The Mellowest Diva
That's Diva Zappa, knitting in the sunshine while attired in our appropriately verdant Frank Zappa "Rental" shirt.
Diva's knitted items -- including hats, scarves and ponchos (the cognescenti would be certain to ask if they're Mexican ponchos or Sears ponchos) -- have swiftly become legendary among crafts mavens.
So much so, in fact, that she and her creations are featured separately on the U.K.'s cult TV sensation The Mighty Boosh.
On her "Hand Made Beauty" site you can find out all about these coveted items and also about "knitting activism," notably her support of the Watoto Fund, which does truly wonderful humanitarian work in Africa.
Zappa senior was famously photographed in the Rental shirt in Berkeley, Calif., in 1968, at which time he was doing some of his most audacious work with his band The Mothers of Invention (he'd already skewered the hippie movement and Sgt. Pepper and helped introduce avant-jazz and modern classical motifs to rock). It might be said that there was an element of knitting to FZ's restless sonic pastiches, which stitched together bits of tape, snatches of fanfare, spoken word snippets and musique concrète like multicolored strands of musical yarn. In any case, the Zappa dynasty remains as vibrant and unpredictable as ever.
