Founded by Montreal-based textile artist Hayley Mortin, Dazy Chains seeks to untangle and explore the lineages of textile production and computational technology.
If you’ve ever tried crochet, one of the first foundational stitches you learn is the “chain.” The simple act of looping yarn, when multiplied, creates a soft textile network, capable of forming images, textures, and shapes –– or (if you’re not careful) “‘glitches” through dropped stitches that leave unraveled gaps in the weaving. “Daisy-chaining” further describes a process of interconnection, whereby electronic devices are wired together to create a woven system capable of transmitting signals from one node to the next.
Hayley Mortin is a Montreal-based textile artist and the creative force behind Dazy Chains, a knitting project that seeks to untangle and explore these lineages of textile production and computational technology. Amidst the cozy fuzz of brushed-out mohair and the vibrant hues of dyed yarns, Mortin’s knitwear designs capture ephemeral moments of digital activity (think: CAPTCHA, dialogue from mobile game ads, or images from AI learning how to see) and incorporates them into IRL wearables and tapestries. Mortin also recently created and published Needlebound, a collection of essays, interviews, and project photography by textile artists shared through the common thread of a passion for making.
Hayley and I hopped on Zoom to talk about rendering the virtual through knitting, developing her first book project, and how she’s found online communities of fellow fiber artists in the age of social media.
Eleonor Botoman: How did you come into knitting as a creative practice?
Hayley Mortin: I started knitting over the lockdown. I taught myself through YouTube tutorials. When I was really young, my grandma tried to teach me how to knit but I never had the patience for it. But I think when there was so little else to do, it forced me to get into the headspace to actually get the hang of it. So I started with crochet and then I realized that knitting is a better approach for colorwork and doing things that are a little bit more figurative for the stuff that I wanted to make.
Yeah, and a lot of YouTube tutorials. A lot of Eastern European women that are over the age of 70 had really good knitting tutorials that you have to put auto-translate on for [laughs] so I feel like those are the OGs. That’s when I started, so probably like 2-3 years ago now.
EB: I know that your practice at the moment is a mix of hand knitting and then you also have a knitting machine. How did you end up doing machine knitting?
HM: I started using a Silver Reed LK150 probably a year after I was doing handknitting. It’s a really basic machine. It has the same visual aesthetic as an Easy-Bake Oven. Like, it’s really plastic-y and pink and it’s kind of dinky, but it’s a really good beginner knitting machine.
What I really like about it is if I’m making a sweater and I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time making, like, the back panel — which, with handknitting, could take me a whole week — with a knitting machine that could take me a day. I feel like it helps me get through the more monotonous parts of the knitting. But because it’s also this kind of dinky machine, [there are] no colorwork attachments. Like, I know there’s all these misconceptions. You hear “knitting machine”’ and you’re like Oh, it’s this thing that’s electronic and it plugs into your laptop and whatever, but I do all of the colorwork by hand. Every stitch is hand-manipulated on the machine. It almost feels a little bit more like weaving. It’s still faster than handknitting but it’s still way slower than if I had a machine with a lot more bells and whistles. I always find it really hard to describe the amount of work and time that goes into each piece because, yes, it’s faster than handknitting but it’s also super manual.
EB: How did you end up getting the knitting machine? How did you find it?
HM: I found a lot of other Instagram knitting folks. They’re very generous with sharing tips and tricks, and the machine knitting community is also super tiny. Other folks on Instagram that were using knitting machines were really generous in answering my questions about it and then there’s a really good machine knitting Reddit and a ton of Facebook groups. [There are] so many different people from no specific geographic region and they all just convene and they’re all super friendly and easy to talk to because there’s not a lot of resources on it. So that was really helpful in getting started.
EB: Yeah, it’s like the digital knitting circle. Something that I find compelling in your practice is this entanglement of technology and textile-making. Could you talk about some media histories or iconographies of digital culture that are sparking your curiosity at the moment?
HM: When I first got interested in those entangled histories, it was right after I had read Zeroes + Ones by Sadie Plant. I think I had read that before I even started knitting. She uses weaving as a metaphor in a lot of her work to describe the relationship between people and technology and I thought that was really interesting. Plant also talks a lot about Ada Lovelace and how she was also a really big contributor to early computation. Her work in the field of computer science and its influence on some of the earliest knitting machines — which could also effectively be considered some of the first computers — blew my mind. All of these things were so entangled and kind of impossible to parse apart. Like, they were all coming to fruition at the same time, which I thought was really cool. Tons of rabbit holes expanded from just that alone.
EB: One of the first pieces that I ever engaged with from your work was the leg warmers from your CAPTCHA series. You’ve also made sweaters and bags over the years. Do you see knitting as an act of translation?
HM: I think it’s a way of engaging or reclaiming this relationship with something that feels really fleeting and intangible. A lot of artists that I really love like to play with the idea of the tangibility of the Internet or the infrastructure of the Internet as being something very real. But we use metaphors like the cloud and digital space, which makes it seem like it’s like vapor.
I’ve always been obsessed with materializing things that are tactile and how to engage with things that are usually hidden. So something as fleeting as CAPTCHA — which you engage with for like 0.5 seconds — you’re not there to really engage with it. You’re there to log into some site or whatever and it's a weird pause. To freeze it into something like knitting which is so, so, so slow and tangible, it’s such a contrast to the actual act of what it means to do a CAPTCHA so I feel like that’s something that I think about when I’m doing that.
EB: I’m also thinking about other pieces you’ve made recently that focus on AI or on computer vision. I feel like there’s also something there about glitching or (re)generation and how that pertains to the process of knitting.
HM: For a while, I’ve been collecting images from computer vision and machine learning research papers because I think that some of the things you get in those papers are so poignant and weird. People don’t look at a machine learning paper for the imagery. They want the data and the results and they want to use it for their own research. And these things are so invisible. They get hidden in these computer science archives and websites and whatever, but they’re really important in constructing how computers see. People forget that’s a process that’s still mediated by humans. So I’m taking that and then deeply physicalizing it in knit as something tangible to me.
EB: Another motif that also comes up in your work is butterflies. I’d be curious where that fascination came from.
HM: I think in the beginning it was just really easy to knit. Then I used that as a way to narrow down other source material. So I’ve been using computer vision papers that have butterflies in [them] and there was a piece that I did on the flight paths of butterflies where I transcribed these scientific diagrams of how a butterfly travels in space. Because the body of work in these scientific spaces is so vast, I’m trying to narrow it down with one attribute.
I also like that it’s a “feminine” motif and contrasting that with the cold, traditionally masculine science and then reintegrating that into something like knitting, which is also usually coded as feminine. There’s definitely a gender thing going on there, too. It originally was a really easy thing for me to learn how to knit when I was learning colorwork, and then eventually I’m like, Oh, I like the butterfly, let me push it further. So yeah, that’s where that comes from.
EB: How has your approach to sourcing materials shifted?
HM: At the beginning, my mom just sent me a bunch of yarn that was in the house because she also crochets and knits. So did my grandma. We had the material and I used what was available to me. As you just get more used to it, you develop your preferences. It evolved from this package of random yarns that I didn’t even know what material it was to then ordering things off Amazon and being like Okay, I’m just going to try this and make a slightly bigger project. That was when I didn’t really know if I was going to stay with knitting, too, because I love to hop between hobbies all the time so I wasn’t going to invest a lot of time and money upfront. But as soon as I realized this was something like Oh, I really love this, that’s when I started to spend more time understanding materials, understanding the sustainability aspect of it. Like what are these life cycles like? What is the dyeing process? What is the spinning process? [There are] also a lot of great yarn stores in Montreal, too. I luckily live around the corner from one which is a double-edged sword because I spend a lot of my time and money there. I think just being a little bit more picky over the years and, moreso, working with a couple of trusted brands and farms.
EB: Maybe we’ll segue into talking about Needlebound. What inspired you to make a printed book that was dedicated to the fiber arts?
HM: I love printed matter. I love books. I love a collected little compendium of stories. I didn’t feel like I was seeing [the textile arts community] represented anywhere beyond being completely online, which is cool because that’s where it originates and that’s where it lives.
But for a community that’s so focused on liking tangible things, I feel like it should also have a tangible form of documentation in the form of a book. I think there was a collective groan of like Ugh, the algorithm. Everyone’s only seeing whoever they follow. Or even with people that you follow, you don’t even see them on your feed sometimes, you just get ads or suggested posts. So using that as a way to break through and then collect these voices in a unified place where people aren’t getting bombarded with whatever Mark Zuckerberg’s pushing at the moment, was really the motivation.
And I love a new challenge. I knew I had enough vague project management experience skills from my day job that I could apply to this. I’ve never made a book before but I feel like I could do it. In addition to that, working on the actual development and production with my partner who I also live with made it a lot easier to collaborate and work on it together. That definitely expedited the process rather than having to hire someone outright who has that skill set. My partner is also interested in doing larger-scale book projects so I think we were both just really aligned on this as a fun thing to do.
EB: I love that it’s also this collection of not only beautiful images, but also this compendium of essays, brief artist statements, and so many different kinds of contributions. Did you always envision Needlebound as an opportunity to put out a call for submissions and invite fiber artists to write about their own practices or to be in conversation with each other?
HM: Yeah, it initially came from a couple of budding friendships that I had on Instagram. I’m like You guys are so cool, I wish there was something that showcased that because I don’t see these stories being told. A lot of the work that I’ve seen with fiber arts books or printed matter is either really cut and dry, like a pattern book or super deep academic texts of already very established artists, and not a lot of these DIY folks that just post on Instagram. These stories are just as worthy of being in print if not, in my opinion, moreso. So I was really eager to have a platform and pull them together [and] to also show the diversity in this community — because I get to see a lot of it on my knitting Instagram from who I follow. I don’t know how many other people are exposed to this. I think it’s fascinating.
EB: Some of these stories and essays were so poignant and intimate. There was almost a vulnerability with people talking about failures in their practice or their attempts or experiments. That is the process of making craft, not just the finished product but also how you get there.
HM: Yeah, that was really important for me to have those stages documented. It came after the fact. I was getting these submissions in real-time and being like Well, I don’t want to only have a focus on the final product. I want to also have a little bit of that process — like what are your thoughts that are going into it along the way, what are those stories about sourcing, and the raw materials aspect of it, too.
EB: In the editor’s letter, you say that “...the act of knitting evolves into a communal activity that weaves together social bonds.” And I’ve been thinking about that statement, especially in the context of this moment when we can feel so disconnected from each other and the world around us.
HM: Yeah, I was having a good time writing that letter — because, [with] all these thoughts that I had been simmering with, I finally was able to put [them] into this cohesive thing. I was thinking about how it’s a really solitary act but also has, historically, a connotation of being really social. Like, knitting circles where people would congregate and put these things together or when knitting was a form of necessity — like we have to knit to make clothes for our family. That was always more of a social activity. After the Industrial Revolution, it became a lot more solitary. Now we’re in this world where you’re knitting in your bedroom but you are also posting it on TikTok or Instagram where potentially hundreds and thousands of people could see. It’s simultaneously solitary and social again in the same way that social media is very much sitting at that crossroads. I think there’s something really special about the fiber arts community, especially because of the lack of resources and documentation. You have to rely on those digital communities to get started with knitting if you don’t know someone [who can] teach you how to do it.
EB: How has your relationship with social media changed as you’ve established Dazy Chains?
HM: When I first started posting on Instagram, it was initially just on my personal account. It was at a period [when] I was really disillusioned with and so sick of social media. Like, You know what? I’m only going to post the things that I make. So it was a way of me distancing myself or taking the pressure off myself to perform my life online.
At first, it was really helpful, but then I also realized that narrowing it down to only being about that was an easy way to find like-minded people. So it made me rethink what social media could be if you use it in this more targeted, conscientious way. Like I’m just here to post about knitting. [laughs] This is the knitting app now. So that was actually positive, I would say. [There are] a million and one gripes that you can have and I feel like I might have a different perspective too if I was trying to operationalize. I’ve seen people that have full-blown businesses and it gets tough if the algorithm isn’t behaving the way you want it to and you’re using it to make ends meet. But when you’re using this as just a thing to find like-minded people, it’s been overall really positive.
EB: That’s so refreshing to hear. There’s definitely that pressure of feeling compelled to constantly post content or wrestling with the fickleness of the algorithmic changes. That can feel disempowering, but I love your perspective on it, too, as this opportunity [allows you] to also find your niche of people, to find that community.
HM: Yeah, it definitely takes work. Like it’s not just there for the taking. You have to cultivate it like with any community. It takes time, for sure.
EB: Can you talk about how you’ve navigated trying to find that balance in your own practice between creating wearables or things that you’re selling, while also trying to make time and space for your more experimental projects or exploring new techniques?
HM: At the very beginning, I really just got a kick out of the idea that anyone would [want to] wear anything that I made, so there was something really fun about making hats or smaller pieces that I could do [a] higher volume of in a shorter period of time and actually try to sell them consistently. But I’m also not doing this as a full-time job. I work 40, sometimes 50 hours a week doing my UX stuff, so that doesn’t give me a lot of time to knit. I feel like I have to be really strategic about how I use that time. I actually feel like it is kind of a positive thing to have such a limited amount of time because it forces you to use it to its max. So I’m cognizant of how precious that time is and then I use it in a way that when I’m like, Yeah, this isn’t fueling me anymore, I’m going to switch it up.
EB: With a lot of your work too, there’s that research aspect to it. And that’s also time, looking through these archives or looking through these materials.
HM: There’s a benefit, too, to when I’m working because sometimes I come across papers just in my line of work. I do UX research for artificial intelligence products that are normally used in an enterprise-level space. It’s a lot of designing stuff for customer service agents to use, but there’s still a lot of this academic, applied research. A lot of my job is learning about the limitations and how this technology works and then how we communicate that to end users. Then, in consuming all that scientific information, sometimes I’ll come across something that’s interesting or that paper was kind of weird, or this data scientist said something to me that stood out in a way that I’m going to research more about it. That definitely feeds into how I find a lot of the stuff that I end up making.
EB: How do you see collaboration fitting into your bigger practice?
HM: It’s super fun. Because [knitting] is a very isolated practice and I also work remotely most of the time, I can feel really atomized in my life. Doing stuff with other people helps me get out of my head or reminds me of new techniques that can be explored or new motifs or ideas that might push what I’m doing a little bit more.
I think that’s really important, especially since I didn’t go to art school. There’s a part of me that wanted that experience of being in a heavily collaborative environment. Well, there's nothing stopping me from going out and asking people. The worst they can say is no. And I know a lot of people probably feel the same way, so I’m always down if someone has an idea or is like Have you thought about doing this? I’m like, No, but let’s try and work on it. That sounds fun.
EB: What’s in the future for Dazy Chains as a textile project or even just yourself as a maker?
HM: I think just a lot more exploration. I’ve been enjoying this machine learning, computer vision stuff right now. I’ve just been trying to push that and see where it goes.
A couple of artists that really resonate with me are Trevor Paglen and Anna Ridler. I’m trying to do a bit more of a deep dive into their practice to gather some nuggets of wisdom from how they approach their work and figure out how I can evolve what I’m doing a little bit more.
I would love to do more wall hanging pieces [and] explore more ways of stretching knit on a canvas — or unconventional stretching material would be fun. I haven’t really thought that much about how knit can exist in space. That’s totally unexplored terrain for me. I’ve focused on it on the body for however long, but I’m like, What is it like to install it somewhere? But I also still love doing wearables because it’s very fun to do.
I also have some friends who are photographers. If you have a vision for a shoot, they can make that come to life really easily. I’ve been collecting these images of really corporate office aesthetics from the early ‘80s and ‘90s. I’m thinking about how these computer vision scientific explorations usually happen in these dull environments and I want to push that and use that to frame the work that I’m doing. So we’re going to explore that in a shoot in a couple of weeks and I’m super excited about it.
And then I still want to do Needlebound Volume 2. It’s a huge endeavor. I bit off more than I could chew at first, so I think it’s a once-a-year situation. I think I’ll try to get funding for it because it was out of pocket and I’m still paying it off. I bet someone could pay to help this happen, but I just don’t know who or what yet. So just trying to navigate the world of grants in the next couple of months. [laughs] Yeah, those are the big plans. 🌀
Eleonor Botoman is a museum worker, environmental art historian, and culture writer based in Brooklyn. They are currently a New City Critics Fellow at the Architectural League of New York and the Urban Design Forum and have a speculative research practice that explores decay, climate resiliency, multisensory and multispecies design collaboration. When they’re not experimenting with perfumery, you can find them curating multimedia wonders for their Substack newsletter, Screenshot Reliquary.
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