EN PASSANT
Some (minimal) progress on my lace shawl, knitting from the framing area chart presented in my last post. Other than that – a quick post in passing, because I’ve been stacked at work with little time for knitting in the evenings or weekends.
So far, the corner miters appear to be working. The blue marker below indicates a corner point. There’s one plain knit stitch on either side of it, making a column radiating diagonally out from the center basketweave area. Moving away from the marker, the yarn overs immediately adjacent to those two stitches are the ones highlighted in my chart. The green YO coming just before the corner, and the blue YO right after it.
You can also see the double YO insertion between the basketweave area and the more solid areas above. I like that detail, too.
Once work chaos clears, expect a sojourn in blocking land, because I’ve got a totally full to-be-blocked basket. Also reports on the baby blanket still in swatching stage.
FRAMED AGAIN
The shawl continues to grow. My center is very busy. I thought that the final piece would look nice if I used a complementing frame of a more solid appearance. After paging through lots of lacy knitting books and pattern treasuries and finding nothing that sang to me for this purpose, I decided that I needed to make up my own design for the framing phase of my gray-brown shawl (curiously gray in natural light, and tobacco under artificial light).
I came up with this (click on it to see it full size):
[LATE BREAKING NEWS: THE DIAGRAM ABOVE WAS CORRECTED ON 28 JUNE 2007]
I’ve taken the center diamonds that fill the interstices in the basketweave and framed them with an interlace two “lace bars” deep (the basketweave sports lace bar elements that are four deep. I’ve got the thing charted out alternating solid centers with the diamond centers, but I am not sure if I’ll keep that or fill all of the centers with diamonds. Also, no I didn’t make a mistake. I deliberately cut off the pointy tips of the outermost lace bar unit. I charted it out both ways, but preferred the snipped tips. I think that one tiny detail adds to the horizontal focus of the piece.
A real challenge in doing this was to come up with something that would work well both with my established stitch count (upped one to 52 per repeat to aid symmetry, with the required stitches to make the repeat count and corner picked up on one plain knit row just before commencing), and that would play nicely with a mitered corner. To do that, natural YO diagonals had to figure somewhere in the pattern, where they were (mostly) unaccompanied by a corresponding decrease. If they were coupled with a decrease, my stitch count for that round would not increase the required 8 per round needed to keep the piece flat. I’ve marked those lines in blue and green on the chart above.
By placing my mitered corners at the indicated points I minimize the need for fudging counts – almost all of the green and blue squares bear a YO anyway (those that don’t I’ll work as one on the corner-most repeat). There are a few rows that might pose problems. – 27, 31, and 35, also 61 and 55. On each of these a blue or green YO needed to form the mitered corner is paired with an immediately adjacent decrease on the “will be worked” side of the diagonal establishing the miter. I’m not quite sure what to do about them, and will experiment when I get that far. Right now I suspect that I’ll need to do a double YO at that those spots in order to maintain stitch count.
So I will continue knitting along, working my framing chart until its completion. After that I might work another row of double YO beading to finish off the section. And then comes choosing (or devising) a suitable edging.
If anyone out there has done this – designing an original lacy knitting mitered corner on the fly – and is now experiencing a forehead-thumping moment because I’ve missed something obvious, please let me know. Your input would be most appreciated!
CENTERED. SORT OF.
No, I haven’t forgotten about the ongoing projects here. I’ve been a bit buried in the usual tumult of work-related deadlines, but progress is being made.
First, on the lace shawl, I finished the center square. When that was done, I picked up stitches all the way around the edges – taking care to pick up the same number of stitches on every side, and indicating the corner points with stitch markers. Then, taking a riff from the Spider Queen, I worked two knit rows, then a purl row, a row of wide eyelets [(K2tog, YO, YO)repeat], followed by another purl row (with P1,K1 in the double eyelets) and two more rows of knit. I interrupted that patterning with a standard odd row – YO, K2, YO/even row – all knit corner centered on each corner marker. I did this not only because I like the framing look of the big eyelet bands, but also because that row is good for disguising any oddness necessary that might arise in forcing equal stitch count pick-ups along all sides.
I’ve now got four equal sides, each 153 stitches long, with clearly defined corner points. Since it’s now on one big circ, it looks vaguely snood-like:
I’ve also got another conundrum. what to do next…
As I knit the center part, I was thinking of what borders might complement it. Because the basket weave was so geometric I wanted something that had similar lines, but that added a different movement. I found this in the new Duchrow book:
At first glance I thought it was knit from edge to edge, rather than longitudinally. I based this on the mirrored center. I thought that with a little play, I could map it to my project. But closer examination of the chart shows that it’s knit strip style – the long way. That’s one problem. Even though I wanted to work this bit center out, I was willing to bend the paradigm and work this pattern along the edge.
But there’s a second problem The graph offers up the repeat, plus a piece that makes the turn backs seen at the strip centerpoints (green indicator on photo above), but offers it for only one orientation – knit beginning at the center turn back and working back towards the corner. I can’t just take the graph and invert it to make that mirrored center. The spots where increases and decreases are formed are not direct cognates. For example, you can’t use a double increase in place of the K3togs that form the top points of the angles if you’re headed in the other direction. It just doesn’t look the same.
It may be that in the accompanying German there are directions on either how to get that flip, or instructions to knit eight half-strips, then sew them together at the centers and along the mitered corners (orange indicator on photo above).
So I’m back to thinking on what I can use on this next project stage, riffling through my stitch pattern and lace books. I think though I’ll end up rolling my own. I’ve played with lace and texture pattern design before. My design elements are pretty simple (four-stitch moving bars, interlaces, diamonds filling the interstices). Maybe I’ll be able to pull some of the elements from the Duchrow longitudinal piece and apply it to mine, but knit it side to side.
On the bathroom project, it’s one step forward, two steps back and recover. The crew had framed in the shower, but did it to the wrong dimensions (there would not have been enough room for the bathroom door to open next to the sink). Luckily we trust but verify, and pointed out the error in time for it to be fixed.
Moral of the story: I don’t care if they’re professionals. Confirm all measurements yourself as the project progresses. Ask for explanations if you note discrepancies. If the crew’s mumbles seem specious, escalate the issue to the foreman. And if answers are still mushy – to the business owner.
Next big interruption – another spate of work-related deadlines, plus a baby shower gift I didn’t realize would be needed so soon. Perhaps another Oat Couture Curlicue blanket… Stay tuned.
THINKING BLOGGER
It looks like I’ve been tagged as a “Thinking Blogger” by several people, including Jenna at Girl from Auntie, and Swapna. I’m flattered, also delighted to be food for thought for someone out there.
Although I don’t do memes, I’ll bend the rule and tag some other websites that make me think. But they’re not necessarily knitting blogs. Believe it or not, I don’t think about knitting all the time. Besides almost all of the knitting-related sites I would have tagged have been touched over the last month. That’s a basic problem with referential memes in special interest communities – they loop back on themselves quickly, like big ripples in a small pool.
- Things Magazine – Wandering compendium of fascinating links to explore. Most have a tie to architecture or art (but not all do). Some are departure points for contemplation, some are just plain neat. Others are immediately useful. Today’s for example has a link to an international dress size converter.
- Chocolate and Zucchini – What’s it like to be 20-something, food-smart with a participatory bent, an analytical mind, and living in Paris? Go through the archives here and melt with envy. The author has issued a cookbook, which is the first and only blog-related book I’ve ever bought.
- Bibliodyssey – This author combs through on-line libraries looking for masterpieces of illustration. What’s presented is a jumble of everything from Medieval manuscript illumination and incunabula, to early 20th century childrens’ books, with detours through academic illustration, Japanese and Chinese scrolls, natural history compendiums, Islamic calligraphy, and early mechanical drawings.
And two knitting blogs that (to my knowledge) haven’t been tagged yet:
- Twosheep – June “DNA Scarf” Oshiro is playing in her garden right now, but when she turns to spinning and knitting, all sorts of explorations happen. If I ever pick up spinning, it will be her fault. As it is, I’m looking at worms differently this morning.
- TECHknitting – How-tos, presented by a far better illustrator, tech writer, and indexer than I’ll ever be.
PRESENTS!
My self-awarded belated birthday present has arrived! I ordered three specialty books on lace knitting, only one of which is in English. They’re not out of print, but I don’t have a separate blog category for current works, so they’ve ended up under that classification:
My first present to me is The Knitted Lace Patterns of Christine Duchrow, Vol. III, edited by Jules and Kaethe Kliot. It’s 144 pages in German, with an English foreword and symbol glossary. The patterns are presented in the same graphed format as the Volume I book I am knitting from now. This collection is a bit larger, and is mostly home-decorative items (doilies, tablecloths, tea cloths, and a smattering of counterpanes), although a few caps, stoles, collars, jabots, and a blouse are presented, too. These 100+ patterns are also quite a bit more complex than the ones in Vol. I. I’m especially interested in the large oval shaped doilies, and in a a curious appendix of hand-drawn charts, in another somewhat related notation set, but unaccompanied by as-knit photos. Plus there’s one unusual geometric insertion strip (p 86) and a photo of a lace edging (p.2 but no graph or English pattern provided), both of which may end up on my current very geometric stole. I’m very pleased with this one. The hand-drawn appendix is an appreciated lagniappe, but it is haunting me. I’m too much of a Pandora not to want to discover how those charts knit up.
Old World Treasures is 35-page leaflet in English, presenting patterns entirely in prose notation in a relatively large 12-point font (fellow bifocal victims, take heed!). The 21 patterns mostly for small motifs knit in the round (in the 40-75 row range), useful for doilies, insertions, cap backs, and the like. Three of the patterns are much larger, with one going up to just over 200 rows, and another appearing to be composed of eight smaller doilies stitched onto a larger separately made complementary center. There are motifs with 4, 6, and 8 sided symmetry. Stitch counts at the end of significant rows are given, which is a help. I’m not a big fan of prose directions, so my first step in working from this book would be to graph up anything I knit from this leaflet. Still, I am sorely tempted to attempt a “flower garden” sampler throw based on the centers of the various motifs presented. To do that I’d select either the 6-side or 8-side symmetry patterns and work them all up to the same row, then stitch them together with some plain (or simple leaf-bearing) motifs to complement their mixed complexity. There’s ample food for thought here.
The last book is Knitted Lace (Kunst-Stricken), also edited by Jules and Kaethe Kliot – a 71-page collection of patterns by Marie Niedner. This is another collection of lacy knitting patterns of German origin, and using another early charting system unique to this particular original author. The designs presented are considerably less complex than the Duchrow ones, and includes a fair number of less-lacy textures. The charts are relatively small, and are not always near the text and illustrations they accompany. The collection includes edgings and insertions (many of which are closely related to patterns in the Walker treasuries), plus a strip sampler collection, several long-armed lace fingerless mittens, a couple of counterpanes, the expected flock of doilies and table spreads, plus bonnets, a couple of lace stoles and lace/beaded drawstring purses, and a couple of blouses/jackets – one of which may be intended for a baby or toddler. One quick idea gleaned from this book is an interesting way to finish out scallop shell motif counterpanes using half-motifs to eke out the left and right edges. While there are some interesting pieces here, this book is of as immediate inspiration as are the other two. Had I been able to browse the contents prior to purchase, I might have opted for the second Duchrow volume, or two more of the Penning-edited leaflets in its place. Still, I am not disappointed, and will be working something from this book. Someday.
On an entirely different front – I’ve mailed off my No Sheep Swap package. I included a ball of one of my favorite non-wool blends, a couple of beaded stitch markers of personal significance, and a vintage pattern magazine from my collection. I hope the package gets where it is going because my downstream swap partner never wrote back to confirm her address or preferences.
INCHING ALONG
Incremental progress on two fronts here at String. First, demolition is now complete. Evil Upstairs Bathroom having been stripped to the studs now finds itself at the very beginnings of build-out. The new larger shower stall has been roughed in, and the electrical work has commenced.
You can see the back side of the lath and plaster hallway walls on the outside of the old wall studs. 1912 was deep in the pre-drywall and wallboard era.
And on the lace shawl, I’m over the half-way mark in constructing the center square. I’ve got only one or two repeats left before my proportions are correct.
I’ve also tinkered a bit with the base pattern, translating it to modern notation and changing the directionality of some of the decreases to sharpen the lines. Since I have changed it somewhat and recharted it, I present the result. Click on the thumbnail below to load a full-size image
The original lacy knitting pattern from The Knitted Lace Patterns of Christine Duchrow, Vol. 1 was presented as part of two complex garment designs – a blouse and a baby bonnet. There are a couple of complementary simple band patterns for cuffs and trim on those projects. Except for the introduction (which provides a helpful translation key for the symbols and some historical German knitting terms), the entire book is in the original German. From what little knitting German I’ve picked up I can tell that even the written parts aren’t quite modern German knitting prose. Like English knitting instruction writing, the conventions in German have changed over time. While I can work from the chart to make my own whatever, it would be an extreme challenge to knit up the blouse as described.
As the editors of this book report, Duchrow was among the first to try to present knitting instructions in graphical rather than prose format. Her graphs are idiosyncratic by modern standards and use letters and symbols rather than visual representations to represent the various stitches, but with a bit of practice her graphs are not difficult to knit from. Even though I can’t read a word of the accompanying text in Vol. I, I’ve ordered a couple more books in the same Duchrow reprint series. If you’re a lace and lacy knitting fiend, you’ll probably have as much fun with Duchrow patterns as I am.
I feel confident I can share the design because I have redacted it into modern symbols, included corrections, and made changes in the pattern as presented. While my graph is recognizable as a variant of the historical one, there are subtle differences. For example, the original graph for this pattern treats all double decreases identically, rather than using directional variants to reinforce the framing diagonals. It also didn’t continue the pattern into the edge areas as uniformly. It also didn’t show the even numbered row. But for all of that, the pattern works up quite nicely even in the original presentation. I share my redaction/correction as tribute to the original author and the editors of this work, to help other knitters bridge from modern instructions to historical ones, and to encourage others to seek out these patterns and knit them without fear.
Interesting conjecture – from the style of the blouse, it would not be a stretch to say that it was current around the time my house was built. For all I know, the original owner may have sat in the library 95 years ago, knitting the same lace patterns I am working from today.
BATHROOM INSPIRATION
I’ve gotten a couple of questions about the bathroom project – in specific, what we’re aiming for. While we’re not doing a historical restoration type true-to-period room, we are taking inspiration from the downstairs bathroom. It’s been less meddled with than the upstairs horror:
The downstairs bath has one-inch white hex tile on the floor, white railroad tile (with high rail detail) on the walls, a very similar stained glass window to the one upstairs, and pedestal fixtures. I especially like the little sitzbath – it’s great for kids’ bird baths or foot washing when you don’t want to fill a bigger tub. Along the way this bathroom has lost its original sink faucets and high tank toilet, but in addition to the mini-tub it still has an extra long full size tub (not in the photo); and a simple built-in wooden storage cabinet. We’ll be replacing the toilet again as part of the current work due to some unfixable slow leaks on the one that’s there. Someday we’ll also do the sink hardware, but that’s small peanuts compared to the awful upstairs. The rest of the downstairs bath works well enough, and is perfect for the house.
The upstairs bath will pick up the white hex floor and railroad tile with high rail look, with the addition of a green pencil line tile just under the rail. That should accent the green in the window. The upper walls will be painted white. We didn’t want to go the restored tub route (weight, mostly plus some cautionary experiences from my earlier days working for an architectural antiquarian), and couldn’t find a new pedestal tub in our price range, so we opted for the plainest white with-feet new tub we could find.
The other big departure from historical accuracy is a vanity stand that’s natural oak color rather than one that’s painted white. It’s a free-standing furniture type piece rather than cabinetry, and will be topped with green stone and an underset white porcelain sink. Since the storage cabinet downstairs is original to the house and has never been painted, maybe the “only white painted woodwork in a bathroom restoration” rule isn’t hard and fast.. Plain brushed nickel finish fixtures with white porcelain butterfly handles round it all out. And we’ve opted to keep the separate shower stall rather than combining the shower with the tub. The new shower will be the same depth but a bit wider than the old one (taking up some of the room previously wasted on the double sink vanity), with a very plain frosted glass door instead of a billowy curtain. We’ll also keep the mini-radiator, but clean it and paint it white.
That’s it. No over the top fancy fixtures, no bowl-mount waterfall sinks or spring rain experiences, no criminally expensive imported tile or lighting, no sybaritic soaking tubs or sauna showers. Just classic stuff, relatively unfussy and congruent with the style of the (mostly) untouched 1912 house. And with luck it will all work well together nicely, be easy to keep clean, and enjoyable to live with.
INUNDATION, DEMOLITION AND TRADING
A hectic past couple of days here at String. First, the website itself was attacked by spammer ‘bots. Between Sunday afternoon and Monday night, they posted over 2,300 individual pingbacks to a collection of specious websites. I’ve been trolling through all past pages here, deleting the references. I think I’ve got them all now, but if you see one, please don’t click on it – let me know instead and I’ll deal with the blasted thing.
The other major event has been the kickoff of our long-awaited upstairs bathroom renovation. We’ve been in this house now about 2.5 years. All that time our upstairs family bath was only partly functional, with poorly functioning plumbing, 1960s-vintage yellow, clammy plastic paneling (impossible to get or keep clean), patched vinyl flooring, hideous pizza parlor hills-of-Tuscany wallpaper, crumbling laminate over particle board cabinetry, and awful mustard fixtures with gold tone faucets. The only nice thing about it was a stained glass window (partly visible in the first shot):
We’ve been plotting and planning to replace the whole lot with something functional, clean, and historical in mood. Yesterday the project began in earnest, with the contractor carefully removing the antique window and door, then gutting the rest. I promise not to make this a home-improvement blog, but if anything interesting happens, I might report it here.
And finally, just before the aforementioned chaos hit I had a happy not-so-surprise. I signed up for the No Sheep Swap. I generally don’t participate in swaps or knit-alongs, but this one sounded like fun. My gracious and generous upstream swap partner (and all-around fascinating person) sent me this package of goodies:
It’s a skein of South West Trading Company’s Pure, a 100% soy silk yarn in happy berry colors, plus an embroidered purse big enough to be used for knitting accessory wrangling. Thank you, Melanie! I’ll post back here after I’ve tried it out.
On the downstream end, I have been waiting to hear back from my assigned recipient, but my notes and card have gone unanswered. I can’t wait any longer because to abide within the rules of the swap, I have to have her package in the mail shortly. I’ll have to pick something out without guidance on color or yarn weight preference, and hope 1) she’s there; and 2) she likes it.
[Aside: Apologies to Dena, who inadvertently was awarded an extra E when I was spelling her name. It stands for “excellent” and being obvious, intruded itself smack in the middle of my orthography. Thanks again for the fantastic lace-weight. I’m pretty sure I have enough, but if I do run out, I will resort to all sorts of begging, pleading, groveling, offering, trading, negotiating and bribery to secure some more.]
BACK FROM SAVANNAH
Back from the conference and trying to catch up, I show off my airplane knitting – the beginnings of the lace shawl I mentioned in my last post.
I’ve pinned it out somewhat so you can see the detail. The lace texture pattern is from Knitted Lace Patterns of Christine Duchrow (Vol. 1). It’s the last one in the book, and is shown as a bodice and a cap. The book itself is in German, with an idiosyncratic (but charted) notation system. Judy Gibson has posted a nice set of hints for working from Duchrow charts for people like me who don’t read German. As far as difficulty, the 34 stitch repeat – though large – is pretty easy to memorize. Once it’s established, the progression is very logical. My piece contains four full repeats plus about 14 edge stitches.
My plan is to work a square of this basketweave pattern, then pick up around the edges and work one or two tiers of patterns outward, mitered at the corner; then finish the entire thing with a knitted on edging. I haven’t chosen the next set of framing patterns yet. By the time I get there, I’ll have figured it out.
As far as the proposal conference went, it was valuable from a couple of viewpoints. First, it turns out that I know more about my subject than I thought. Second, the state of the art has moved on in the last dozen years since I went to official proposal training. I did pick up quite a bit. The next challenge will be to impose the improved structures and tools in the workplace.
In other news – my upstream No Sheep swap partner sent me some wonderful goodies (more on this in the next post), but I have not heard from my downstream receiving partner yet. If I don’t hear tell of her preferences by mid week, I’ll have to pick something out with no guidance on yarn weight or color type. I hope I guess correctly.
And finally, I celebrate another birthday that came and went while I was away at the conference. I was treated to an excellent dinner at Savannah’s Olde Pink House by a dear friend, but also to celebrate, I just ordered myself three more books on lace knitting. Happy birthday, me!
POSTING FROM THE ROAD
Not sure if this will work o.k., but I’ll give it a try.
I’m away from home base this week – attending a professional proposal managers’ conference in Savannah, Georgia. (There is no activity too obscure not to have its own professional association.) Posting will be severely hampered by lack of time and camera until I return.
In the mean time I can say I brought a couple of things to work on. One is a pair of standard socks. The other is the beginnigs of a more or less original lace shawl (more because I’m working it out on the fly, less because the patterns in it will be adapted from existing sources.) I’ve started with an unusual large repeat lacy pattern from a Rachel Schnelling pattern compendium, published in German. I’m using a magnificent tobacco color cashmere light laceweight given to me by long time knitpal Friend Deena. (Hi, Deena!) Pix upon my return. I promise.
String-Or-Nothing 
