Jiaqi Zhou

About

I am Jiaqi Zhou, a designer who is passionate about knitting and hand-made textiles. I am very good at crocheting and hand knitting, and can also use various knitting machines skillfully.

When I was a child, my mother and grandmother often knitted sweaters, hats, scarves and other things for me. Knitted fabricis very warm and safe for me.When I first learned to knit, I often knitted some interesting gifts for my friends, which also gave me a great sense of satisfaction. The process of knitting makes me feel very healing and I love to express my inner emotional world with colorful knitted fabrics.

There’s an effect called the 20-minute park effect.A study in the International Journal of Environmental Health Research found that even 20 minutes in a park without exercise improved people’s well-being. People in the place without the ceiling is really very energetic, the mood will be more open.There are also many studies showing that pet ownership can relieve loneliness and stress. With the development and changes of society, many young people are facing difficulties and challenges in work, life and emotions, and keeping pets can bring them companionship, comfort, fun and happiness.

I recorded my own visits to the park to experience the healing power of nature and the many passers-by who brought their pets to the park. Using these photos as my main inspiration, I began the project “Natural Healing“. I believe that man is a part of nature and should return to nature.

In the part of “Animals Healing”, I tried many different techniques of crochet. First, I drew my own hand drawings in the grid lines to summarize the colors and a grid represents a needle in the crochet.There are many different textures of hand-knitted dogs, and the texture of the back of the sample is also interesting.

In the process of hand knitting, I found a problem, because I have a lot of colors, the process will cause a lot of waste yarns, I collected these waste yarns, I continue to use them in the next piece of sample, so as to achieve the purpose of sustainability.