Knitting and Sound

At the end of summer 2025, MDK HQ received an unusual email from audio executive and creator Julie Shapiro alerting us to a project to do with knitting and sound. Yes, that’s right sound and knitting. Not the sound of knitting, but how an aspect of knitting could inspire narrative audio. Think podcast. Think those spoken word and sound effects vinyl records in the public library back in the 1980s.

Julie Shapiro and John DeLore, the inventors of a sonic world called Audio Flux, had teamed up with UK-based knitter Lorna Hamilton-Brown to make something together about creative tension.

You know those swatches that Kay, Ann, Franklin, Patty, Kate, and pretty much everyone at MDK have been saying are essential to our success and growth as a knitter? Those swatches where you can check your tension? Lorna takes those squares and makes birds.

Because when you have a pile of finished swatches lying around, you could turn them into a patchwork throw or dollhouse rugs. But you could also make birds.

Lorna made “Tension Birds” as her “final project for her Masters in knitted textiles at the Royal College of Art—a project that explored the therapeutic benefits of knitting for a person’s mental health.”

As if making a bird out of a simple square isn’t poetic enough, what if that tension square could inspire actual spoken poetry and stories?

In early 2025, Audio Flux commissioned four works and ran an open call for public submissions (called Circuit 06) based on prompts designed with Lorna and directly inspired by her art practice.

Each fluxwork needed to: run exactly three minutes long, take inspiration from the theme “creative tension,” and include audible repetition (nodding to the rhythm of knitting). Audio Flux also asked “What color is your fluxwork?” In the end they received 72 fluxworks from 16 countries.

You can now listen to all of the stories inspired by Lorna’s collaboration with Audio Flux and, to add to the beauty, you can see all of the tension birds Lorna knitted in response to the works. Lorna also wrote short pieces explaining her choice of materials for each of the birds.

So, what kinds of stories and birds did “creative tension” inspire?

Knitted by Lorna Hamilton-Brown in response to “How Do Bunnies Gump So High?” by Sarah Geis.

In “How Do Bunnies Gump So High?” Sarah Geis realizes she has to tell her toddler about death because his granddad is dying. Lorna knitted a larger scale comfort bird for Sarah and her son. She used recycled yarn to represent the cycle of life and death.

Knitted by Lorna Hamilton-Brown in response to “Nobody Told Me” by Colette Kinsella.

Colette Kinsella from Ireland and the Netherlands takes on menopause in “Nobody Told Me.” Her fluxwork marries urgency and disbelief in her voice with music that would be perfect for a Hollywood action thriller. Both crescendo to the fever pitch of a hot flash. For Colette, Lorna knitted a white merino bird with a mohair crest—the fuzzy crest representing the fuzzy menopause brain that Colette wasn’t warned about.

Knitted by Lorna Hamilton-Brown in response to “Very Fine People” by Lisa Woolfork.

“Wake, Spider Wake” by Axel Kacoutié and “Rubber Bands (most commonly beige)” by Joyce de Badts and Frederik De Clercq use sound effects and word rhythms to tell their stories. Kacoutié speaks out about how the British government, museums, churches, and schools actively destroyed the histories of colonial cultures. Lorna incorporated text into this bird. De Badts and De Clercq present us with a free association sound and word riff starting with rubber bands. Lorna knits that rubber band right into their bird.

Other fluxwork stories include: the risk of ruining something you love by sharing it with someone you love, attuning yourself to sounds and sensations when you lose your sight, a curious and unexplained “vummmm” sound, and being cancelled from a quilting workshop for speaking truth. For each work, Lorna knitted a perfectly paired bird reply.

Fluxworks run three minutes, so you can listen to all eight in half an hour and then, like me, you’ll find yourself standing at the kitchen sink or, indeed, knitting, and you’ll wonder where that thought about rubber bands or unexplained sounds came from. You’ll realize that you want to listen to the previous five Audio Flux circuits, each with their own theme. You might even take that swatch you made and turn it into a bird to tell your own story.

Sarah Larson of The New Yorker named The Audio Flux podcast hosted by Amy Pearl as one of the best podcasts of 2025. If you’d like to make your own fluxwork, sign up for the Audio Flux newsletter to be notified about the theme for Circuit 07 coming up this spring.

You can also listen to the fluxwork I made by heading over to my Substack. If you’ve ever struggled to learn something new, this is for you!

All photos credited to Chris Kalafarski, with thanks to Audio Flux.

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Editors’ note: PS Going to Vogue Knitting Live? We are—come join us! We’ll be at an Irish pub called Connolly’s. External Link. Opens in new window. (Times Square location just one block from the Marriott) from 4-6 p.m. on Friday, January 30. What could be cozier than that? Let us know you’ll be there—reply here. External Link. Opens in new window..