May – Kirk Dunn

Kirk Dunn

www.kirkdunn.com

Kirk is an actor, writer and corporate consultant – but his greatest love is knitting.

Kirk has been knitting since 1988 and began designing in 1996. He shares a love of colour and complex design with renowned textile designers Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably. In 1998, Kirk apprenticed at the Kaffe Fassett Studio in London, England.

Kirk has designed several sweaters, afghans and pieces of knitted art. His “Thousand Cranes” sweater design is award winning, his “Symmetricats” pillow design was published in A Needle Pulling Thread, and he recently designed a “Topsy Turvy” pillow for Topsy Farms yarn producers.

In 2003, Kirk was awarded a significant Ontario Arts Council Chalmers Foundation Fellowship for Stitched Glass, an installation of three 5’ x 8’ tapestries, knit in the style of stained glass, exploring the commonalities and conflicts between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Fifteen years later, Kirk is almost finished the final tapestry. With the support of the Toronto Arts Council, Kirk and his wife, Claire Ross Dunn, are co-writing The Knitting Pilgrim, a one-hour play to tour with the installation. The play will explore the development and themes of the piece: interfaith understanding and empathy in today’s polarized world, as well as Kirk’s experience of working on one ambitious piece of art for 15 years. The international tour will launch in 2018/2019.

He has been interviewed on CBC Radio’s “This Morning,” and has been featured in A Needle Pulling Thread Magazine, Enroute Magazine, Family Circle Knitting, Vogue Knitting, The National Post, Maclean’s Magazine, The Presbyterian Record, Vogue’s Knit 1 magazine and the online knitting magazine Knitnet.

Kirk was the feature speaker at the June 2006 meeting of the Toronto Knitters Guild (formerly the Downtown Knit Collective). His talk was turned into the documentary film Threads of Abraham. A short version of this film is available on youtube.

Kirk can be seen knitting on various TTC vehicles across Toronto.

Vendor Details:

We are pleased to announce that Emily Foden of Viola Yarns will be returning to the Guild as our May vendor.

Viola hand dyed yarns has been based out of Mooresburg (Southwestern Ontario) for the past 3 years, where Emily dyes subtle colours inspired by the landscape that surrounds her. Over the past year, Emily has been obsessively working on a book in collaboration with Pom Pom Press, due to be released in October. New colour ways, knitting patterns and a peek behind the scenes into the world of Viola and winter in Mooresburg are all in store.