Beginnings 1987-1990
Self Portrait Vest – 1987
Handknitted wool vest with duplicate stitching. The back of the vest features a view of the back of her head.
Lips Vest – 1989
Machine knit intarsia in wool from orginal 1971 silk screen design by Rebekah Younger.
Pt. Reyes Sunset – 1988
The photograph by Rebekah Younger that inspired her first dyed knit garment and ultimately her innovative knit-dye-unravel and re-knit technique.
Pt. Reyes Sunset Kimono – 1990
Answering the challenge to enter a knit kimono in an art to wear show in Chicago, Rebekah commissioned Karen Livingstone, a dyer for Marian Clayden, to dye 17 shades of embroidery floss weight silk which she knit in fair-isle designs, changing colors every few inches. The piece was exhibited many times and won a Merit Award from the San Francisco Women’s Artist Gallery in 1994. After spending over 100 hours knitting and finishing the garment, Rebekah, thought there has to be a better way to get the subtle gradations in color she wanted without all the yarn changes and inevitable ends to work in after knitting. Even after all this effort she was still annoyed by the striping of color rather than the smooth gradient she had seen in the sunset. This would inspire her to innovate her signature ikat knitting technique in 1991.
