Is this considered art? I’m not 100% sure! Let me know what you think.” with a phone number knitted on the bottom hem.
But, for now, Ross has laid this question to rest as she has come into her own as an artist.
“Very recently, I've had this overwhelming feeling: none of that matters,” she says. “It doesn't matter if someone says ‘craft’ or if someone sees it as art or if someone calls me ‘crafty’ or asks me to make some weird sweater for their wife that says some horrible thing. It's more about the work itself and the process behind [the art].”
And Ross is finding like-minded people on the same wavelength as her. She recently completed a residency at Penland School of Craft in North Carolina. She says in that space, everyone understood what the word craft meant and how the word was used with respect to what they were creating.
The Art of Craft
After her first brush with going viral, Ross continued to post cardigans and more traditional sweaters. But starting in the spring of 2021, her work began to incorporate single words into her knits. By the end of that year, her knits almost exclusively featured phrases as part of their design.
By 2022, her sweaters became knitted collages of imagery and words. Sardonic, sarcastic, poignant and often brutally honest, Ross’ knitted work reflects some of her deepest thoughts, often reading like diary entries or poetry excerpts. The shift in her intricately knitted work struck a chord (or pulled a thread, rather) in the consciousness of her growing online audience, amassing a significant follower base due to their relatability.
“It’s interesting to hear people’s take on the text. Because, for me, they’re very narrative and personal. But no, it’s funny because I’ll do something that I think is devastating to me and someone will put five laughing emojis in the comments,” says Ross. “And I’m like, ‘We’re all seeing these things a little bit differently.’”
Ross is cognizant that how she posts her knits changes people’s perception of the work, which is also explored in her art, like in her sweater vest with a knitted replica screenshot of a sweater she posted to Instagram.
She eschews models wearing her knitted art in pictures, and has done so for the past few years — and the choice is intentional. She said these days she never imagines one of her knitted pieces being worn, allowing her the space to create. In fact, over time, her work has gotten intentionally larger, making it more difficult to wear … seemingly on purpose.
In a recent piece posted with the comment “I repeat all the same patterns,” Ross presented what appears to be nine folded sweater vests, all with a front, back, neckline and hem. However, the secret is they’re all actually knit together to form a feet-long, virtually unwearable square.
“This Is the Only Thing I Know How to Do’’
Currently, Ross is a full-time fiber artist, knitting 8 to 12 hours per day. When she’s not knitting, she’s gridding, planning future pieces or teaching knitting classes at Oklahoma Contemporary.
She’s also applying to more residencies, galleries and museums and taking the occasional commission. Just last year, an A-list, Oscar-winning actress purchased two custom sweaters from Ross.
On her current docket, she’s knitting eight pieces for the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition’s Momentum show on April 5-6 at the Yale Theater in Oklahoma City. Add a 30-piece solo exhibition (her first of this size) at the Pacific Northwest Quilt and Fiber Arts Museum in La Conner, Washington, starting July 31.
But in addition to her full-time artistic knitting endeavor, Ross is trying to balance how her art fits with her life and the demands she’s experiencing as she settles into life post-college. While she admitted to knitting most of her waking hours, she stressed that “Kendall has a vibrant social life” (with a sarcastic smirk).
“I also get kicked off my parent’s insurance in a year,” says Ross wryly, workshopping classified ad pitches. “So I need some sort of reality show in between ‘The Bachelor’ and ‘Love Is Blind.’”
But when asked (in seriousness) what her plans are for the future, Ross admitted she’s not sure — but that it’s a good thing.
“Any goal that you have [where] you're like, ‘well, once I do this, it'll be perfect.’ I just don't think that,” says Ross. “Right now, I can't see past the next year because I have so much to make.”
To find Kendall Ross’ work online, follow her on Instagram at @idknitthat or visit idknitthat.com