Conversations with Artists: Hot Knots

Hot Knots is a upcycled, slow design crotchet brand using plastic bags to create a variety of products like bags, planters, and soup dishes.

Libby learnt how to crochet during her masters degree. Wanting a new outlet for stress release, she ‘crystalised’ her technique by drawing from her knitting skills, the expertise of Youtube and craft books, and her knowledge of using plastic as fabric. Applying this to crochet, Hot Knots was born.

Plastic Yarn, aka ‘Plarn’ is yarn made from waste plastic. Using plastic bags, postal bags, bottles, and any other malleable materials reminiscent of fabric, Libby uses it to make the majority of her products. She describes the process of working with the upcycled raw materials, cutting them in a certain way that creates one continuous loop and recycling the scraps at larger recycling plants or saving them for other craft projects. You can see how she makes her yarn here.

Originally sourcing her materials from under her mum’s kitchen sink, she soon made her way through her friend’s and family’s collections, until they were pulling out all the stops to give her donations- she describes how one Christmas she received seven families’ entire collection of Sainsbury’s bags. ‘Everyone has a collection of loads of plastic bags. Once I started to see what types had the nicest colours, then I started to prioritise the different ones’. Turning to the various online marketplaces in her area, the Pandemic’s upsurge in online supermarket shopping proved particularly useful to Libby; ‘During Covid the delivery drivers wouldn’t take the bags back because of the germ transmissions.

Everyone had loads of these excess delivery bags, so I had a continuous style and colour that I could work with… but it was crazy to think of how many of these bags weren’t getting reused’. Libby shows creativity in her resourcefulness, turning everyday household waste into an array of useful items, including bags, hats, and pots (link). Occasionally bringing in other material and textures, she uses the scrap yarn from a friend’s design studio as well.

Hot Knots is built on foundations, finding inspiration from the online community of small businesses and creatives investing their time into projects that don't cost the earth, or peoples lives. When talking about the need for fashion brands to move towards more conscious practices, she comments; for there to be any kind of ethics in fashion there needs to be a complete overhaul in how the industry is run. There are huge conglomerates at the top of the chain that are producing clothes at a scale that is completely impractical for environmental progress and social progress- there is always going to be someone that is getting exploited and there’s always going to be some form of environment that is getting exploited… there is just a continuous culture of exploitation within fashion brands small and large. It’s already gone on long enough that enough people have been harmed by it, enough people have died because of it.’

Libby wanted to ensure that she, like everyone else, is not claiming to be perfect or innocent in fast fashion consumption. In a capitalist market we are all affected by the mindset that the more we own, the more successful we are deemed to be. Libby labels this as a ‘huge marketing ploy’, discerning that whilst we do have buying power, that only goes so far- the efforts to change the fashion industry's overall sustainability has to be done ‘en masse’ for that to have any impact. The change ultimately needs to come from above and for there to be any real changes, large companies need to take accountability. Whilst small brands and eco fashion movements can help to put pressure on the giant brands and conglomerates, the ones causing the most damage, the onus is on them to make the market more sustainable as a whole.

Overconsumption is one of the main driving forces behind the state of the waste culture coming from the fashion industry. According to Libby, as long as we continue to see clothes as disposable, over consuming and then relying on the racks of charity shops to get rid, garments will continue to end up in landfill and exported to countries that don't want them, need them, nor have the resources to export them further; ‘it’s just going to be a continuous cycle of buying excessively and dumping on other countries. That state of play has already gotten so bad that if there isn't a drastic change soon it will just be worse and further … and the position that we’re in now is already bad enough. In order to prevent that catastrophe from worsening, there needs to be a complete overhaul for fashion brands to move towards ethical practices’.

She gives praise towards the creativity of brands that try to reshape the face of the fashion industry, emphasising the need for them to bring the topic to the forefront and make upcycling appeal to current trends. ‘Fashion brands should look at upcycling as something that adds additional meaning to your clothes, it’s really exciting and helps bring a consciousness to people’s minds’.

She calls for consciousness when buying products, praising the imagination involved when using limited resources and materials to create something new and usable; ‘There's so much ingenuity that goes into that, and I think that it could really enrich the creativity in the fashion industry. It is already a very creative industry but it’s also so trend driven. Thinking more about waste culture, and using resources that we have, is more of a challenge - there's more scope for creativity there’.

For Libby, these much needed changes in the industry bring benefits that could fight the over consumption and mass production that makes the fashion industry so detrimental to the world's resources. Libby emphasised that moving towards more ethical practices in the fashion industry would bring the benefits of higher quality items, and fight the endemic mass production; ‘if you think about the speed of which trends go in and go out, that can only be done by mass production and using up finite resources. Whereas if there is more of a shift

towards upcycling culture and brands that are using fashion to fight waste culture, those processes take a lot longer. So it could in theory slow down the production of fashion, which can only be a good thing when you think about how much we are over producing and wasting clothes. Ultimately that could enhance the quality of the clothes if they are made at a slower rate’. She states

‘I think it could enrich creativity and bring meaning to people's mind as they are consuming and wearing clothes, but also I think it could ultimately work to slow down the rate of production of fashion at the moment. Those are two things…I’m not saying it’s a one stop solution to overproduction and plastic waste, but I do think that it’s a really unique way to bring it to the fore, to produce things that are really unique but makes people think about their consumption and the production of things.’

Like many other small business owners, Libby finds herself at the mercy of juggling time, costs and the competition of big business. Naming it a ‘labour of love’, making all the products by hand herself from the yarn to the final finishing, she describes that ‘Its completely unsustainable to be doing this as a full time job or even a part time job to be honest… the fact you have to be the production, you have to be the design, you have to be the promotion, you have to be the customer service, you have to be everything, and if you’re not making the revenue it’s just an overwhelming amount of over heads if you’re thinking about rent and stuff like that, versus the enjoyment that you get out of something.’

She continues, ‘At one point I was relying on hot knots for two days of my five days employment. It was really tough and it does kinda take away some of the love out of it, because if you’re thinking I need to make this amount in order to cover my bills and to be able to live in the way that I’m living, it can take away some of that love … many of the small businesses that I connected with come from passion projects and hobbies. Everyone’s always telling you to monetise your hobbies but sometimes I actually don't know if that will work for me in terms of full time monetisation. I think that would really stress me out because it would be quite lonely’. Bringing up the issue of costing, Libby describes how she has a ‘constant internal battle’ justifying what to charge for items that can be bought in IKEA for ‘a tenth of that price’. But she asserts that she has to constantly remind yourself, ‘I did this by hand, it’s taken ten hours, its not mass produced, theres no slave labour involved. It's constant, that's a constant battle basically.’

These challenges of running a small business are all too real in a market overrun with big corporations, who can exploit their way into flooding the market with deceptively low pricing. It's difficult for small business owners to keep their items accessible to everyone, but also not undersell themselves. For Libby, this is a ‘huge task’ when you’re up against huge brands, drawing an interesting point that in a society of mass financial inequality low prices can help to make fashion more accessible for those with less disposable income; ‘I do think

there’s a whole question of accessibility here, and who is spending £2000 on these H&M hauls versus who is buying what they need’. She continues, ‘that is something that needs to be considered with these brands when thinking about their ethical practices. But they have a responsibility to actually do something meaningful about it and not just green wash people into buying more clothes from ranges that call themselves 'ethical’. It’s an interesting point to consider, and it’s fair to say that whilst mass consuming ‘single use’ fashion items is causing a massive drain on the world's resources, particularly during the current cost of living crisis, perhaps there’s a place for cheaper clothes this winter. Keeping clothes affordable for those in need is important, but Libby makes a compelling distinction between overconsumption and accessibility- noting that brands that market themselves as having ‘ethical’ ranges are perhaps just creating a smoke screen in front of the ever worsening issue.

Looking towards the future of Hot Knots, Libby is ambitious to give more time to her craft and return to her Friday workshops; ‘I always loved running workshops… just to spread the word about upcycling, and show people how easy it is. You don’t need to have loads of different types of glue and loads of tools, it can be as easy as cutting up a t-shirt or cutting up a plastic bag.’ Bringing her love for craft and people together, another of Libby’s ‘ultimate goals’ is to write a craft book; I think they’re absolutely beautiful to read through, and there are lots of ones about upcycling but a lot of them have that dowdy tone. This has its place and is a really good way to find out about upcycling and its different methods but I’d love something a bit more modern, more vibrant, something that showcases other upcycling artists as well, and designers.’ Combining her own methods, tips and patterns with advice from other designers, Libby’s intention is a celebration of the things people are doing in the upcycling and zero waste space. Also looking to do more collaborations with designers, fairs and events, Libby’s creativity, like many young creatives in this era, is broad and flexible rather than regimented into a specific area, and exists in collaboration rather than isolation. We love to see it!

Visit Hot Knots instagram or website for more!