Scholarly & Acquisitive Knitbabble

[lwood]

Covered:

• Squooshy foam rubber mats in interlocking tiles for your floor, either to exercise, bounce babies, or...okay, block your knittin'.


• Books for to purchase to do research for OT III--by which I mean, books on knittin'.

Ergo! If you do not knit, you might not want to have clicked.

---

Interlocking Foam Mats.

When one knits with natural fibers, one must then take the result, wash it with lovingkindness, s-t-r-e-t-c-h it out to the specified size, and then conspire to keep it that way 'til it dries, typically with some medieval-looking arrangement of pins and wires.

Heretofore, I've been doing this by the simple expedient of nicking all the large towels in the house, then pinning through them and into the carpet and pad below, but countgeiger is less than fond of the part where he has no towels with which to dry himself after his shower--and I suppose I can't blame him. The Yarn Harlot may--in print!--but I may not, as lo, I like a bit of towelling-off myself.

So, once we determined that knitting is not just a sometime habit in my world, it was time to get some sort of dedicated arrangement together that didn't involve denuding the bathroom.

Speak not to me of your blocking boards, which are unwieldy and unitasking. Instead, the wide world of knitblogging comes, as it does now and again, to the rescue, with the idea of using interlocking foam rubber mats. At 2'x2' (4 ft²/0.37 m²), I can set out as many or as few as I need for a project, although I have to admit, I kinda wince at the fact that to get enough mats to lay out the 74" diameter Cap Shawl whose border nears completion, I'm going to have to get sixteen of the damn things: getting nine, for a square six feet on a side, falls short, and it's not like I can fudge as the damn thing, as a nonagon, is pretty darn round.

Well, at least they come in pretty colors, and at the end of it I can lend them to Greyhaven for lounging areas at parties, or emergency crash space or, um, something.

Research Materials for Our Troth III.

Scholarly Rearch
For the Nordic Knitting Conference in Seattle just after my birthday, I've got multiple motives: one, it's hands-on research for Our Troth III: The Search for Shope Heathen Crafts, and another, hey, I get to scratch scholarly, religious, social, and crafty itches all at once. Who could not love that sort of efficiency, I ask you?

Thus, I have Planning to do, starting with research materials:

• History of Hand Knitting, A by Richard Rutt.


• Annotated Bibliography on Hand Knitting with an Historical Introduction, An, by Virginia Snodgrass Gifford.


• Sacred History of Knitting, The, by Heinz Edgar Kiewe.

At least, that's what shows up on a History--Knitting subject search on good old MELVYL, which means I can whistle them up here at work. Er. As soon as I pay up the overdue fines that accrued from misreading a few due dates. The Bibliography may turn up some more books as a follow-up, but the word is that the History does quite well at being what it says. Of these, only History is in print and available for purchase.


Practical Application
Then, of course, there's the other side: what to do with it once I've got it. As I suspected given the Dís of Knitting (and don't think I won't call her that in the book), the press she founded has several applicable books.

Including a whole Scandinavian Knitting section.

Thus, good little fangirl that I am, in this section I should start with books written by people whose classes I've signed up for at the conference:

• Annemor Sundbø, teaching "Norwegian Traditional Design". Here's her bio, nicked fresh from her website:
  

  Annemor Sundbø (born 1949) is a textile designer and teacher of weaving. She owns and operates a knitting workshop ”Ose Ullvare” in Setesdal, about 110 km from Kristiansand, Norway.
  
  She ran the last remaining shoddy factory in Norway, Torridal Tweed og Ulldynefabrikk, from 1993 to 2006. The products were made of recycled wool. It all started in 1983 when Annemor wanted some experience in a small scale woollen mill. The owner agreed to train her on one condition … Annemor had to buy the factory first!

  
  She has written these two three books:
  
  

  Translated by Amy Lightfoot. Everyday Knitting: Treasures from a Ragpile. ISBN 82-994657-1-0.

  This is the results of Annemor's plunge into the rag pile of her "new" factory, so it's going to be a good historical resource as well as source of inspiration for future projects.

  
  

  Translated by Carol Huebscher Rhoades. Invisible Threads in Knitting. ISBN 82-994657-3-7.

  Hint: By "Invisible Threads", here, she's not talking about nylon monofilament. More threads of association. Y'know, wyrd. ;) This one apparently connects knitting and folk culture, so I'd jolly well better buy this one too.

  
  

  Translated by Amy Lightfoot: Setesdal Sweaters, The History of the Norwegian Lice Pattern. ISBN 82-994657-2-9

  The "lice" pattern (no, not the world's most appealing name) is traditional, Norwegian, and is that one where you have a big field of one color (traditionally black) with occasional single-stitch ticks of a contrasting color (usually white). The two-yarn technique was done to make warmer sweaters, and being endlessly and elaborately decorative was a way to enrich the trousseau. I've yet to do an adult sweater, and this one isn't as directly related to the research angle as the other two; it'll come last.



• Marilyn van Keppel--she doesn't have her own books, but she's translated several, and both the originals and translations are available via Schoolhouse Press, in their lace section. These are:
  

  Bundanaurriklaedid aka Faroese Knitting Patterns: Knitted Shawls tr Marilyn van Keppel

  Nineteen patterns, in the original Faroese, and an article about the history of the knitted shawl on the Faroe Islands.

  
  

  Þríhyrnur og Langsjöl aka Three-Cornered and Long Shawls, by Sigridur Halldórsdóttir, trans Marilyn van Keppel

  Another translation, this one of a "near-legendary" Icelandic book.

  
  Now, this lady designs things I actually enjoy knitting...nom nom nom...
  
  So that's what's entwining itself around my autumn; you?
  
  -- Lorrie

Comments

Re: You're in for It Now, Missy!

[walkyrja.livejournal.com]

Oh and PS? PUre's vinyard green is making my mouth water...

Re: You're in for It Now, Missy!

[walkyrja.livejournal.com]

I like the cream color :)

Re: You're in for It Now, Missy!

[lwood.livejournal.com]

HOnestly? That was my favorite, but I seemed to recall you liked green & purple together, so.

-- Lorrie

Re: You're in for It Now, Missy!

[walkyrja.livejournal.com]

I like green and purple together, but not *those* purples with *that* green.

Re: You're in for It Now, Missy!

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Got it.

-- L

Pleasant Yarns for Peaceable Pattys...

[lwood.livejournal.com]

A heavily cabled thing looks best in all one color, and unless one is aiming for a specific effect, it's best to use all one sort of yarn for a project. So, if I were going all cablecrazy, and were not going to use the author's suggestion of Rowan's Calmer (which is in almost wholly pastels, and neither you nor I are pastel people), it'd be Vineyard Green all the way.

However, from what I've seen so far, the world of Knordic Knitting (Knitheim?) revolves around either:

• Keeping you warm through the winter through stranded knitting: two strands of yarn all around means you stay warm.


• Gorgeously frothy lace that might keep one warm if it's only chilly, and otherwise is sold to silly people in warmer climates.

Leaving aside frothy lace for the moment, because at that point silk and Sea Silk (70% wormspit, 29.5% recycled trees, 0.5% seaweed) are where I would go with you, all those fun patterns kinda want two colors. And, Knowing Our Patty as we do, purple comes to mind, but I'm also passing fond of cream (which they call snow...silly Southwest people who know not snow!) and gold.

So, here's the Vineyard snuggling up with, in order, Snow, Marigold, and Rapture:



And the rest--I don't think "Sweet Lavender" can stand up well to the green, that Vivid Viola is too red to play nice, but Wistful would work if you couldn't deal with Rapture:

Re: Pleasant Yarns for Peaceable Pattys...

[walkyrja.livejournal.com]

I say snow or marigold, myself. The other purples just don't click right for me. I do loves me the cream, that might be best as an accent color rather than an interwoven one, if that makes sense. Vinyard and marigold, methinks, would work best if woven together (two strands atta time, yis?)

Re: Pleasant Yarns for Peaceable Pattys...

[lwood.livejournal.com]

From the outside, one sees either green or cream, depending on what I knitted on the outside. Thus, one has the choice of "mostly green but with pretty things picked out in cream" or "mostly cream with pretty things picked out in green"--I ween you'd want the former.

From the inside, where I am making and you are wearing, two yarns duck in and out of each other in a pas à deux throughout the sweater, or at least throughout the bits that feature color work. One thread is knitted, the other is "carried" along the back: passing along without being knitted. If a carried thread is left wholly to its on devices for more than a few stitches, it will sag and snag, so it is necessary to either twist one yarn around the other or just knit the other color for even one stitch.

This latter gives you sweaters like the one on the cover of this book, which is on my to-buy list:


I already know a bit about cables (that is, when ropy bits stand up from the fabric and twine around each other like braided snakes), so you, O Guinea Pig, get strandwork for your research sweater--if I needed to research cable techniques, I'd get a bazillion skeins of just green instead. 8-)

This page (http://www.eunnyjang.com/knit/norwegian_jacket/) demonstrates both techniques alongside a lot of daunting prose and charts.

Bored yet? ;)

-- Lorrie

Re: Pleasant Yarns for Peaceable Pattys...

[walkyrja.livejournal.com]

Not bored but it is sounding a lot like physics to me. In other words...mostly green with cream bits in is fine, thankyouverymuch.

Oh and you need to email me with your current mailing address. Updating my Outlook and it still reads the HobbitHouse.

Re: Pleasant Yarns for Peaceable Pattys...

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Not bored but it is sounding a lot like physics to me. In other words...mostly green with cream bits in is fine, thankyouverymuch.

Then that's what you'll get. ;)

Oh and you need to email me with your current mailing address. Updating my Outlook and it still reads the HobbitHouse.

*snork* That's two houses ago. Will fix ASAP.

-- Lorrie