WORKING REPORT – FILET OF DRAGON
More progress.
I’m only three rows from being done with this side panel, so I turned my attention to figuring out how to join the top and bottom strips. I think I’ll end up doing something like this:
I’ll be working this strip the long-narrow direction, joining it to the side of the existing piece. I think the joins will be visible if you know to look for them, but they shouldn’t be too distracting because except for the first two and last two rows of the piece, the column of meshes thatis being attached are all filled in, and any additional heaviness should be visually lost in that solid line.
In the mailbag I had a couple of questions on why I thought that filet crochet is clunky and heavy looking. The people whowrote thought my piece was anything but. However, to me filet isheavy by comparison to Lacis – the style it emulates.
Lacis is worked by darning in the meshes on a hand-knotted net background. You start with a netted ground, then with needle and thread, weave in the meshes that need to be worked solidly. There’s a wonderfully arcane logic to designing one’s path of stitching so as to minimize ends. If you like themental excerciseof working double-sided blackwork or cross stitch, you’d really enjoy Lacis. For delicacy though, filet crochet just can’t compare:
This photo is froma photo catalog of household and decorative arts held by the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. The book is in Russian and French, published in 1974. It identifies this piece as being Italian, 16th century, but says very little beyond that.
To my amateur eyes, it looks like this piece of lace was cut down for re-use, because not only are motif roundels rudely interrupted, both the tape at the top and the applied needle lace lappet edge at the bottom are sewn on to roughly cut edges that in some places slash meshes in half. Even so, look at the extreme contrast between the darned solid bits and the spiderlike open areas formed by ever-so-thin single thread mesh ground. Now THAT’S delicate! You can also see yet that the use of the borders and centralpanel areais yet another bit of inspiration that stewed around beforethe idea for mydragon curtain was birthed.
This designs in this particular pieceare on my "to-do" list to graph up for Ensamplio Atlantaea. My postulated but not yet realized sequel to The New Carolingian Modelbook. Little things are holding up that production – like the lack of a good graphing platform, not having a publisher, that so many other people are now plowing the same turf and I don’t want to repeat material others have issued.
How did I lay hands on the Russian decorative arts catalog? It’s amazing what you can findin the damaged goods deep-discount boxes at some Cambridge, Massachusetts used book stores.
MELTING
It’s hot and I’m melting. I’m glad I’m working with cotton on my filet project, as the thought of even the lightest, smallest woolen project in 90-degree F humidity makes me twitch. Work continues on several fronts. I’ll have more Dragon postings tomorrow or Tuesday.
Lightning Strikes
Right now though, I’m busy writing up the Summer Lightning lace scarf pattern for inclusion on wiseNeedle. Here it is again:
If I miss an odd day or two here and there on the blog, it will be because my web-time quota is being used up drafting out this pattern. I’ll post again when it goes "prime time." Once it’s up, I’ll enjoy hearing from people who try it.
Since I’m (obviously) not in this for the massive bucks,readingabout the fun people have with my stuff is my prime reward.Seeing pix of it is even morenifty.I was ultra tickled to see this hat adapted from Knot a Hat by Australia’s ZenKnits, back in June. There’s a nifty armwarmer on I’d Rather be Knitting, also back in June that used the doodle cable I posted here on String. I’ve also heard from a couple of people who have used the Mountain Laurel counterpane pattern and my various sock patterns. In fact, if you’ve knit something from one of my designs I’d be delighted to show off your work. Feel free to write to meso we can discuss file formats and the like.
Eye Candy
In the general eye candy department, I stumbled across this knitted pin ball. It’s an egg-shaped pincushion, knit in silk and dated 1801. It’s offered for sale by an antiques dealer specializing in samplers. Given the excellent condition I’m not surprised at the high price, but it makes me wonder. Did Elizabeth Searle ever envision her humble gift of friendship lasting out the years? 200 years from now will any of our works be offered up to avid collectors?
WORKING REPORT – MORE FILET
Still plugging away on the dragon:
Thanks to my friend Kathryn Goodwyn (who many of you may know from historical needlework mailing lists as Kathryn Newell) I’ve got a couple of ideas on how to do a surrounding border in filet. Unfortunately several of the methods can’t be backwards engineered at this point, but the core concepts are very strong.
One very promising method she sent to me involves working stepwise at the corners, forming a piece mitered more or less on the diagonal. I played with it a bit last night, and found that my rather squished ratio of height to width for my meshes doesn’t behave nicely with the concept. Plus I’d need to rip back the end bits and start them again. More tinkering is in order because this technique has real potential, but I think I’ll settle for butted strips on the top and bottom.
I have to admit, when I started this piece it seemed like a long slog was ahead. While it has taken longer than I anticipated, I’ve enjoyed the processmore than I thought I would (I was rather product-centered at the outcome). I’m definately thinking of doing more with filet – perhaps combining it with knitting into garments.
General Questions:
I know there are knitting purists out there that recoil in horror at the thought of knitting patterns/mags including crochet, let alone combining the two crafts in the same piece. I’m less parochial in my views. Would you be interested in wearable pieces that combine both? I’m talking delicate and fine gauge stuff, as opposed to some granny-square travesties I’ve seen lately.
With all the blather about quick-to-knit and one weekend pieces, is there interest infiner gauge, greater effort projects? Or is everyone interested in producinghats, scarves,or felted bags that can be finished before the credit card bill carrying the yarn charge arrives? Is thecohort of new and returning knittersthat started with those projects ready to "graduate" to larger efforts?
YARN ACQUISITION ALERT
Schoeller-Stahl Big
I know I have a strict no-endorsement policy on wiseNeedle. But this is my blog and I’m totally unpaid in all accounts.
I’m not a big on-line yarn orderer. I’ve got to fondle the stuff myself. However many people have written to me to ask where they can get Big – the yarn that my Firefighters Socks pattern was written for.
Bigwas originallya Stahl yarn, it’s now listed as Schoeller-Stahl, but it looks like the same stuff.Big has beenhard to find. Sohard in fact that I thought it was totally discontinued. Itjust so happens that today it popped up on Elann.com. [More yadda, yadda – no affiliation, etc.] If you’ve been looking for it and your LYS wasn’t able to supply the need, you might consider looking there.
ROMILLY AND NOT (GADGETS – BREAD TAGS)
Firefighters Socks
Several people wrote to ask where they could buy my Firefighters Socks pattern. You can’t buy it. No one can. It’s not for salebecause I give it away free at my wiseNeedle website. The links here (and in yesterday’spost) will take you directly to it. It’s written for worsted/heavy worsted yarn, and if you’ve never done toe-up socks with a Figure-8 toe or short-rowed heel, being at such a large gauge is a good pattern for a first attempt.
Romilly-les-Chaussettes
Thank you to everyone who wrote to say that thepostcards I posted yesterday were printed around WWI. I thought that was rather obvious, so I didn’t bother to note it. Most of the others on the site I mentioned were of the same vintage, with a smattering of earlier and later cards.
And a BIG thank-you to Spinnity, who was intriged enough by the sock card to comb through history sites (in French) to find out more about Romilly and its curious link to socks. She left a nifty comment. I’ll summarize her theories:
Romilly was a center of sock manufacture, with at least two large factories nearby producing socks and stockings. This line of regional specialty continues to at least March of this year, when Jacquemard, a major sock factory, closed. The town apparently has had the name “Romilly-les-Chaussettes” (Sock Romilly) for a very long time. Here’s her link detailing the passing of Jacquemard mills(for some reason it didn’t come through on her comment post): in French; in machine-mangled English.
Here’s another Romilly-les-Chaussettes postcard:
Again we see the stripes passing north and south of the heel. But the heel isn’t a short-rowed one of the type often seen on machine-made socks. It has a wide heel flap that wraps around the entire back of the foot, then a cupped bottom area. It looks like after the heel unit is finished, stitches are picked up along the heel’s foot-side edge, and the foot is continued tube-like from that point, incorporating live stitches from the top of the foot.
Apparently the tradition continues. I found mention of at leasttwo more sock factoriesstill in operation in the area around Romilly surSeine (Olympia, Aube Chaussettes); plus in true French fashion – a regulatory board or committee overseeing standards of manufacture and appelation.
Not in France Anymore
Having had a brief whirl through France, I turn to something that causes shudders of horror in every visitor I’ve ever had from that land: American packaged bread. Well, not the bread itself, but the little plastic tags used to close the bags. Continuing the series on indispensible but free knitting gadgets, I put forth the humble bread tag:
What use are they? Well, you can write on them then clip them onto things.
Have you ever been working on a garter stitch piece and forgotten which is the front? While you could remember that the front is the side that has the cast-on tail at the right or left (depending on your method of casting on), I for one can never get that straight. A bread tag with an “F” on it, placed on the front of the work can be a lifesaver.
Need to track the point where something tricky has happened? Bread tags can mark armhole decreases, sleeve increases, buttonhole locations, and the like. They attach firmly to your work, and rarely fall off. Safety pins work well, too but the coils of standard safety pins can get tangled in the knitting yarn, and not all of us have the fancy coil-less safety pins sold in knitting and quilting shops to hand.
I’ve used them for marking yarns in my stash. If I’ve swatched, I’ll scrawl the acheived gauge and needle size on a tag and affix it to the ball. I’ve used them to identify or otherwise mark swatches submitted to pattern publishers as part ofmy designproposals.
Bread tags arefree and completely disposable. You can break them to remove them from your knitting, and not feel you’re tossing away a good tool. (In my house at least they are a constantly-renewing resource and rank up there with wire hangers and AOL CDs.) They also come in lots of colors – good for any color coding scheme you wish to devise.
In a non-knitting mode, I’ve also found them very useful for marking the cables that plug into my routers. I know know exactly whom I am disconnecting when one gets unplugged, even if the shout of dismay wasn’t audible.
Finally, I know people who use them to mate socks before laundering. A bread tag through the toe keeps the pair together, andavoids thatdreaded One Sock Syndrome.
So if you’re looking for a way to make in-work/on-work notations, don’t pass up this humble resource. After all, it’s not like you have to rush out to buy some.
GOODIE ALERT – TRADITIONAL SCANDANAVIAN COLORWORK
Each week Dover books sends out several sample pages of (mostly) kids’ books as come-hither advertising. This week’s freebies include four pages of illlustrations from Sheila McGregor’s Traditional Scandanavian Knitting. They offer up two pages of colorwork photos, and two pages of small graphed patterns for Setesdal jerseys. You canleaf through all four image sets here.
These samples only stay up for about a week, so if you’re tuning in later than the beginning of September, you’re out of luck.
INSPIRATION – HISTORICAL NEEDLEWORK POSTCARDS
In answer to yesterday’s questions – yes, the two sleeves of the Sad Little Object are very different. Plus one is fully seamed front and back, and the other is only fastened to the front. Even so, themeasurement across the upper arm on the sleeve on the right (the skinny one) is two inches narrower than the measurement across the same spot of the one on the left. Truly a disturbing little piece… I will however save it as a cautionary lesson. Perhaps just seeing the mismatched upper sleeve colors will scare someone into springing for that extra "insurance skein" the next time they make a closely esitmated yarn purchase.
Needlework postcards
I was out web-walking late last night and ran across some amusing offerings. Please excuse me if I’ve linked to these in some sort of etiquette-violating manner. I’ve got two impulses here – the first is not to unduly burden someone else’s server; the second is to respect their ownership of these materials by not duplicating their files on this site. That being said, here aresome nifty bits. They’re part of a collection of vintage postcards being offered for sale by Postcardman, a collector. [No affiliation, yadda, yadda]. The site is being hammered right now because it was mentioned on Boing Boing (where I found it), so both patience and coming back later might both be in order if the images are slow in retrieving. UPDATE: I’ve gotten so many notes already asking for me to post these directly that I’ve done it.
First, here’s one that makes me want to sharpen my historical investigative skills:
Why was this Romilly, France associated with these socks? Anyone know? It’s also interesting that the stripey ones look a lot like Regia Mini Ringel if one did toes and heels in a contrasting color. Plus there may even be more than one working method shown. The yellow heeled pair and the gray pair with the apricot/brown toes/heels look like they’re worked similarly. But the blue/yellow stripey pair in the center looks a bit different. Examine the way the stripes terminate even with the heel on the yellow toed pair. They don’t do that on the center one. That one looks a lot like the short-row heel socks I make from Ringel, with the stripes "splitting" around the whole heel unit.
Then there’s this one. If you’re more musical than I, please enlighten us all on the nature of this little knitting song. (The image is too big to post conveniently, so you’ll have to click on the link.)As far as translating the lyrics, I get something like:
Song of the Needles
Knit, needles of France
Start ?
Knit with martial cadence
For the heros, the sons of France
Who fight and die down below
Countrywoman or grand city lady
In salons and in ??
Knit the same wool
Without knowing whomyou will clothe.
It goes on from there to speak of fears for the loved ones, that all should undertake this work in the hour of fraternal/patriotic spirit, and ends up with
Inch by inch, stitch by stitch
We repel the German forces.
Everyone is onthe battlefield,
Needles of France, go forth!
Of course my French is mighty rusty, so if anyone else makes more sense out of the thing, please let us know.
Other curious needlework and knitting related cards include Socksof the French Soldier:
The big caption works out to something like "My tools and army-provided kit." Again, if you can get this photo to load, look at the way the socks are made, with a ribbed top and top of the instep; a heel of a different texture, and what I suppose is a stockinette foot part, ending in a pointed rather than grafted toe. It even looks like the stockinette foot part is of a lighter weight yarn. The strings at the end of the toe aren’t there because the knitter forgot to end them off. They were deliberate additions, intended to make keeping a pair together and hanging them out to dry easier.
There are also quite a postcards having to do with embroidery, spinning, weaving,sheep, and more. The knitting ones came off a miscellanous textiles grouping.
Again, apologies if these pix don’t load. The links are VERY slow. You may wish to save them to look at later when traffic has subsided somewhat.
CHEST OF KNITTING HORRORSTM – NOT MY PROBLEM
Remember I wrote about a trove of patterns from the ’50s and ’60s, given to me by someone here in town who knew I was interested in knitting? Well that priceless box was accompanied by the remnants of yarn stashes she had picked up at local yard sales. It was a huge bag, mostly ’70s vintage acrylics, andis now destined for charitable donation. Schools in particular are always happy to receive acrylics for weaving and crafts projects. Other causes I’ve donated to include groups knitting for Project Linus; local elder care day centers and residential homes; and groups associated with hospitals and animal rescue leagues.
Buried in the bottom of the yarn bag were a couple of sad little UFOs (unfinished objects). This one in particular is worthy of inclusion in someone’s Chest of Knitting HorrorsTM for many reasons:
First, lest you think I’m picking on some poor unfortunate unknown knitter, I really do feel sympathy for her (or him). I do think though that the best purpose this toddler-size piece can serve is as an object lesson because it embodies SO many problems.
Yarn Choice. You can’t touch this item, but if you could you’d be surprised at how coarse and scratchythis yarn is for an acrylic. It’s a standard Aran weight of the type that gauge creep in the lower priced yarn bracket is now calling "worsted." However, the hand is harsh and stiff, especially for a little kid’s sweater.
Yarn amount. Yup. You spotted it. The knitter ran out of the original yarn and tried to use another yarn to finish the top of the raglan sleeves and to seam the piece together. This second yarn is VERY different in color and gauge from the first.
Gauge. The yarn should probably be knit at around 4.5 to 5 stitches per inch, especially for a design with embossed patterning like these bobbles. It’s knit at a very uneven 3.75 to 4 stitches per inch. On the inside of the (mostly) reverse stockinette body you can see the giant gaps left by unevenly worked knit and purl rows. The purl rows are MUCH looser and gap.
Texture pattern. Although all the bobbles look to be there, they are not all formed in the same way. The knitter apparently forgot to do the extra bulk-building rows on about a third of them. In others she or he forgot to do the closure stitch that gathers the thing together neatly, opting instead to drop the stitches or put them on a holder, then go back later and do the gathering with a needle and thread.
Garment pattern. I don’t have the original pattern for this piecein the box of goodies, so it’s tough to say how off it really is. Thelength and width are about right for a 4-T/size 5 kid’s sweater, although the sleeves are a bit short for that size. The front and back however are of different lengths, even without taking the neckline cut into consideration. I haven’t counted row by row, but it does look like the knitter forgot a couple of rows after the ribbing on the front. There’s something screwy going on in the raglan decreases, too as the sleeve raglan areas are three inches longer than the front or back.
Knots. Everywhere two strands of yarn meet, they’re tied together in a loose knot, and clipped about a half-inch away from the knot. Even if you wanted to untie the knots and end off the danglers properly, you couldn’t as there isn’t enough left to darn in.
Seaming. The seams are sewn haphazardly, with no attempt to match sides, stitches, or pattern. In some spots, they’re just overcast (in the contrasting color yarn). In others they are back-stitched. In a couple of places, an attempt was made at Mattress Stitch, but it was done inside-out so that the seam allowance ended up on the outside of the work. The extra length of the raglan areas on the sleeves were squished down to fit on the shorter raglan areas of the front and back.
Spill. Again, you can see the color variation on the unseamed sleeve. I don’t know what spilled on the piece (possibly bleach), but there are discolorations up and down that sleeve. It also smells terribly of mildew.
Now I have no idea whether this piece was produced by the lady whose box of vintage patterns I received. I rather suspect not, as the piece doesn’t belie skills commensurate with her level of interest. It might be a kid’s project, rescued by Grandma and lovingly stored away in spite of its flaws. It might have been a beginner’s first sweater, abandoned but never tossed that eventually ended up in a yard sale. Whatever the provenance, you have to agree it’s a bittersweet little piece. I have no idea what I should do with it. The yarn can’t be saved (even if I wanted it); the piece is unfinishable. Perhaps I’ll stow it away to illustrate Things That Go Wrong when I teach. I have to admit, I am tempted to toss it.
Moral of the story: Buy enough yarn; work hard to get gauge; follow the instructions; seek out help for the hard spots, like seaming if you’re not sure how to go about them; and don’t be afraid to rip back and start again.
WHERE AM I?
Sorry guys. No substantive post today. I’m busy lugging my stash back from the storage cubby to install it in the new house. Nothing will get in the way of this reunion. Not blogs, not lunch, not children (well, if they whine enough, I’ll stop to feed them).
Stash count: six Rubbermaid-style storage containers of assorted left-overs and conserved yarns, plus one plastic traveling file bucket full of socks-to-be.
Aside: Through mailing mix-ups, I find myself posessed of one extra copy of this past summer’s Piecework Magazine. If you live somewhere that Piecework isn’t common (say, in another country); and wish to trade a local knitting or needlework magazine for it, please let me know. The local mag needn’t be in English. LATE BREAKING NEWS: The mag has been claimed and will be winging its way to Belgium by the end of the week.
WORKING REPORT – DRAGON’S RETURN
It seems like I can’t please everyone. Either people write and ask to ask why I’m ignoring knitting, or people write to ask if I’m still working on the crocheted dragon panel. I am – and here are my results to date:
I’m chugging along through the right hand border, still not quite sure how I’m going to manage attaching the top and bottom strip. I have however gotten several notes of encouragement, not the least of which was from my old friend (and crochet expert) Kathryn Goodwyn. I’ll keep plugging along and report what tangled thought processes I encounter along the way.
Ugly Ducks and Eye Candy Avalanche
Other questions have come in about my needlework and my duck confit. A couple of people have asked when I get all of this done. I point out that I’ve got the advantage of being able to dig up stuff I’ve done over many years. You see it all tossed up here now, but much of what I’ve shown isn’t recent production. The red yoke is from the mid-70s. The strip sampler is about 10 years younger than that. The blackwork sampler is from 1983. The putter cover is from the late ’80s. The lobster sweater is three years old now. Eventually I’ll run out of this type of stuff and things to write about it all, but for now I’m still armed and dangerous.
On the duck, we’ve done it several times now. Usually some time in the spring or summer we’ll stumble across a special on fresh ducks. We’ll bring two home and plan our Ugly Duck Dinner. Why Ugly? Because we take the brace of ducks and remove the thighs and legs, leaving ugly, partially hacked carcasses. We heavily salt and pepper the lower extremities and put them in the fridge for a day or two. Meanwhile, we cook the rest of the duck. Depending on the season and what we feel like doing, we either leave the hacked carcasses whole, steam them then roast them tofinish; or we split them, steam them, then barbeque them. The steaming serves two purposes – first, it’s a great way to melt off tons of fat. If you didn’t steam them first, barbequeing would end up as a general invitation for the fire department because all that fat would lead to severe flare-ups and burned meat. Second, it makes the ducks – usually not as tender as chicken – meltingly soft.
Once the fat is steamed off the ducks, we save it for the confit. To do this right, we usually end up using all the fat from the two ducks, plus a bit renderedfrom previous ducks or geese that we’ve stored in clean jars at the back of the fridge. We take the legs and thighs and pat off some of the salt. Then we put a little bit of fat in a cast-iron Dutch oven, and lightly brown them in a single layer, skin side down. After that we completelycover them with the reserved fat, turn down the heat and let them simmer in the barely bubbling fat for about an hour and a half, until they are soft. While they’re still warm, we put the legs and thighs into scalded jars (dried off, off course), then pour in the fat to cover.
The resulting jars of duck and fat then sit in the back of the fridge (or freezer) until mid-winter. Some time in the cold months we get a yen for cassoulet, which is nothing more than a fancy version of beans and hot dogs. In our case it’s small white beans, tasty smoked sausage, and some of our preserved duck. Add friends, a crusty crumb topping, some crunchy bread, and several bottles of wine and I guarantee you’ll find the effort well worth the trouble. This year we’ll be toasting to Julia, without whom we would never have attempted such nonsense, nor have learned how much fun it can all be.
String-Or-Nothing 