Knititude

Old News

Deadline knitting isn't good news for the blog, which I why I have some old news to share today.  I worked up a design for some stranded knitting awhile back, and knit up a swatch, but never got around to posting photos.  As you can see, the colors in my paper pattern are definitely not quite accurate, and--I was a little surprised to see--the motifs look taller and narrower in the swatch.  The boxes on the paper pattern are stitch shaped-- wider than they are tall-- so apparently the stitches in the swatch are more square than I thought they would be (and in fact the gauge is 12 sts/11 rows to 2 inches).  I wonder if this is typical of stranded knitting or whether this means that the tension on my floats is too high?  (Anyone?)

As for the colors, I like the combinations in  both of the large motifs-- the orange and the blue/green bands-- and I like them both with the narrow motifs.  But I don't think I like the large motifs together:  the bright orange and the muted green just don't do it for me.  And I've already used up a precious ball of that green to make swatches for a submission to Vogue Knitting*, so that is the band that will require major color re-mixing.  Once I re-mix the colors, redraw the motifs so they don't come out so vertically stretched (especially the lower one), and fiddle with the background bands so they blend more subtly, I'll be ready to try another swatch.

Could take awhile.

*WHICH they accepted for their Fall 2008 issue; woohoo!

Putting the "Isle" before the "Fair"

It's been a long time--years--since I've done any stranded knitting, and since last fall the urge to try it again has been waxing and waning--but mostly the former.  Late last fall, I paid a visit to the Educational Silk Museum of Como (Museo didattico della Seta); Como was a major center of silk fabric production, from the early 1800s until just a few decades ago.  Although the silk throwing machines ("throwing" is the process which combines individual silk filaments into usable thread) and the damask weaving looms, with their punch-card controlled jacquard mechanisms (the cards reminded me of the punch cards for an old player-piano), were fascinating, my imagination was fired by the printing blocks and rollers on display.

And then there were the paintings I saw on the interior walls of a church we visited in Budapest, with gorgeous combinations of colors and simple- to-complex repeating motifs.  So over a period of several months I worked up a few stranded designs; although I want to stick to the Fair Isle custom of only using two colors per row, and will probably follow some of the traditional Fair Isle principles for using color, it probably wouldn't be accurate to call them true Fair Isle designs.  And then they sat on my computer for more months while I worked on other projects.

Finally, over the summer, I noticed that WEBS had put Classic Elite Skye Tweed on sale, and I remembered that I had four balls of that yarn which I had purchased with a design in mind, but never used--the orange, burgundy, brown, and deep green balls in the center of the photo.  So, with the idea of using Skye Tweed for a stranded tunic-to-boot-length vest (buttoned?  zipped?  belted?--  haven't got there yet), I bought a bunch more discounted Skye Tweed, just picking colors I liked on the WEBS website, and purchasing fairly random amounts of each.  Was this putting the "Isle" before the "Fair"?  Should I have used colored sketches and worked out which colors I might want to use, and then how much of each I would need, before whipping out the ol' credit card?  Should I have paused to think that I find most wools itchy, and chosen a superfine merino like Louet Gems instead?  It does come in a slew of tasty colors, after all, and I even have the color card.

Ah well.  I have what I have, and as long as Italian customs doesn't confiscate my Skye Tweed (I shipped it from the U.S. to Italy),  I'll be swatching with what I have, and seeing how it goes.

A blog is like a dog,

in some ways.  For instance, when going on vacation, one must decide beforehand how to care for the blog, realizing that it must be fed regularly.  And since I don't have a laptop, and my compact digital camera is gone for repairs, that meant deciding ahead of time what to blog about, and emailing myself an image to insert, using the husband's ThinkPad.  Which means a certain loss of spontaneity...but I'll be home soon.  (How sick is that, longing to be home for easy blogging while sunning myself on South Beach?)

Anyway.  I recently found this document between the pages of my beloved Treasury of Art Nouveau Design & Ornament.  It was created when I was in college--which, incidentally, was about when Eunny was born--yes, twenty-something years ago.  Kinda young for a person, kinda old for a throwaway piece of paper.  And I had to laugh, looking at it; it's sketches for the Boyfriend Hat and the Paisley Vest, two of my first original designs.  (Clearly I had no concerns at that time about too-long floats.)  The Paisley Vest was oversized, done in grey wool with cream paisleys in an allover pattern, and beloved among my post-college friends--so much so that I have no idea where it is now, it having embarked on a lending cycle from which it never returned.  I do remember that the V-neck pulled the paisley just below it out of shape, something which would be intolerable to me now.

As for the Boyfriend Hat, picture a common stocking cap, and then lengthen it to about five feet--long enough to wrap around the neck--and then picture various colored stripes, each embellished with either a Fair Isle-style pattern, or a more personalized jacquard motif:  snowflakes (to commemorate our ski trips together); easter eggs (the first time I went home with him to meet the folks); tiger stripes (a nod to the alma mater); Plato's Retreat (no comment); waves (our trip to Cape Hatteras); and more that I can't, or won't, remember. 

Unique?  Yes.  Hideous?  Perhaps.  I haven't seen it in many, many years, and although I remember it as being colorful and silly, not gag-inducing, we all know how memory can deceive us.  Finding these sketches did pique my curiosity:  just how bad was it?  So if you should spot it on a ski slope, or buried in your cousin's husband's closet, or bobbing down the aisle at the 7-11, please--let me know.