For some people, the prospect of being a parent is the motivation behind learning, or re-learning, to knit. It can be a way of demonstrating love and care for a future child, making an item for them to wear, keeping them warm and held. However, there is also an air of secrecy around this. It is generally accepted that a pregnancy is announced after 12 weeks, when scans have determined everything is ok[1]. During this time, knitting for the baby is often also done in private so as not to give the secret away or prompt the curious to ask, or perhaps to hide the crafting itself if one isn’t comfortable making in public or is still learning.

What happens when the pregnancy doesn’t progress past 12 weeks? What if it never becomes public knowledge? What happens to the unfinished knitted items? Does one continue to finish the item, perhaps gifting it to someone else or holding onto it as a keepsake? Are the items forever abandoned, remaining at the same point as when the pregnancy ended?

The baby hats mobile in A Visible THREAD, is made up of one complete hat and three abandoned, still on the needles, unfinished hats.

The statistic of ‘1 in 4 women will experience a miscarriage’ is commonly quoted (even in the article referenced above), although the correct quote is actually ‘1 in 4 pregnancies will end in miscarriage’ – which is a different thing entirely (and apparently the numbers are estimated to be higher than this at 1 in 5 pregnancies, although there is no accurate data)[2]. And as the baby hats mobile shows, there’s no guarantee of a successful pregnancy after a miscarriage, irrelevant of the statistics or number of miscarriages; they’re not evenly distributed in real life.

Each of the hats shows a progression of optimism and progression through the colours and work completed, although the later hats start to show a change in colour palette and slower progression; a hesitancy to believe everything will work out this time. The hope of getting pregnant is often easier to manage day-to-day than the fear of miscarriage once pregnant, and this is reflected here in the colour choices.

‘TTC’ installed at at A Visible THREAD, Thelma Hulbert Gallery, on the left with Julie Heaton’s and on the right with Helen MacRitchie’s

Our exhibition blurb states ‘Thread, as cloth, is woven through our lives. It surrounds us like a second skin. Yet, precisely because of these close connections, it becomes almost invisible to us’ but what happens to the unfinished cloth when it doesn’t surround us like a second skin, doesn’t have the opportunity to be worn?

By including this work in the exhibition, we are making something that is often not spoken about visible; these threads that were intended to become items of clothing for people who now won’t eventuate, the unfinished hats a reminder of the people who might’ve been.

Desiree Jeans

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SELECT REFERENCES

[1] Why do women wait to announce their pregnancy? BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4gZbHgLWVBGHk55w9K9y8L1/why-do-women-wait-to-announce-their-pregnancy (Accessed: 12 March 2025)

[2] Farquharson, R. Background Information: Miscarriage, Miscarriage Association. Available at: https://www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk/media-queries/background-information/ (Accessed: 12 March 2025)