DOILY – NOW WITH VISIBLE PHOTO!
[Repost of material originally appearing on 17 August 2006]
O.K. I’ve found a mistake in the FANDUGEN pattern. It appears to be in the original Danish pattern, and is carried through into the uber-accurate translation posted on Nurhanne’s Yarn Over website.
Here’s the original problem line:
Row 61: <- 1 stitch, *K3, yo, sl1, k2tog, psso, yo*
It should read:
Row 61: <- 1 stitch, *Sl1-k2tog-psso, yo, K3, yo*
It’s a simple transposition of the k3 unit and the double decrease. It’s very evident in the photo that accompanies the pattern that the area of small roundels at the top of the tulip like unit contain three little round units, and that the outer two of each triad are finished the same way as the innermost one. If you work the pattern as written, the little circles aren’t finished off nicely with that center double decrease. It just doesn’t look right and the oddness in logic leaps out at the knitter immediately.
Here’s the result so far, schlepped around the house to find something light colored against which to take the photo:
And a detail shot:
Single Crochet
On the UK usage of “single crochet” I admit that it’s very rare today, but it’s not unknown. Especially in historical patterns. If I had the time I’d comb through my collection and find examples. I know that I’ve worked my way through this problem more than once, having made the erroneous assumption that because I saw the term “single crochet” the rest of the pattern’s nomenclature must be American usage. I learned long ago never to say “never.”
DOILY PROGRESS
[Repost of material originally appearing on 16 August 2006]
Miserable excuse for a camera and non-existent photo skills aside, you can see that I’m making good progress on the red doily. I have just completed row 52 of 72, and am beginning to think how I would like to end it off.
The original instructions use a very simple crocheted bind-off, using one single crochet to gather together three knitting stitches, then chaining nine before gathering the next three knits with another single crochet. Two small complications – the instructions are from Europe and with 99% probability conform to UK term standards. That means that there’s a high possibility that the stitch referred to as a SC in the instructions, here in the US (and parts of Canada) is known as a slip stitch. More on this problem here. I’d have to play with both to see which look I like better.
The second complication is a minor one – the photo of the original pattern clearly shows two rounds of the stuff, with the first worked to end off the knit stitches, and the second worked “belly to belly” of the chains formed in the first round. It would also not be a bad guess to surmise that the second round of slip stitch/chain loops uses chain segments that are one or two stitches longer than the previous row. Experimentation would be advised.
Now. Do I stick with the original simple-yet-elegant crochet bind-off solution, or do I do something nutsy like knitting around the thing with a small saw-tooth edging? Only time will tell. That and the final diameter of my piece. The lousy photo? Here:
So far no errors whatsoever, and the pattern has been very easy to follow.
DPN DILEMMA
[Repost of material appearing on 15 August 2006]
I think I’ve hit on one of the reasons so many people despise DPNs: insufficiency of length.
I love DPNs. I use them happily with no problems whatsoever. I have employed up to 15 or so at a time on larger projects for which I had no equivalent circ. And that’s what I thought was going to happen with my red doily. I have about three sets of the unusual 2.5mm size. Give or take for previous losses. 2.5mm sits somewhere between a standard US #1 and US#2. Addi Turbo’s standard equivalent of a US # is 2.5mm (that’s what these are), while most other makers label 2.25mm as a 1. Needle size comparisons across makers here.
My problem is that my 2.5mm needles are stubby, little six-inchers. They’re the only needles I have of that diminutive length, probably bought for glove projects long ago. I normally consider eight-inchers to be the absolutely minimum usable size. I routinely seek out longer ones when I can find them.
My problem with the teeny needles on this project is that I have large hands for a fem. That coupled with too many stitches has meant that I knock the stitches off the butt ends as I work. Yes, I know I could use needle end protectors, or introduce more needles, but I don’t have time to fiddle with point protectors on both ends of 12 needles (I’m up to 12 now). This a new empathy-building experience for me, as I never have this problem. Last night I spent as much time recovering dropped stitches as I did creating new ones. If only I were using needles of my favored length, I wouldn’t be having this ultra-frustrating problem!
Now on to the second half of my dilemma. I don’t have a 2.5mm circ of any length. Nor the time or inclination to track one down. But I do know that I knit more loosely on DPNs than I don on a circ, and i do have an overly long 2.75mm circ. So tonight I knit all my stitches off those little DPNs and onto something safer.
A quick answer to the question about that silver stitch marker in yesterday’s photo. It’s marking the beginning of the round. With 6 or more needles in the work and tiny stitches, plus a pattern that migrates left a stitch or two as it progresses, I find it convenient to idiot-proof my beginning point. Aside from assorting stitches so that the round begins mid-needle it’s impossible to use a standard marker on the end of a DPN round. So I use something slightly different.
When I was on a business trip a while back I happened on the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. I went into a booth selling silver fittings, pieces, and beads imported from India. There I got a bunch of tiny dangles all set with semiprecious stones, plus a half-dozen tiny little silver earrings. The kind that people wear by the half dozen, marching up along the edge of their ears, or through an eyebrow piercing. The whole lot was amazingly inexpensive, even considering that neither the silver nor the gems used are the highest grade. The result:
Stitch markers that can be clipped anywhere I need them. The one shown yesterday is the leftmost of this lot, and one of only three I have left. The others have all gone out into the world as gifts. If I ever get to the gem show again I’m heading back to that tent and stocking up. With luck I’ll help subsidize a village of people who spend their days working on these tiny bits of filigree, and not just the middlemen who haul it across oceans to sell in the desert in January.
PLACEMAT OR DOILY
[Repost of material originally appearing 14 August 2006]
I don’t know if anyone else has “doily emergencies.” but I do. Here’s the problem scenario. Cozy library/TV room, comfy chairs, optimally placed small table just big enough for a wine bottle and two glasses (and a remote or two). But I don’t want to drip all over the new small table.
I suppose I could haul out coasters or adapt one of the dining room placemats. But why overlook a perfectly good opportunity for the application of knitting. So it’s off to the stash to get my massive amount of red lace-weight, left over from Alcazar (rayon but borderline washable and expendable), then hunt down one of Nurhanne’s translations of a traditional Danish doily. Yes, I know. It’s red, not the classic white. But hey. Red won’t show wine spills as quickly.
I end up here. Then cast on and knit a bit. Here’s the result. I’m somewhere north of a third of the way through the rows, on Round 37:
I’ve finished the center star and am at the beginning of the tulip-like shapes that surround it. My piece is about 6 inches across. I chose this particular pattern because there are several good stopping points from a design perspective. I needn’t finish it all the way to the end if my piece is sufficiently wide before then. So far Nurhanne’s translation is spot on. No problems at all.
Still, for domestic consumption, this piece is filed under the category “placemat” not “doily.” It seems less …prissy.
DIGRESSION – BLACKWORK EMBROIDERY
[Repost of material originally appearing 10 August 2006]
My old friend Marian pointed me at a fascinating Web-based resource. The Web Gallery of Art. It’s an on-line (sort of) searchable collection of art images from pre-1800. I’m in the middle of thumbing my way through Renaissance-era portraiture, in part to plain old enjoy it, but also with an eye to the embroidery used on clothing.
Now the few folk who visit here may know that in addition to knitting, I’m a sucker for embroidery. Especially counted embroidery from before 1600. My favorite family of styles is often lumped under the term “blackwork,” and had a popularity run spanning about 100 years or so, until it morphed into other things and/or fell out of fashion for upper-class clothing, sometime between 1600 and 1630. It did however live on through its descendants (most familiarly some of the bandwork common on early samplers) and peasant embroideries of several regions Through these descendants some of blackwork’s substyles have enjoyed little renaissances in the centuries since.
So. What is blackwork?
Not to be facetious, it’s monochrome embroidery worked in black thread on white ground. Most but not all of the time. Non-black or multiple colors were occasionally used. Most people think of it as counted work – embroidery that uses the threads of the ground fabric as a foundation “graph”.. Again, most but not all of the time. Some sub styles are clearly worked on the count. Others may have been, and still others are clearly freehand drawn. Some people are under the impression that there are clearly defined national or regional substyles, with English work being distinct from say German or Italian. Again, that’s partly but not entirely true. If you’re unfamiliar with the basics, The Skinner Sisters website has an excellent survey of Blackwork styles available on line.
Here’s one of the most famous examples of band style blackwork, worked on the count. It’s seen on the sleeves of Jane Seymour, as painted by Holbein in 1536 (you can click on the images in the linked pages to display them in greater detail). Very linear, clearly done both two-sided and on the count in a stitch that today goes by several names – Holbein Stitch, Spanish Stitch, Double Running Stitch. Harder to see (peeking out just above the gold and red units at the edge of the bodice – is a tiny line of blackwork on Catherine of Aragon, painted circa 1525-7 by Lucas Horenbout. Catherine is often said to have introduced the fashion for blackwork to the English court.
Here are heavier outlines, but still very geometric, suggesting a counted ground to me: Pierfrancesco di Jacopo’s Portrait of a Lady, dated to 1530-1535. This one, too – Gentleman in Adoratio nby Giovanni Battista Moroni, dated 1560. Moroni’s Gentleman wears a style that I associate more with English strapwork than embroidery of Northern Italy. To some extent, these styles traveled via printed pattern books and were international.
These suggest work on the count, but possibly in satin stitch rather than double running or another linear stitch. Bernadino Luini’s Portrait of a Lady, 1525. (See. Not all early blackwork is double running!). Also this one – Romanino’s Portrait of a Man, 1516-1519. This is the picture that Marian alerted me to, starting this whole rumination. The regularity of the piece leads me to think “counted.” The angles of the ends of the leaves makes me think “satin stitch” rather than a solid filling done in another method.
This one – Portrait of a Venetian Man by Jan van Scorel (1520) looks very much like cross stitch is used to form the stitched repeat. It’s also done in red. There is no zoomable detail page for it on the website.
Of the most famous types is the inhabited style, in which outlines were infilled with all-over patterns, done on the count. My own forever project is an example of this type, although it’s my own composition and not a repro of a historical piece:
Bettes’ 1585-90 portrait of Elizabeth shows sleeves that are (at least in part) done in the inhabited style (Link via the Tudor Portraits site)
Yet another sub-style, again outlines done freehand (or drawn) rather than on the count, and accented with metal thread work. The most famous again is in a portrait by Holbein – Catherine Howard‘s cuffs, 1541. Here’s another example of freehand outlines but without the infilling geometrics: the shoulder area of Hillard’s portrait of Elizabeth I, 1575-6. Some examples of this subgroup use stippling (tiny scattered stitches) almost like pen-done line shading to provide textural or shadowed interest, or include embellishments like seed beads, pearls, or spangles.
More blackwork using colored threads? Here’s Caterina van Hemessen’s self portrait, 1548. Although tough to see, I’m pretty sure there are red cuffs and collar bands there. Red was the most popular color used after black. (I wish I could see her coif better)
There were other styles, too. All confusingly lumped together under the modern term “blackwork.”
Finally, there are portraits that show things that look vaguely familiar, but not in enough detail to be sure they are related.
- Band stitching, done in gold, with details too small to determine whether it was worked on the count – Jan Sanders van Hemessen’s Woman Wearing Gold, (undated, but the artist lived 1500-1556).
- A small collar worn by a man. Looks vaguely blackwork like, but detail isn’t very clear. Foschi’s Portrait of a Man (1530s)
- Matching(?) bands on chemises of both husband and wife. Lorenzo Lotto, 1523. Possibly freehand.
- More red blackwork? This time possibly on the collar of Charles V’s undershirt, in a piece by Bernaert van Orley, 1519-1520.
- Blackwork on edge of chemise? It’s so light as to be doubtful. Portrait of Jacquemyne Buuck, by Pieter Pourbus, dated 1551
- An all-over design produced by counted black stitching, or some sort of brocade? Hard to tell. Ambrogio de Predis Portrait of a man, dated 1500
QUESTIONS AND SOURCES ON MEDALLION KNITTING
[Repost of material originally appearing on 8 August 2006]
More questions and comments today via eMail.
Do you always use the half-hitch cast-on on two needles for medallions?
No. For octagonal or square medallions predicated on a starting stitch count of 4, or for triangular or hex medallions that start out with 3 stitches, I tend to use an I-cord beginning, working one round of I-cord, then introducing more needles as the work grows. But my I-cord also starts out with half-hitches rather than another, firmer cast-on. I often use the cast-on tail to thread through the half hitch “spine,” drawing up the center purse-string style to make it nice and solid, but not lumpy. The only exception to this is if the center of the medallion is a large hole rather than a solid bit. If the edge of the cast on will be on display because it frames a central hole and structural integrity is key to a neat hole, then I use something more solid – either long-tail or one of the knit-on cast-on family.
I see several sources for learning how to knit lace in the flat, how about a source for the basics on inventing your own in-the-round medallions?
It’s true that analyzing and inventing medallions aren’t as widely addressed as flat lace. Some of the shawl books and specialized Shetland Knitting do go into a quite bit of detail on using lace patterns for center-out, radial increase pieces, but they mostly stick to squares. The most recent edition of Interweave Knits (Fall ’06) has an informative article on what to do if your lacy pattern is interrupted by changing stitch counts – again very useful, but only part of the story. The Lewis Knitting Counterpanes book put out by Taunton gives lots of patterns for medallions, but is rather less useful as a source of hints for designing your own.
In spite of all these great sources, my at-the-elbow source for medallion knitting tips remains the venerable Mary Thomas Book of Knitting Patterns. It’s the companion volume to her Knitting Book. Thomas is one of my personal heroes, both for these books and for her embroidery series. Judith in Oxon in the UK tells me that Mary Thomas grew up in her town, but is now forgotten there. What a shame.
Knitting Pattterns was first published in 1943, and has been in print ever since – most recently in an inexpensive Dover re-issue (pictured above). There’s an extensive on-the-web preview of some content at Google Books if you’re unfamiliar with it (the 1938 Knitting Book preview is also available, current inexpensive Dover edition shown above). For two slim volumes I am constantly amazed at how much info they contain.
The Thomas books bridge the Victorian and post-Victorian era ladies’ pattern magazines, compendiums and encyclopedias of needlework (Weldon’s, de Dillmont) and modern knitting guides (Vogue, Principles of Knitting). Thomas tried to seek out what was offered in conteporary scholarly info on textile history, and to explain some of the more esoteric aspects of craft execution in a non-ambiguous way – targeting an audience interested in process and technique rather than in devised patterns. For example, she was one of the first to use a system of standard block symbols to represent knitting texture and colorwork patterns in graphed format.
Of course nothing is perfect. Her knitting history reflects the state of research at the time she was writing, and is not as devoid of folk myth as is R. Rutt’s, but it’s not bad either. The biggest criticism people have of the Thomas books is of the small illustrations sprinkled throughout. The drawings are by “Miss H. Lyon-Wood, Miss Dorothy Dunmore and Miss Margaret Agutter” and reflect a rather colonial world view (especially of non-Europeans) that today would be considered culturally and racially insensitive. Of all the books, the Knitting Patterns (her last) has the least of these little cartoons, and her earlier works on embroidery, the most. As an aside, it’s also worth noting that Agutter wrote books on cross stitch, crochet and patchwork quilting, and as a respected knitting expert, worked with James Norbury on Odham’s Encyclopaedia of Knitting. I’ve heard rumors that the other two seem to have provided small illustrations and marginalia for several other contemporary books, plus some childrens’ book illustrations, but haven’t been able to confirm them.
Overlooking these flaws, things that recommend Knitting Patterns include sections on all sorts of lesser seen esoterica, including Filet Knitting (knitting in imitation of fliet crochet); picot point knitting (an amazingly fiddly bit of freeform scrumwork to make petal and flower-shaped bits of detached knitting for edgings or raised decoration); and basic steps in medallion knitting geometries. On the whole, given the ubiquity and extreme inexpensiveness of the Thomas books (both can be found used for under $2.00 each), they are useful additions to anyone’s knitting library.
Other sources that delve into the mysteries of knitting medallions in the round include B. Walker’s recently compiled Fourth Treasury of Knitting Patterns, in which a non-traditional approach to medallion knititng is addressed as an offshoot of directional knitting; and unlikely as it sounds – in the standard center-out method, inJudy Brittain’s Bantam Step by Step Book of Needlecraft. I’ve written about the Bantam book before.
MORE TRURO QUESTIONS
[Repost of material originally appearing 7 August 2006]
More North Truro questions from my inbox:
Why are there blue boxes on the hex graph? They’re not in the symbol key.
That’s an example of what happens when you write for yourself, use the same graph oodles of time, and then release it into the wild without doing a due diligence review. I shaded them for myself, as a reminder that those stitches were supposed to be purled because on the first couple of iterations, I’d forget and breeze right over them in stockinette. When I publish a full version of the pattern I’ll remember to kill the blue shading.
How do you cast on at the center of the hex? Your directions just sort of assume that there are six stitching somewhere. How do they get there?
For this particular piece, I usually cast six stitches onto one needle, using a half-hitch cast-on. Then I move three stitches onto a second needle. I hold the two needles like this,
and using a third needle, begin working my rounds, starting with the first stitch I cast on. I’ll introduce more needles as the thing grows, redistributing the stitches (or mentally spanning one side over the spot where two needles meet if required). By the sixth round, I’ll have all seven needles employed (one per side, plus one in the hand).
Do you use the same cast-on for all the units?
No. For the squares and triangles, I do a standard long-tail cast-on, but work it over two needles held together. This introduces a bit more looseness into that first row, which can be impossibly tight in a non-stretchy yarn like my cotton. Credit for this very simple trick goes to my mom, who showed it to me an aeon ago during her initial fruitless attempts to teach a 10-year old me how to knit.
How many hexes did you knit this week?
Sadly, none. It was super hot here last week. I couldn’t bear to knit anything at all. This weekend though I have started in again, easing my way with a sock. Pix as soon as I find my misplaced camera and the batteries to power it.
NORTH TRURO COUNTERPANE – ELEVEN’S THE TICKET
[Repost of material originally appearing on 28 July 2006]
On the North Truro Counterpane, it really is an ideal summer beach project. The pieces are small and quick to finish. I’ve memorized the triangle and square units (I still have to refer to the pattern for the big hex). The soft cotton handles nicely in hot weather. I can sit and knit a pile of pieces during the day, then sew them onto the growing blanket in the evening. Or now that I’m home, I can knit pieces one by one and sew them on as I finish them. Note that I’m not bothering to block these. I suppose I should, but given the sheer number of units, doing so would be unwieldy. In this case laziness wins. As far as my rate of production now that I’m home and back to knitting only an hour or two in the evenings, I’d say that I can complete about one meta-motif in a week. Not a fabulous rate of progress to be sure…
I’m considering posting the graphs for the units here if enough people are interested. It won’t be a finished pattern, as I will not be doing the calculations for yarn consumption needed for various size blankets, nor will I make a yarn recommendation (the stuff I used is an anonymous coned Webs special, roughly between DK and Sport in weight). So having said that – here’s my progress.
Between beach work and finishing up at home (in and around the Baby Surprise and other projects) I managed to complete two more meta-motifs, and start a third. I’ve got eleven now. The blanket is sitting on a 6×8 foot rug, so it’s just about 5.5 feet across its widest dimension. I am still aiming for something to put on my queen size bed (about 7.5 feet x 8 feet) so I’d say I’m a little over a third of the way there.
The biggest drawback of a project like this? No. It’s not that it takes a geological age to finish – even more if you only work on it seasonally like I do. It’s the *)#$-load of ends to darn in after sewing all those pieces together.
With each meta-motif using 13 units (1 hex, 6 triangles, 6 squares), plus one plain triangle between units, so far I’ve got 28 ends x 11 meta-motifs (more or less). That’s 308 so far even though I’ve been leaving tails long so I can use them to sew the motifs together and avoid introducing even more to end off. I’ve not been fastidious about ending them off right away because I do sometimes need to go back and use an available tail for that purpose. Although I’ve been nibbling away at that greater total, I fear that even when I’ve finally finished the thing (invented half hexes and companion units to square off the edges plus a coordinated lace edging to finish all) I’ll still have at least another summer of just darning in before I’m truly done with my Truro.
MORE SURPRISE
[Repost of material originally appearing on 27 July 2006]
After yesterday’s post about the Baby Surprise, Alyse asked if I had any comments or tips on using the pattern as published in Knitters, and whether I’d knit it up before.
I reply that this was my first attempt at a Surprise. I can say that it worked up extremely quickly, and that while how it will all come together was not intuitively obvious at the time of production, once the body was done and I figured out that the single seam on the garment goes across the top of the sleeves and across the back – all doubts were settled.
I think that the proportions of the thing look a little off. If I do another, I’d make it wider across the body. The sleeve width and depth looks o.k., but the body diameter seems a bit skimpy, especially when buttoned. I’d probably do this by adding a few stitches to the center back and to each side prior to starting the sleeve increases.
Uberknits wants to know if I used the white because I ran out of leftover purple and pink, and if the white was Encore, too.
No. I have over 3/4 of a skein of pink left, and about 10% of the purple remaining. I decided to tame the pink/purple with the white and went stash diving to see what I had on hand that was washable and of the same weight. I ended up using some orphaned Canadiana. (There is no such thing as surplus yarn, there is just yarn that is waiting to make it into the next garment). It’s not as soft as the Encore, and it’s just a tiny bit heavier, but not enough to have a major impact on gauge.
As to the proportions of the colors used – since I didn’t have a clear idea of how the thing was going to come together up until after I was half-way through the white, what you see is more serendipity than planning. Still, you can’t go far wrong if you stick to proportions. The pink stripe is half as wide as the buttonhole area of the purple. The mechanics of the pattern itself made the lower purple area come out three times the width of the buttonhole band. The white area to the underarm increases is approximately twice the width of the pink stripe. And when I was nearing the end, I made sure that the final pink and purple stripes (on the cuff) were the same width as the first pink stripe. Overall, in spite of some floppiness of the collar, I’m pleased.
BUBBLING UP FROM THE DEPTHS
[Repost of material originally appearing on 26 July 2006]
So. Where have I been? Between work deadlines; preparing for a family vacation; coming back and having the smallest one hit by a sticky mystery illness (she’s better now); and getting the kids packed off to summer camp, life has been getting in the way.
I can report that we all had a fabulous time doing absolutely nothing on Cape Cod. We mostly enjoyed the beach right at the hotel, took strolls around Provincetown and Wellfleet, kayaked a bit, golfed, read a lot of beach books, saw an unusual production of As You Like It. ate great food, and some of us knit.
I can report that I finished the two quickie sweaters previously reported – one in the fuschia shown, and one in screaming purple. I also did a couple pairs of socks, and started in again on my perennial summer project – my North Truro Counterpane. I’ve got no pix of the sweaters or socks as they all made their way to the intended recipients before I could find time to take snapshots, but I will show progress on the counterpane later this week.
On the two small kidsweaters from the 1,2, Top Down #609 pattern from Cabin Fever – it knit up quickly with no problems in both sizes, and final finishing was a breeze. My only criticism is that the thing comes in just two sizes – 2/4 and 6/8, with the difference between the 2 and 4, and the 6 and 8 being length, not width (2 and 4 share widths, with the sleeves/body of 4 being slightly longer; 6 and 8 work similarly). I knit a 4 and a 6. The 4 looks about right in terms of size, but the 6 will probably be ragamuffin large on the target kid. That’s not a major problem as kids are not known to shrink, and baggy/huge is a cute look on little ones. I’d also note that in both sizes I had more than ample leftovers from my skeins of Encore. Especially in the 6. I did need to crack into that last skein, but just barely so.
Oh. I’ve got one more knit thing to report. Since the two sister sweaters were for two little girls who are about to become bigger sisters to a third daughter, I took the leftovers from their pullovers and knit up a quick Zimmerman Baby Surprise, as described in Knitter’s Magazine’s Fall 1999 issue (#56). I added my own collar to the thing. Please don’t ask me how I did it. All I can say is that far too much local Chardonnay and beach air intervened, so no notes were taken and memory is hazy.
String-Or-Nothing 
