rita's g-string

Castle Fibers Calenders

2011-11-29T16:07:00.000-07:00

so, i've spent quite a bit of time in the last few days designing a calender with Castle Fibers pics in it. i'm super excited to see it in print! it'll be available in the shop within a week or so, and i'll be selling it on-line if people are interested! just let me know so i can reserve you a copy, since supplies are limited.

Henry VIII to the Commonwealth

2011-03-04T16:11:00.001-07:00

Rutt moves on to discussion of knitting from 1509-1547. He suggests that perhaps knitting moved slowly because knitting needles were hard to make. this is most certainly possible.

He states that first hats, then stockings, were knitted on a large scale in England. i believe he says this because of extant items but he doesn't give those specifics. He uses several conclusory statements that he likely has a reason for saying--but it doesn't give those reasons. "Well-dressed people went on wearing cloth hose long after knitted stockings were first made, and it seems likely that before Elizabeth's reign knitted stockings were worn only by children and perhaps some artisans." why does he say this? he doesn't tell.

one of my biggest concerns is that he wrote this book to some degree or another to appeal to a wide audience, but then consistently presents things as if they were fact ("evidence from Henry VIII's reigh shows the word 'knit' simply meant tied even in relation to hose'") he then uses a single example of a quotation to back this. does this mean what he says? perhaps. even his quotation doesn't necessarily give weight to his claims tho. "the garments were of strange fashion with also strange cuts, every cut knit with points of find gold and tassels of the same, their hosen cute and tied in likewise". it certainly appears that in this case the person who said this (Edward Hall in his Chronicle) used knit and tie interchangeably. is this an indication that all people used it thus? perhaps. or perhaps not.

Henry's household accounts were transcribed in 1827 and while the word knit is used "ambiguously" there are a whole variety of reasons this could be. for example in 1532 someone received money for a pair of 'nyte hosen' for the king. while this statement does not of necessity mean that the hosen were actually knitted (nyte could mean a variety of things i suppose) i think this is where Occam's Razor might come into play. given all things be equal, the obvious answer is likely right. by 1532 there were knitted stockings elsewhere in the world, spelling had not taken on the absoluteness of today (and doesn't actually for several hundred years), and while Rutt suggests it really might mean "night" (altho he acknowledges that the lack of a 'gh' is just as suspicious as the lack of a 'k') the most likely answer is that the hose were knitted. can we say this with certainly? of course not.

one of the things that is interesting in reading Rutt is his propensity to throw off little comments as fact that are largely unrelated to much of anything else he's talking about--and not necessarily true. ("he not only gives a word for knitting that means 'to lace' or 'to interlace' and mentions bonnets and hose, but notes that knitting is financially unprofitable--as it has been ever since) what the point of that little last toss off is, i'm not certain.

in a 1890 publication of Wells Wills it is recorded that Agnes Smythe of Minehead bequeathed to someone "a cape and a knytter" and to someone else "an apron and a knitter". William also made a bequest of his wife's "best ca, and her best gown and her best knytter". Rutt agrees with me that there is really no way to tell what a "knitter" was, but suggests that it was probably an article of women's dress. he fails to suggest it would be a knitted item, or a item used for knitting. this is perhaps one of Rutt's most irritating characteristics. he seems intent on proving that nothing was knitting that can not be shown without question to be. rather than presenting the information and simply admitting there's no knowing what it means--which would have left openings for research, he suggests options that ten to close those doors.

The Mary Rose, Henry's flagship that sunk in 1545, gives us an interesting view of the world. a picture of a moment in time. the ship was lost with all 700 people on board. Because of the nature of the ocean and silt and such, much was preserved, including some knitting. 2 hats with brims around, a triangular scrap, and a tube that is missing the bound off edge. the hats purpose is clear, the triangular scrap is just a scrap, and the tube is likely either a scogger or a hogger--a detatched sleeve or leg warmer that was worn ny sailors.

Other knitted pieces have been found in 16th century digs throughout London. they include sleeves or gaiters with a row of purl stitches at the ends, socks with garter stitch heels--with no defined seam line down the back, and a child's mitten.

Edward VI (1547-1553)
In this section Rutt again suggests that knitted garments were worn chiefly by children and working folk. It is unclear precisely why he suggests this. perhaps because many extant items are child sized? it is difficult to know and had he explained why he believed this it would be much easier to know.

Regardless by 1552 there is an act of Parliment limiting the times for buying and selling a variety of things including knit hose, knit petticoats, knit gloves, and knit sleeves. additionally, he reports that King Edward had a pair of long Spanish stockings sent to him. so clearly, while knitting may (or may not) have been worn cheifly by children and working folk, royalty wore knitted garments.

I am noting a significant change from the last chapter to this. Here, where there is a fair bit of written documentation, Rutt does better. he does much more "reporting" and makes far fewer conclusory statements. I suspect that this is where Rutt "comes into his own". where there is plenty of research to be done, it is primarily research into things that are written down. He has found many references to knitting (i suspect many where found for him--unfortunately he doesn't tell us if he looked at the books in question, or if he looked at books whose authors had looked at the books in question--so it's still unclear how much of a secondary source Rutt can be considered) throughout literature and history and in this he shines.

his real downfall was earlier when he should have done original research since no one had, or when he should have found foreign speakers to translate that which could not read, etc. as we head into the part of history that is much more well-known, not surprisingly his history is better authenticated and more liekly accurate. Tomorrow---Mary Queen of Scots!

some comments of mine on Rutt

2011-03-03T14:47:00.001-07:00

allow me to say that my purpose in this review is not to slam Rutt, not to attempt to make everything Rutt says or concludes wrong. instead, my conversation is to discuss the value of Richard Rutt's books as a source. Richard Rutt, it would appear, took a bunch of books, primarily written in English, and read them and made his notes in the margins and his wife encouraged him to publish his conclusions.

he reached some good conclusions, he reached some questionable conclusions, and unfortunately for us, there is no way to tell from his book, which are which. His book is helpful in that it brings up the questions about naalbinding, that hadn't been asked by the general knitter before. I don't like or dislike the book--i find it irritating that Rutt didn't bother to make this book valuable.

Most random knitters would never read this book cover to cover. and moreover, they would simply assume that since Rutt got it published and he states things so authoritatively and has so many sources, etc, that he must be right. so, his book got some people interested in the history of knitting--and in the process gave plenty of information--which may or may not be true.

the vast majority of people who would really READ this book would actually be interested in an authoritative source. and if it were an authoritative source it would have more value to everyone. if Rutt had given sources, (author and page) people who wanted to know could check those sources. instead, the book is a series of conclusory comments that no one but Rutt knows precisely why or how he came to.

is this the best we've got? probably in a single source. in some ways. What Rutt's book needs is a disclaim in bold capital letters on the first page of text (not in the introduction at the very end). It needs to say: this book is an amateur bit of research. it is not the be all end all of knitting history information. it is actually a long ways from that. it is not authoritative. if i turned this book in as a high school research paper, i'd fail.

is Rutt at fault? not at all. he wrote what he wrote, and managed to get it published. more power to him. the problem is that people are using it as the "bible of knitting history". instead it is at best a tertiary source of information. it does not appear, for the most part, that Rutt went and looked at the textiles that he describes in such detail. had he done so, there wouldn't be mistakes in describing color. Hell, if he had bothered to look at his own book he wouldn't have. in my particular copy of the book there is a color plate of the swiss pouch in the last post i made. this type of "research" isn't research.

I suspect that Rutt read a bunch of books--assumed those books were telling the truth as they knew it--and published his own comments on those books. a lot like these blog posts. only he got them published as an authoratitive bit or research. it is clear that he intends it to be authoritative. he got it published. (if he thought he was mistaken it's unlikely he would have published it, and even if he did, he wanted poeple to read and believe what he said). now, how authoritative is he when there is easier research to be done? (in the Victorian age and later) i've no idea... i've not read those chapters with an eye for mistakes yet.

in the end, the flaw in Rutt is two fold--first Rutt himself is a lazy academic. he makes too many conclusory statements without any source to back him up--and in many cases he doesn't even bother to explain his own thought process. the second problem is in the use it is being put to--which Rutt, to some degree or another intended. this is not the final authority on knitting history. and yet, when people propose alternative possibilities and theories, they are most often met with "but Rutt says...". i've encountered on numerous occasions. the words are not always "but Rutt says...", but the meaning is clear. no other book puts forth the claims that Rutt does, and Rutt's theories have, for the most part, been accepted, whole cloth, as the TRUTH. as such, anyone working outside the confines of what Rutt proposes, is considered wrong by many people. and that is unfortunate, and far from encouraging further scholarship, it has apparently been heralded as the be all, end all... and so no further research is needed.

so, my point.... read Rutt, but read it knowing that it is a tertiary source and that Rutt's conclusions are not the only conclusion that could be reached from the information. take it with a grain of salt...and don't slam people who assume there is much more to learn, because even Rutt says he asks more questions than he answers and that further research is needed and necessary.

onward and upward

2011-03-02T13:23:00.001-07:00

allow me to digress a bit... one of the great things about Richard Rutt's A History of Handknitting (if you're interested in the history of knitting) is the great number of fairly good quality illustrations. there are lots of photographs of extant knitting as well as charting out of various knitting patterns.....i love this. one could use the book to reproduce some of theses historic knitting patterns with what appears to be good accuracy.

on the minus side, Rutt's book is very stream of conscious. he wanders randomly from the Egyptian bits to a discussion of how chain mail is not kniting. why? there is no way to tell. the book would have benefitted greatly from a different organizational method. a chapter of all the "some people think this might be knitted, but it's really not" would have cleaned up the rest of the book to be more tightly focused on knitting. little random bits tossed here and there in the text are off putting, and occassionally confusing.

the Las Huelgas pillows.
the next topic is two pillows recovered from a tomb in Spain. The contents of the tomb, a bural for royalty of the 13th century, were recovered and conserved in 1944-45. two truly important bits of knitting history came in the recovery. they were sealed in the tombs, so they can actually be dated and are the first extant items of European knitting, time-wise.

the first, is from the tomb of Fernando de la Cerda, hear of Alfonso X of Castile. Prince Fernando died in 1275. An important note about this pillow, and the other, is the skill involved in making them. this first has approximately 20 stitches to the inch. it's important to consider what exactly this means. when knitting socks it is typical to get between 8 and 12 stitches per inch. the smallest gauge recommendation i found when searching was 60 stitches over 4 inches--that's 15 stitches to the inch. this is not the product of some "new knitter" by any stretch of the imagination. this is an incredibly detailed, involved piece knitted on tiny tiny needles, with 'yarn' smaller than sewing thread. it seems unlikely that this was even a second or third generation knitting piece. this was a masterwork from a masterwork knitter. and it's very existance in 1275 implies that knitting is several hundred years older.Rutt's only conclusion tho is "We can say little more for certain than that they are works of the highest craftsmanship". this is true, but what a textile historian could conclude from their existance, is likely very different than this simplistic statement.

Rutt persists in making other comments for no apparent reason tho including "they must have been made on steel pins, which were probably hooked." why on earth does he conclude this? is there evidence that he has left out of the book that leads to this guess, or more likely, is Rutt making suppositions of his own?

the knitting madonnas are the next topic of discussion. Rutt suggests that really all that can be concluded from this pieces of artwork (there are a number of them) is that knitting was known in Europe and the particular artists knew how it was done. what he ignores is that several of the pieces (here's a link so you can see for yourself what they look like: http://www.flickr.com/photos/claning/sets/72157594483569366/ ) include much more information than that. two of the pictures found in the book (the second and fourth in the flickr stream linked above) show "specialized" items that were clearly used as part of knitting. little peg boards that held the spools of yarn/thread. this does tell more than Rutt acknowledges. it demonstrates, for example, that specialized tools were being made for knitting already in the time these paintings were done.

In Switzerland in two different locations--5 in Sion and 1 in Chur there are 6 knitted colorwork relic bags. Rutt moves to these next. One of his first and most questionable comments is this: "they are considered to be of fourteenth-century origin and are notable similar. doubtless all six came from one source, but where that source was is beyond conjecture." what is also beyond conjecture is whether they came from one source or 6 or something in between. the fact that 6 similar bags are found in two locations does not evidence anything. even today, not all identical, but rare items come from the same maker. in addition to all other issues with his discriptions, he has some of the desciptions actually wrong.

for example: he descibes the Chur bag as follows: "the five band are alternately red and beige. Two shield designs alternate on each band. the shields on the red band are charged respectively, with a lion rampant and narrow chevrons, all worked in light blue. the shields on the beige band are charged, respectively, with an octagaonal rosette and indented chevrons, worked in red."

please note that when looking at an actual image of the bag, Rutt reversed the colors. this is a bit disturbing to say the least. it is likely that Rutt simply reproduced an error from another book, but this leads to more disturbing questions. he makes many statements that seem to imply that he is perhaps personally a textile expert, yet, it appears likely that he simply read other people's books and made suppositions based on those books (only the ones in English of course). if Rutt were more clear about where exactly he came by his information his book would be much more helpful. did he copy the description from another book in error? did he ever see the piece in question? this last becomes more important when taken in light of the whole book. did Rutt visit the museums and look at the pieces he is so carefully discribing? what exactly are his credentials for some of the claims that he makes?

then we're on to more stream of consciousness: knitted girdles. only not. rutt is right back to ignoring evidence that he doesn't like. apparently the 1488 will of John Gregson has this sentence in it: "lego Willelmo Rayner cappellano j knytt gyrdyll et harnast cum argento". Rutt acknowledges that this appears to mean "I bequeath to William Rayner the chaplain one knitted girdle with silver appurenances". then he goes on to suggest that the word "knytt" also meant plaited or braided (no references here) and concludes that "is more liekly to indicate some such technicque than what we now call knitting" (why?) he uses a non-textile book--a book about ecclesiastical vestments (Die Liturgische Gewandung--1907) to reach this conclusion because this books says knitted girdles were first made in the 16th century in Italy.

It is a given that knitting existed in Europe by 1488, so his assumption that one book is correct, and another is incorrect, with no explanation, no evidence to lead in that direction, is just that. an assumption. no better or worse than others. what follows in his discussion of Asian spinning men, nuns' work and mediaeval gaiters is just as frustrating. it is pointless to go through and note the minutia of his assumptions, suffice it so say that as typical, Rutt as taken things that agree with assumptions about when knitting started and he likes those, and anything that does not, he ignores or excuses as shoddy research.

moving on to something that deals with actual evidence is nice. liturgical gloves are the next topic that rutt addresses. here he's right back to claims that are at best suppositional. the first two sentences under this heading are: "the Roman's had no word for 'glove'. Gloves must have originated in the early Middle Ages." he appears to be suggesting one of these statements leads directly to the other. that because Roman's nad no word for gloves, they could not have had gloves. again: these types of assumptions are simply not accurate. when new items/methods are created, most often they are identified with words that are part of the language, that come the closest to describing a thing. for example, when BLOGS first came into being, they weren't called a thing of their own. no one sat down and came up with a name. they were simply called weblog. the word blog grew out of that word. weblog was first coined in 1997. are we to assume then that blogs did not exist prior to this date? in reality in 1994 Justin Hall became a very early blogger.

now remembering that today in the world of internetz and such, words and language are developing very quickly, it is not surprising that in Rome, they didn't come up with a totally unique word for gloves, rather just adapted other words "manica" which meant wristlet or cuff, or used a greek based word "chirotheca" that meant "hand-case". Rutt's assumptions about the way that language develops are interesting, but without citations, it is hard to grant his opinion much weight.

Rutt suggests that the gloves housed at the Cathedral in St. Sernin at Toulouse can confidently be attributed to the 13th century. they are knitted in fine white stockinet, and are plain with clumsy fingers and thumbs. unfortunately this leads back to questions of why Rutt says this? did he see the gloves in question? simply repeat what was in a different book? it is impossible to know really. Regardless, the 16th century there are examples, extant, of involved colorwork gloves.

Fifteenth-century Pomerania. this is perhaps one of the most frustrating sections of the book. frustrating because it is short and unilluminating and frustrating because of how he ends it. In 1640 the book Altes Pommerland (p389) states that Sophia, hte daughter of Procopius, margrave of Moravia, who dies in 1417 when she grew old her eyesight was too poor for embroidery or sewing and "nie die knutte von ehren Handen geleget". She never put the knitting needles down. In 1986 Irena Turnau discusses 6 knitted fragments of the 12th or 13th century found in a grave near Ketrzyn in Poland as well as other items including a cap and four pairs of gloves from teh 14th or 15th century in Latvia,near Riga. Unfortuantely Rutt ends by stating that we can't know their significance since they are only described in Polish and Latvian.

this is perhaps the biggest problem with this book. Rutt's failure to seek out and find people who could read Polish and Latvian and find out what is said about the items leaves his readers, and himself in the dark. his assumptions are often based on the idea that since there are no extant pieces of knitting in such-and-such a time, knitting didn't exist. without bothering to find what is known about pieces in countries that don't speak english, an awful lot is left out of this book.

Cap Knitting is the next secion. Rutt concludes that caps seem likely to be the first items knitted in England, but acknowledges that perhaps other articles of earlier date exist and the records and extant items do no exist so we don't know about them. This is a bit of a problematic conclusion to reach, but as he says, there is little evidence on either side. Regardless by the late 1400s cap knitting has taken off in england. a variety of cap styles came quickly into being from the "monmouth cap" to others.

his discussion is brief but as far as i can tell, quite to the point. while he is conclusory on many occassions, his conclusions do seem to be supported by much of the other disucssion in books.

his last tiny note about pre-1500s stockings is too short and not helpful. as typical he throws out the little bit of information that is apparently available and then says that much study remains to be done.

tomorrow, we're talking about Henry the VII!

Chapter 2: Before 1500

2011-03-01T16:57:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2 starts with a discussion of myths and legends that include knitting references. or more importantly the lack there of. one of Rutt's favorite things, it appears, is to poke holes in other research, but back it up with nothing. for example, Mary Thomas apparently tells a Yemeni story about Eve knitting the pattern on the snake's back. Rutt's response is that she gives no verifiable source (pot meet kettle) and then states that even if it is real, it's trivial and therefore proves nothing.

One of the most objectionable things about Rutt is his own sense of self-importance. He regularly calls out other authors for not bothering to give sources, etc, but gives none of his own. he makes comments like "the words obviously mean..." and "the pious william felkin..." ad hominim attacks disprove nothing.

his comments about Christ's garment that was diced for, might very well be correct. it seems likely that a bishop might actually know a lot about biblical references, to bad he doesn't share them.

The Esch fragments and a word about words. Rutt states: "the oldest datable pieces of what is claimed as knitted fabric were found...." the word claim comes with quite a lot of baggage unfortunately. claim implies disbelief. so these fragments--they were found in a 2nd century grave in southern Holland. in 1966 the two fragments were examined by a textile technologist, J. E. Leene. J. E. Leene appears, from a quick search on Google to be a well respected textile scientest, so it seems legitimate to trust JE's conclusions. JE concluded that indeed they were structurally stockinet, altho they were attached to a backing of some sort.

Rutt's response is typical. they don't fit well into his theory of when knitting began (much much later), so he discounts them as perhaps unique, or not actually knitted items, "they must have been made by hand, but we cannot say what tools were used."

Nalbinding discussion. what follows is a fairly long discussion of nalbinding from the Middle East. it's important to consider several things when discussion nalbinding. if as is at least possible, knitting developed OUT of nalbinding, then some of the discussion is irrelevent. the discussion primarily involves a piece of nalbinding found in 1933. or 3 pieces. altho two are completely ignored by Rutt, the one, which is apparently rather sizable, includes a decrease technicque that Rutt asserts is not convenient with knitting, but is convenient with nalbinding, and therefore the piece must be nalbound. in spite of this claim, Barbara Walker, in her Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns gives the Dura-Europos patterns, which are quite knittable. Rutt again makes statements that are questionable here: the work was probably done in the round (why does he think this?) and may be part of a sock (why again?).

moving on to Romano-Egyptian socks. there are several collections that house these socks. they certainly appear to be nalbound (one of the easy ways to tell is the numerous yarn joins that are round in nalbinding but not in knitting), and recent discussion seems to agree that these are nalbound. with an entire piece it is much easier to establish whether an item is knitted or not because of those pesky joins.

in his discussion of Mediaeval Egypt Rutt discussing a fragment that was part of a swiss textile experts collect (his name was Fritz Ikle). a photgraph of the fragment is published in Mary Thomass Knitting Book (1938 p91). unfortunately the fragment is no longer extant. Ilke dated the fragment to 7th-9th centuries, but as typical, Rutt simply discounts it since it is not extant. This piece is in crossed stockinet. the next pieces are not. the blue and white Islamic socks and fragments of knitting that are generally accepted as dated to between 1000-12000 AD of Egyptian finds. none have been carbon dated, so it is impossible to know specific dates. the pieces which are all relatively similar and very unlike the nalbinding that predates them, are likely the oldest knitting extant.

Rutt states at this point that nalbinding has given way to knitting sometime between 500 and 1200 AD. a darned long time that. and moreover, if the colorwork pieces that are extant are the earliest examples, it is clear that knitting started substantially before these pieces were made. any knitter could attest to the fact taht this involved colorwork knitting, with detailed colorwork was clearly not a "first generation" of knitting. it is unlikely, actually, that these pieces were even in the first hundred years.

tomorrow, moving on to the cushions of Las Huelgas....the earliest dated European knitting examples.

friday night with Rutt

2011-02-25T20:19:00.000-07:00

yes, i'm aware i have NO life. so here i am discussing chapter 1. chapter one is called definitions and techniques. for the most part, let me say in advance that i agree with rutt's definitions. the chapter is mostly straight forward and pretty easy to understand. initially be provides what i'd generally consider to be a good definition of knitting--except of course, he fails to do anything in this definition to eliminate naalbinding that is identical to cross-stitch knitting. in order for his definition to be truly accurate it is reasonable to require that the fabric be produced with either a frame or multiple needles, or something. otherwise, the definition will include some naalbinding. oops.

then he goes on to discuss various other methods of producing fabric that is similar to knitting and might be mistaken for knitting. he leaves out one notable technique that when viewed from the front only looks almost identical to knitting--soumak weaving. on the front soumak weaving produces the vs of knitting, and only when viewed from the back can one tell it is not knitting simply by looking at it. this is important to note ecause later he discusses items where the back cannot be seen and simply concludes that they are knitting without further discussion.

Rutt then moves on to a discussion of actual knitting. in this he proceeds on with more linguistic discussion that makes absolutely no citations, so it's hard to tell where he got his info from, or if it is simply his own supposition. for example, he states that the term stockinet was probably derived from "stocking net", while this seems to be generally accepted in the dictionaries that i looked at, it would be nice to see where he concluded that. additionally he proceeds to put forth the claim that the spelling stockinet is older and better, again with no explanation. this utter lack of explanation is very frustrating. footnotes would have been most helpful, and done little to make the book less readable.

moving on the the casting on and binding off discussion--it apears that he fails to address longtail cast-on which is probably the most commonly used cast-on today. this seems like a bit of an odd omission. he also only discusses a single bind-off method and in such terminology that it's difficult to know which bind-off he's actually referring to. all throughout this, there are lots of comments that fail to give any evidence of why they are true, occassionally just referring to other books that he states have no justification either. this is shoddy research at best. if there is no evidence (for example) of what bind on was mostly commonly used in england until the 20th century, it would best to not try to explain, especially not when what evidence is suggested exists, is not given.

when discussing handling knitting needles, there are again lots of holes in the research. there are comments like: "The cottagers could 'knock off the loops' of their coarse stockings, but the ladies usually worked with silk or fine Berlin wool to produce delicate items. They thought of their work as artistic and refined." all of these comments may be accureate. perhaps cottage knitters did 'knock off the loops' of their coarse stockings, perhaps ladies worked with silk or fine Berlin wool, and produced delicate items, and perhaps they thought of their work as artistic and refined, but Rutt offers NO evidence of any of this. none. research claims like this should have some source to back them up. it brings up further questions about whether Rutt simply published his own thoughts, or whether there wsa actual research that this was based on. some simple footnotes would make the book a much more usable research item. unfortunately as it stands, one can't even go and find where Rutt reaches his conclusions, or why. makes for not good research.

furthermore, he then states that the "older way to knit" involves holding one needle still and moving the other. it is likely that he is correct (the oldest evidence of how knitting was done is later in the book in the knitting madonnas. it is unfortunate that he fails to explain how his conclusions were reached. most of the rest of the chapter seems largely irrelevent, discussing such things as knitted wire and whther knitting should be considered an art or a craft.

it is understandable that Rutt did not feel like publishing footnotes or giving explanations of his conclusions, the problem is that his failure to do so makes the book almost unusable as a research tool. short of simply purchasing all the books in the bibliography and going through each one and hoping that the same conclusion is reached that Rutt reached, the book is simply "fun reading" if one likes that sort of thing. what is most disturbing is the way that Rutt's book has been heralded as the current go-to book on the history of knitting. this is fine, as long as being able to research for oneself is unimportant.

tomorrow, before 1500.

A history of Handknitting by Richard Rutt

2011-02-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

i obtained this book some months ago--maybe even a year or so--and i had up until now just sort of browsed my way through it. recently i decided to start going through it chapter by chapter. there are variety of issues with the book as a real history of anything. i've heard it referred to by SCA people as the "bible of knitting" claiming that in the future there will be "BR" and "AR" --before Rutt and after Rutt. my plan is to go through the book a bit at a time, posting my thoughts about what is good scholarship, and what is not. so...today, the preface and introduction (or at least part of it).

the preface of this work really changes many things about it, if you actually read it. Rutt states that this is a pioneer essentially in discussion of hand knitting. in this it is true. i've looked at many of the books that were published prior to this and they simply aren't very researched. he then goes on to say that this is an amateur work, uneven and incomplete. this is completely true. having browsed the rest of the book i can tell you that Rutt fails to make much of any effort to look at any literature that is not English. for example, (in my copy on page 58 in Before 1500) his last comment about 15th century Pomerania is: "these pieces have been described only in Polish and Latvian respectively, so we cannot yet know their significance." this type of comment in a book that proposes itself as a "history of handknitting" is truly disturbing. a friend suggested that the book was essentially "a romp" through the books in english about knitting. if it had been stated as such, it wouldn't concern me nearly as much.

Rutt goes on to state that since it isn't an academic thesis he has left out notes and page references. this is bad enough, but it also only contains a "select bibliography" implying that there are book references completely left out. all and all, this is quite concerning as a piece of research that is being referenced regularly by people. it is, at best, mostly a tertiary source that contains some fairly good quality black and white photographs. (oh by the way, almost none of the photographs are Rutt's own, all seem to be borrowed from other books, implying in some cases that he never went and looked at the items since he reproduces errors from other books in some cases). Rutt's conclusions are regularly questionable in numerous ways....

onward to the introduction: at the beginning of the introduction it becomes even more clear that this is really just about english records of knitting. the first line of the intro starts "The first English records of the history of knitting..." Rutt then goes on to discuss a variety of knitting references... this is somewhat interesting, but not very enlightening. He does make reference to some scholarly work by Johan Christoph published between 1790 and 1805. It appears that he referenced to an english translation--and unfortunately translations are always problematic. he then goes through a list of other references and makes some general criticisms. (many seem to be very fair) for example a reference to "History of Framework Knitters" which apparently in the 1st chapter suggests that there are Biblical references to knitting.

From here, we launch into an interesting discussion of word origins and linguistics. Let's just for a moment back up. Harps are extremely ancient. but until about the 13th century in many languages the word that referred to harp was a generic word that referred to stringed instrucments including lyre and harp and others. by Rutt's theory that since there was not an ancient Greek word for knitting, there must not be knitting; we would have to conclude that there were also no harps. (altho we see pictures of harps in the pyramids and in ancient artwork throughout the world). I have a couple of friends who study linguistics, and all agree that a language having no "specialized word" for something proves nothing linguistically. Moreover, when he goes on to discuss the English word for knitting he insists that since early uses of the word knit (or earlier spellings like knytt in middle english) have various meanings that this demonstrates something. he states certain things are unreasonable, but given that he leaves out any references, it's hard to know why he reaches these conclusions. again--we can't really conclude what existed or did not exist based on linguistics, at least not the way he makes his claims. having no single word that is used only to refer to something is not indicative of much. and Rutt takes this as proof that knitting does not exist earlier than certain dates.

point: i'm not saying that Greeks knitted. i'm saying that his arguments are flawed. what we know is that between the fall of Rome and 1200 a number of regional languages emerge into venacular use. some are languages that were used prior, and became more prevelent after the Roman laws of latin being the legal language across its are of affect (like German) and other languages actually develop OUT of Latin (like langue d'oc and langue d'oil). these languages are in their infancy in this time, so their failure to label every single thing until the between 1000-1300 is not even remotely surprising. and later revamping of words was not surprising either. again as an example the word "harpa" was used in anglo-saxon to refer to both harps and lutes and other plucked instruments--it meant "to pluck", the fact that later words were utilized to specify the difference between a harp and a lute, and that the word harp stuck to harps, says nothing about how old lutes are.

unfortunately, i suspect that much of the problem here lies in Rutt himself. he was a knitter--or at least he did knit, but he was primarily a priest. he did study medieval and modern languages at Cambridge, but became a missionary priest in 1954, knowlege of linguistics has come a long ways since then. he, in the end, appears to have made knitting a hobby, and having written several books (about Korean and Chinese literature) decided that publishing his own thoughts on knitting was valuable. i am not suggesting it is not, however, his conclusions are often seem to be based not on good research, but on his own conclusions, however good or faulty those are. when reading A History of Handknitting, one must really take into account these things. i make no claim to being a linguist or historian (my field of research is music history so in many ways i am much like him), but my conclusions leading me to different places makes me no more wrong than he... and no more right.

home redecoration this evening

2010-07-25T21:48:00.000-06:00

house redecoration this morning

2010-07-25T21:45:00.000-06:00

Brenden's room in the AM

of birds and bees and sealing wax and cabbages and kings....

2010-06-14T18:44:00.000-06:00

ok--mostly birds

so, we had a lovely little robin build a nest on our back porch when we were gone for the weekend. so for the last month or so we've been watching the babies as they come along.

here's the eggs in the nest... it took several weeks before they hatched.

Here's the proud and protective momma sitting on her nest. we tried to stay away, but couldn't resist a few pictures.

Here's those babies right after hatching, if they hadn't been breathing i'd have thought they were dead.

When they feathered out they got much prettier altho one had definitely lighter feathers, and was quite a lot smaller and weaker.

so, here's the day they left the nest. by the time i noticed all but the smallest weakest one was gone.

she (i call her she because she looks like a she to me) hung around almost all day before the mom convinced her to fly away. even then she came back in the evening and hung out on the porch for several hours. the funny thing--she is apparently a partial-albino robin. she's very pale tan rather than the dark brown of the other two and the mom, and her breast rather than bright red, is sort of strawberry blonde. i think she's a blond robin. hope everything goes well, and i'm glad to have my porch back.

shawls and such

2010-04-29T11:21:00.000-06:00

I started a new shawl awhile back. i have a center panel done. yesterday i put all the stitches on yarn and blocked out what is done. unfortunately, what i found was that the center panel is really awesome... and the rest is NOT. damn. so, i hav to rip back (ugh) to the edge of hte center panel and rethink it. apparently i did not pick up enough stitches along the center panel. the side is much narrower than the center is. this little sketch is an incredibly crude explanation of what i'm working toward:

the lines in each portion show the direction of knitting--i have the center done--the part with the swallowtail bottom--and i love it. unfortunately when i stretch out the center, the part i have done on the side is not nearly as wide as it should be. i guess i need to add stitches after the initial pick-up. oops.

i'm alternating between feeling a bit overwhelmed with the upcomign move and thinking that it will all be fine. i haven't done any packing yet. i guess i figure we'll deal with it saturday and sunday. :-) instead i'm working on getting everything skeined out that i can, since my biggest concern with the new shop is that it won't look full enough.

as luck would have it a lovely guy showed up yesterday that does signs asking about whether i needed a sign at the new shop. he's going to bring in an estimate next week. YAY!!

More Knitting TIPS

2010-04-28T15:57:00.000-06:00

always keep a crochet hook in your bag to pick up dropped stitches. (altho i mostly pick mine up with a small double point).

lifelines can be a real lifesaver if you're knitting lace. every so often, when you know that your lace is correct to that point, take a contrasting color of yarn and a yarn needle, and run a strand through all of the stitches on the needle... leave it there, then when/if you make a mistake you can rip back only to that lifeline!

put all your little doo-dads--tape measure, needle gauge, crochet hook, stitch markers, etc.--in a small pouch, then you can just grab your pouch, grab your needles and yarn and pattern and start knitting!

post it notes are great ways to mark your place on charts. put them from the top, so you can see where you've been!

knitting tips

2010-04-27T18:27:00.000-06:00

so, when i started knitting i did lots and lots of things wrong, because well, no one told me not to. so, here's a couple of tips i've learned. post a comment if you've got some you've learned that i haven't listed.

always slip stitches purl-wise unless told otherwise.

except in ssk, for which you slip knitwise.

always slip the first stitch in every row unless told otherwise.

if you want to untwist a stitch that is laying on your needles wrong (unless you knit combination) knit/purl in the back loop. it'll automatically untwist it.

so... what's you fave tip?

how often?

2010-04-27T10:20:00.002-06:00

how often do you check blogs for new posts? i'm curious what other people's blog reading habits are. i often check a couple times a week. if i check too often and find no new content i tend to stop checking as often.... maybe only once a month.

what kind of content do you like? knitting? personal? stories? dyeing? more pictures?

this blog has been a variety of those... and i'd like to know what my readers actually want from a blog.

free pattern

2010-04-26T19:08:00.003-06:00

i'm trying something a little new. i've been considering switching from selling patterns to giving them away and putting a tiny bit of advertising on my blog instead. i hope that this will make it so that i can offer more to my readers. :-)

so... to start, here's a simple free pattern. i've had tons of requests for it. i have the sample in my shop. it works really well with left over bits of yarn, or with handspun--which if you're like me, you tend to produce in lots of quantity, but also, in tiny bits... i have a really bad habit of picking up an ounce or so of fiber that i'm enthralled with the color... which makes it so i can have l0ts of different colors/new fibers--but makes it harder for me to make stuff out of what i spin.

Sideways Scarflet

If you’re like me, you see little sample size bits of roving and can’t resist spinning them. I know even as I’m spinning them, that they won’t be big enough to really make much out of, but they are so pretty that I just have to spin them up. So I have quite a stash of tiny skeins around my house. They usually weigh between ½ and ¾ of an ounce. This scarflet is the perfect way to put some of those tiny skeins to use.
This simple two color scarflet is easy to knit, finishes fabulously, a little unusual, and needs very little yarn to create. I started out with 1.4 ounces of yarn in two coordinating colors. It is spun up softly at about worsted weight (12-13 wpi).
What you need:
1.4 ounces of worsted weight (or so) yarn in two or more coordinating colors.
Size 10 ½ knitting needles
If you want to do random stripes reserve 10 yards yarn of Color A. If you are going to do random color stripes, switch colors every 10-15 rows. Color changes are not in the pattern other than at the very end.
Row 1: Cast on 1 stitch in color A.
Row 2: Knit, Purl, Knit into that single stitch
Row 3: K, P into the first stitch (making a stitch), then K,P across to the last stitch, K, P into the last stitch (making another stitch.
Rows 4-15: Continue as in R3 until you have a total of 29 stitches
Row 16: K, P into the 1st stitch (making a stitch), K, P to last 2 stitches. K 2 together.
Row 17: K 2 together, K, P to end of row, P, K into last stitch (making a stitch)
Rows 18 and on: continue repeating rows 16 and 17 throughout; switches colors as you like.
When you run out of other yarn you are ready to finish.
Take the 10 yards you reserved and knit one final row of 16 or 17 (which ever you are on).
Row A : K 2 together, K, P across to last two stitches, K2 together. (decreasing 2 stitches in this row)
Knit Row A until there are 3 stitches remaining. Then knit all 3 stitches together and break yarn and run through final stitch.
Wash and Block as normal.

Loop it in half and tuck the two ends through the loop for a unique look … or wear it as usual… either way a unique and lovely scarf!

confession time

2010-03-11T10:29:00.004-07:00

I must confess, i'm not only a bad blogger... but i'm also a bad knitter. let's talk...

i am easily distracted by new pretty, different stuff. there's nothing exactly WRONG with this, but it does make it harder for me to finish, well, anything.

so... here's just a few of things i have in progress at the moment. i say a few, because this does not include pictures that are so far back on my flickr page that i can't find them.

this is my most recent project...it is going to be a shawl... i mostly wanted to show off the colors so it's pretty simple. unfortunately i'm bored with it because it is too easy.

i could go back and finish the second Twist Baby Twist... but i don't want to.

Here is the Olympic sock that i have finished, but have not finished. i want the second sock finished, but i sorta don't wanna have to do it. GAH!

this little flower hat is much more done than the picture shows, actually it's been frogged, and the first half is done, which unfortunately means i have to repeat the exact same thing again. oh no.

unfortunately, today i saw this:
http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter08/PATTpoinsettia.php
and i have this:
http://cascadeyarns.com/cascade-LanaBambu.asp
color 5

OHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO

Doctors without Borders

2010-01-24T18:16:00.003-07:00

If you haven't checked out YarnHarlot's blog lately... you migh not know that Knitters without Borders--the brainchild of Stephanie aka Yarn Harlt has raised $1 000 110 for Doctors without Border. that's just amazing. i've been donating for a while now...you should too!

Roving with Rita

2010-01-20T13:24:00.002-07:00

so...i've spent the last several days dyeing roving. and i've got LOTS more to dye! can't wait....

here's the first few... these are already up at the shop!

an exciting Christmas

2009-12-27T09:59:00.003-07:00

Christmas was much more exciting than we intended this year. J's brother and family were in Spearfish (about 50 miles away) with Grandma and Grandpa. On Christmas morning they drove to our house, and from there we went to J's cousins house nearby. The weather was lousy when they arrived at our house. it had snowed Christmas eve, light fluffy snow. On Christmas day it was snowing and blowing, but the roads didn't seem to bad on the way to J's cousin's house. OK, they were probably pretty bad, but we decided we would be sure to leave early, before it got dark and things would be fine.

We left the cousin's house and quite quickly encountered a drift all the way across the road about 3 feet deep. not surprisingly we got high centered. J's brother had gone the opposite way to go back to Spearfish with G&G. J called them and they headed back to help us get unstuck. a fab Fire Fighter happened by and pulled us out about the time the J's brother arrived. However, in the meantime the interstate had gotten bad enough so that the highway patrol closed it. This meant that G&G and J's brother and family had one place to go (since they couldn't get to G&G's house)--our little 3 bedroom trailer.

Christmas evening and the day after Christmas we had 13 people (3 were quite small ones) in our little 3 bedroom trailer that our family have 5 has pretty much outgrown. :-) Funny part? it was actually quite fun! I'm sure we all would have preferred it otherwise. our unexpected guests had no change of clothes, no toothbrushes, etc. BUT, kids slept all over the living room and on several bedroom floors and the couch. G&G took my daughters full size bed. Brother and family took my 2 son's bedroom--no full size bed, but a biggish room. and we played games and watched silly Christmas movies, and waited out the storm.

The interstate was open this morning. and now we are back to just our 5 selves... it's awefully quiet already, and the house feels huge. :-)

All and all i can only be thankful that we were together, there was food and heat and electricity, and good company! Just so there's a bit of yarn content here... i spent a bit of time teaching my SIL and niece to knit! passing on the addiction. :-) Life is good!

Hope your Christmas or other Winter Holiday was the best. Hope that you had time with family. Hope that you are now getting back to normal and the quiet is a blessing!

MERRY CHRISTMAS and for those friends who celebrate: Happy Boxing Day!

Northanger Abby & Dragons

2009-12-12T22:05:00.006-07:00

This really isn't like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies... there'll just be a bit about each.

So... Northanger Abby yarn will be going out on Monday... if you haven't read it, you should know that the main character, Catherine Morland, is a teenager who loves Gothic novels. so i concluded that she is clearly the basis for current Goths. :-) or not... but one way or the other, the yarn is very Goth looking... dark and rich and romantic... totally my kind of colors.

In other news i've been working on a shawl pattern. this is my test of the idea... it's supposed to be a dragon tail and wings... we'll see how well it blocks out!

new blog announcement

2009-11-02T17:37:00.001-07:00

i've started a new blog specifically about my designing. you should check it out!

http://knaughtyandtwisted.blogspot.com/

apple jelly and sauce

2009-10-25T20:55:00.002-06:00

So... I spent part of today making some beautiful jelly. a customer gave me some gorgeous apples at sock class on Saturday, so i chopped up, cooked and drained apples, then i made jelly. it is the most beautiful pink champaign color. and the taste? well, i can't describe it....

before i've always put the remainer of the apples out to the compost. i felt a bit guilty about this. it's perfectly good apple pulp, just a little lacking in juice. so today, i tried something. i took the lovely apple pulp, ran it through my food mill twice (first time through on big chop, then on really find chop to get rid of all the apple peel). When i got done i had about 1.5 pints of pulp. i added about half a cup of white sugar, cooked it until it was had boiled for a bit. I felt like i needed to boil it since it had hung out in open air for all day, collecting little bacteria. i came away with a pint and a half of apple sauce. it'll be rather tart i think. hopefully it won't jell. that would be so ironic.

last week i made what i hoped would be peach jam, which turned into peach sauce, because it didn't jell. at all. not that it isn't yummy. we've already eaten a couple pints of the stuff--it delish on toast, or ice cream or cake... mmmm BUT, if my peach jam turns out to be peach sauce, and my apple sauce turns out to be apple jam, that would be a bit funny!

tomorrow--knitting!

2009-10-23T12:13:00.004-06:00

so.... i've been dyeing my fingernails funky colors--ok, that's just an interesting side effect!

i'll be updating my website tonight, so... if you're chasing Castle Fibers Yarn, tonight's the night!

goodness, it's been too long

2009-10-19T16:32:00.004-06:00

i've been super distracted by the shop... i've gotten lots done lately. from indigo dyeing to designing patterns, i've been busy!

here's the results of a natural dyeing weekend... from coreopsis to black-eyed susans to purple logwood the colors were great

this is from my indigo dye pot. it was amazing to watch the color go from sort of greeny yellow to BLUE.

this is intended for socks... it's naturally dyed with chamomile, (for the yellow) and blackwalnut and purple logwood (for the black)

these are the socks... i'm loving them, but the heels are not happening like i'd like.

i've also been designing too... these little fingerless gloves and matching cowl came out really well.

a super lovely friend made this for me for my birthday... it matches the sheep on the sign for my shop. i love it!

more natural dyeing results

2009-08-12T23:51:00.003-06:00

i inadvertantly let a whole bag of onions go bad, so before i threw them out i pulled off all the outside skins, threw them in the dye pot and cooked for a bit. i left the yarn to soak overnight. got a lovely golden yellow.

i picked all the black-eyed susans from my garden. i had about 35 blossoms perhaps. i cooked them for about an hour, then saved them for further solar dyeing. put the first, alum mordanted skein in the pot. after about 20 minutes i pulled out this amazing green. it is absolutely lovely. i then added a new skein since there seemed to be a fair bit of color left.

after a three hour soak (without continued cooking) i got a soft green that was much less yellow then the first skein.

finally i cooked about a quart of peppermint plants for an hour or so. i was expecting a buttery yellow since that's what i got on silk, two years ago. i was hoping for a little darker yellow so i cooked it for an hour, then turned off the heat and let it sit overnight. in the morning i pulled out this amazing green-y brown.

i'm loving the results.

yesterday's final results

2009-07-27T13:07:00.002-06:00

1. coreopsis tinctoria (with red centers) cooked for an hour–yarn dyed for 20 minutes
2. same dye pot as above with some ammonia added–yarn dyed for 20 minutes
3. same dye pot as above–3rd skein–20 minutes
4. same dye pot as above–4th skein–overnight
5. dye pot 2 coreopsis tinctoria (with red centers) cooked for an hour very low simmer–added ammonia–yarn dyed overnight
6. solar dye–coreopsis grandiflora (a LOT) soaked for about 2-3 weeks in the sun–yarn dyed for about 20 minutes
7. same dye pot as #6–yarn dyed overnight
8. dye pot next–coreopsis grandiflora (yellow petals only) cooked for an hour–added ammonia–yarn dyed overnight
9. dye pot last–virginia creeper berries soaked whole all winter–yarn dyed overnight

natural dye colors so far

2009-07-26T16:45:00.003-06:00

click for details.

almost magic

2009-07-26T13:26:00.003-06:00

today, i'm spending my day creating magic. (or at least almost magic). all summer i've been picking saving up various plants (mostly flower blossoms) to dye. today is the day! I've taken about a quart of these:

coreopsis tinctoria, a lovely littel garden flower,

and cook them like this:

i've now added some freshly mordanted wool yarn... i'll be posting pictures of what i get later on! after the coreopsis tinctoria comes some other variety of coreopsis and some evening primroses. i've no idea if evening primroses dye... but why not try?

lace weight is finally listed

2009-07-14T21:58:00.004-06:00

I brought a bunch of lovely lace weight back from Knitter's with me, and i finally started getting it listed today. My FAVORITE is called Maui Waui:

the colors are actually a bit more saturated...

but VAMP is also fun...

Pretty as a flower...

this is listed yet but it's called Citrus Grove

and this has the palest hints of pink, blue and purple and called Ice Princess!

mmmm... maybe i should keep some and make a shawl myself!

well.... it's been too long

2009-07-08T10:12:00.002-06:00

I got back from knitter's connection and immediately started dealing with other issues... June was a busy month. the unfortunate result is that Jane Austen yarn is just shipping this week. it is almost dry and lovely. We have switched books and are doing Persuasion next, which is a neat lacy fichu, in shades of blue.

i brought lots of lovely yarn back from KC...

from Jack Pumpkinhead in his purple pants...

to this natural looking "log cabin"

and Dorothy (in oz) in pastels... it's awesome being ahead for once!

check out my flickr page for more!

in my yard....

2009-07-03T11:23:00.002-06:00

this morning...

at knitter's connection

2009-06-22T19:45:00.003-06:00

knitter's connection was a blast.... it was fun to put faces on names....

hang out with new-ish (people i've known from the internet but not in person )

and old friends...

got lots of knitting done....sold lots of yarn... it was fabulous! can't wait for the next show.

Cityscape socks

2009-05-25T21:26:00.004-06:00

between dyeing a ton of scab (and other yarn), planning for Knitter Connection, running the shop and starting a new exercise routine, i've hardly had time to knit lately. BUT, i'm working on a new sock pattern/kit that i hope to have done before KC, so i can take kits along. what do you think so far????

this is the top. i had to rip it out once, and reknit a bit bigger around since colorwork takes up so much space.

But now i've made it through the skyline and am moving on the the reflection on the heel flap.

I'm not exactly certain how i'll proceed from here. I need the blue on top for the front reflection, but i'm not certain what i'm going to do with it across the sole of the foot. I'm thinking a really simple colorwork pattern, so i don't have to carry it so far. not sure how i'll deal with gussets... i might try Daria's theory so i can get through the gusset more quickly, and move on.

anyway... ready to turn the heel! HURRAY!!!!

it's PROM!

2009-04-25T17:42:00.004-06:00

excuse the off-topic post...

it's prom night...

That's my oldest daughter. I feel a bit like that scene in Fiddler on the Roof. Where have the years gone? i don't feel old, but somehow, somewhere along the way, she is almost the age i still feel. What happened? She looks beautiful. I have yet to convince her that her make-up could be just a touch darker. i guess pale is in?

spoiler alert

2009-04-12T10:16:00.005-06:00

so, while i've been madly designing the S&S and P&P socks, Daria has been working on the next project. It is LOVELY. I asked for a capelet because of Jane's comment about her cape making it home and here following the pattern for her lace. Unfortunately that was not a knitting pattern, so Daria designed this beautiful lace capelet.

i love how the bottom has all the little falling flowers!

and i really love how the little fall lines and the increase lines echo each other! ok, i love the way it looks. everything is wonderful.

and snow it goes

2009-03-30T12:27:00.002-06:00

Baby Bonnet for a sample

2009-03-25T20:45:00.003-06:00

so i needed a sample of what SuperLamb knits up like and had bits left to play with. here's the little bonnet that i came up with. I LOVE it. I would have taken 5 when amanda was little. Brenden did not appreciate me trying to take a picture of him in it tho! hehe
Amanda and I decided that i needed to design a matching set of booties... and maybe even a baptismal gown.... too cute!

SPOILER ALERT sock... sleeve... one down, one to go!

2009-03-23T12:56:00.010-06:00

clearly, i should have been a hand model! hehe

or perhaps Vanna White!

or perhaps i should be a foot model!

i just have such cute feet!

happy spring

2009-03-20T08:32:00.010-06:00

i wandered out into my yarn this morning. it is grey and brown and in spite of the spring equinox... nothing much is happening. we had snow on the ground just last week...

i guess i shouldn't expect much... it's just too early in South Dakota to expect much else. i want there to be more... i planted several hundred bulbs and was hoping.

and then, i see it. a tiny bit of green. there.

and there

and then i see the flax... it's green too!

and i realize they're everywhere!

it truly is SPRING!!!!!

wool sleeves and socks (spoiler alert)

2009-03-12T12:54:00.008-06:00

the wool sleeves are coming along well. Unfortunately at the expense of the Pride and Prejudice Socks, which MUST be done soon. so inspite of my new project i must go back to the old one and finish this pair of socks. MUST.

in the meantime i continue to look for evidence of purling used as decoration in knitting during the 12th or 13th century.

the first sleeve is coming along nicely. it is almost long enough now without any squish-down to create the lines. (almost)

so i figure if i add a couple inches after it is long enough i'll be good.

the shaping is coming along well. the sleeve isn't all the interesting looking as a flat item,

so i'm not quite sure how i'll put together the display for the A&S contest so that it is not utterly boring. i figure i'll keep a bit of the wool to show were i started, then show a bit of it on a spindle, and some plied and ready to knit. sort of "sheep to ~~shawl,~~ um sleeve" like. then show this sleeve, one with the "decorative purling" and a linen sleeve (not attatched to a garment) all of which can be tried on to show which looks closer to the illuminations. maybe i'll also include photographs of each "on" as well.

the socks do not look terribly much further along than last time, because i frogged and reknit all the foot that is done. I decided after some thought to add a decorative pattern on the top of the foot. so i starting doing the lattice work in knits and purls on the top. NOW, i'm ~~not quite sure i like it~~ well, actually pretty sure i don't. not because it's not interesting but because *I* like things to move along quickly without a lot of thought, and this does NOT allow for that. So, i'm going to suggest that the faster/easier pattern would just do garter stitch, but if one is interested in true fabulosity, they should try this. (the next sock will not have it) in my socks.

as you can see, the decorative top is really lovely, but perhaps not for me!

knitting history

2009-03-09T17:52:00.008-06:00

a bit about the history of knitting and my little project.

there are some small pieces of knitting probably as early as 1000 AD, possibly earlier... much of the earliest pieces that were once identified as knitting are actually naalbinding. these socks, for example

were naalbound, a technique similar to knitting, but done with a single needle.

by the 10th century there are actual knit socks (altho many were done entirely with twisted stitches). Most were middle eastern, likely Egyptian and done with colored band (almost always indigo dyed) and cotton.

by the 16th century knitting was quite advanced and had spread all over Europe. From hats knitted and fulled in England

to tunic-y items knitted (likely on frames) in Italy

to gloves in Spain

knitting was everywhere.

My little experiment will be somewhat like armwarmers. scoggers and knitted sleeves were ( i believe) both separate items that were not connected to a garment. I'm researching the history of purling, because i think perhaps the lines that can be seen on the arms in the illuminations and statuary are actually purl lines. My plan is to make this set, another one with the purl rows and a linen sleeve. just experimentally, which will look the closest? i'm not sure... i guess i'll find out.

busy busy!

2009-03-08T21:47:00.009-06:00

well, it's been productive and good, but i've been uber-busy and haven't blogged lately. I'm about 3/4 done with the first P&P sock. i keep pluggging along. I started a project for the A&S throw down. (for those who don't know i belong to a medieval reenactment group SCA). It's at the end of this month, and i'm working on wool sleeves. I am positting the idea that the tight sleeves seen under the big bell sleeves in Bliaut's were knitted. check out these images for example:

although it's hard to see, all show the under sleeves very wrinkled. the wrinkles are always horizontal (if the arm is up and down) and very tight. This is a very difficult look to produce with woven material. I've tried all kinds of things, but without very careful cutting and fitting (which wasn't done much in this time period --12th century) the sleeves don't fit this snugly and wrinkle this way. they just don't. So, a while back while wearing knitted wrist warmers that were very long, i noticed that these sideways wrinkles happen all the time. and making a knitted item really fitted and snug is easy. in this time period in spain and the middle east there were unquestionably socks and such that fit very tightly on legs. not so very long afterward scoggers and silk sleeves were not uncommon in both Spain and England. so, it's not an unreasonable theory. i think.

i've started knitting a pair in a lovely brown handspun (with flecks of yellow, blue and red) the brown is the natural color of the wool, and the bits of silk were blended in on combs and then it was all spindle spun and plied. it's lovely soft stuff! YUM.

anyway... we'll see how it turns out. it even occured to me that perhaps the illuminations and statuary are not showing rucking, but perhaps the sleeves were knitted with occasional rows of purling creating the little regular lines shown. I'm not doing that with these sleeves but i may try it on the next ones.

silliness...

2009-02-22T12:58:00.002-07:00

my son, a very talented artist, drew this... we thought it was darned funny! hope you do too...

oooo

2009-02-19T22:43:00.002-07:00

fun fun fun!

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visited 30 states (60%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or website vertaling duits?

Total Spoiler

2009-02-19T07:03:00.004-07:00

So, I'm loving the shaft of these. BUT, i cannot decide what to do with the heel. I've played with a variety of things from vertical stripes (interesting) to some other things that failed pretty big, to these horizontal stripes. I'm not sure i LOVE them. I'm just not sure. Someone suggested just green. I've been considering just the dark color. Oh dear, i see more frogging in my future. :-(

I guess i'm sort of hoping someone will chime in and say either: Oh, i like it, it's good, OR What the hell are you thinking, that doesn't fit at all. So, what DO you think???

fresh from the dye pot

2009-02-17T11:41:00.003-07:00

I've been playing again. after all that RED, i needed to see some other colors, and green is always my come back to color. so this morning, after finished more SCAB yarn, i threw two skeins in the dye pot just. for. fun. I hardly do that anymore, it seems. I think i'll call it Forest Canopy. it is lovely dappled greens and browns. the sun shining through deep forest canopy.It reminds me of a song a sang in college "...from deep in the forest, concealed by the trees..."

I'm shipping the first few skeins of SCAB yarn today. not all of the yarn is dry yet, but i want to ship as quickly as i can.

Things are moving right along with our yarn shop. we've ordered our first yarn and are going to be ordering more today! purchased some shelving. it's just so darned exciting.

let me just share... and a spoiler!

2009-02-15T10:29:00.005-07:00

with you for a moment how unreal my life occassionally seems. I suppose that sounds silly. and it is. a bit.

Years ago, i wanted desperately to make a living as a musician. I went to college, i practiced, i worked at music. i tried very hard. somewhere around my first marriage i made contact with a guy who said he knew a guy that might be interested in my music. My (now ex) husband threw a tantrum (insecurities suck) and i passed up the chance... and had a baby instead. it was hard, it made me resent my (now ex) husband, whom was already a problem because he was abusive.

i finally left when my (now ex) husband quit the last in a long trail of jobs and we got an eviction notice. i came home to South Dakota. wrecked. Eventually i went back to college, back to music. I still had dreams. But i was older and had two little babies at home, so my dreams were a bit smaller. I wanted to teach and spend my summers traveling to arts festivals selling my CDs (not made yet) of celtic music. I met my now husband while in college, but he was going to law school and told me he wasn't going to get married until law school was done. so i ran off to Alaska for a year. I'd always wanted to go and i taught in Unalakleet for a year. Fabulous. Then my now husband decided it was pretty lonely on his own and said he didn't want to wait afterall. I came home. we got married. i taught another two years. i had Brenden. i made a CD. I loved it.

I started traveling. Gigs were hard to come by, and money was slow going at the beginning of his law career, but i got paid enough to afford to go. MOSTLY. But i was barely breaking even.

All this time, i'd learned to spin and was spinning little bits and bobs of yarn. they sat around in baskets in my house. I didn't knit. Crocheting hurt my hands (i had the beginnings of arthritis even then) and spinning was just a hobby. I was going to make my job playing music.

I did a couple more things to help me make a living as a musician... and none of them really seemed to make it possible to even make it a reasonable second income. I made a second CD. I traveled. I got lots of good reviews. everyone said i should be able to make it. BUT, i could not.

Then, while i was away on a weekend gig, i was sitting around spinning and someone bought a bunch of handspun yarn. I made almost as much selling a little bit of handspun as i had made playing a bunch of times in a weekend.

And a new career was born... the thing that i thought was a career, has turned into a hobby. and the thing that was strictly a hobby... is now a career. And i'm happier now, than i was when i was a musician. isn't life odd?

Pictures of yesterday in my life!

Dyeing scab yarn and Forest Primeval!

progress on the pride and prejudice sock!

deep bruise! and a spoiler

2009-02-13T11:46:00.005-07:00

I dyed this up and debated about the name... Black eye? Shiner? in the end... i decided that Deep Bruise, was the most appropriate... and in spite of the yucky name... it is DARNED PRETTY!

On another note, i have 25 skeins ready to be SCAB yarn soaking! YEEHAW! I can't wait for it to be dyed, dry and shipped. I had to order new shipping boxes. I guess that's a good thing... I've used up all the ones i had!

i bought a couple new colors of dye that i really love... can't wait to play!

I've cast on the pride and prejudice colorwork sock! it is fun. a friend designed the colorwork part, and now i'm decided where to go from there... it beautiful!

the latice work is simple and fun. the colors are nice... i'm going to have to do more to see how i think it suits!

News and new yarn

2009-02-10T14:09:00.003-07:00

so... my website and yarn was a topic of conversation on LimenViolet podcast 80! i can't believe it. CAN. NOT. BELIEVE. IT. Color me surprised! If you found your way here from there... welcome, glad you came by! a couple comments the S&S sock is neither feather and fan nor eye of partridge... but darned close! and yes, that's The Badlands! Castle Fibers is based out of Rapid City, which is about an hour from The Badlands... and it's one of my fave places to hang out!

I have SCAB in laceweight now available. It is a slightly different colorway, because my laceweight is half silk. This means that it's yummy yarn... soft and luxurious, but takes dye a bit differently! It'll be available in extremely limited amounts... scoup it up or it'll be gone!

Pride and Prejudice socks...

2009-02-09T10:24:00.003-07:00

so, this weekend i got the design for the colorwork... and i'm totally excited. I can't wait to get started. I've dyed up what i think will be the colorways... it's going to be lovely and fun. I cannot believe how well SCAB yarn sold... it's all sold out... i'll be doing a sample of dk weight and a sample of lace weight to see how they turn out, before i list them in presale. As soon as I get the scab yarn all dyed, the banshee yarn will go into presale.

shipping... spoiler!

2009-02-05T12:45:00.003-07:00

so, all the yarn is dry and in super pretty neat skeins (not like the ones that came out of the dye pot, which were messy). the yarn is all packaged into baggies so it will not wet with a extra added gift AND a coupon! the boxes look so cute all in stacks!

and what's inside looks even cuter...

out the door they go!

R.I.P. Line

2009-02-05T06:49:00.002-07:00

the R.I.P. (undead yarn) line is available on my website http://castlefibers.com/ for those who are looking. Only SCAB is available for preorder at this time, Banshee will be available shortly!

i see yarn....

2009-02-04T17:39:00.008-07:00

lots and lots of Sense and Sensibility yarn... it's everywhere... taking over my house! hehe. I decided to do a slightly different colorway than the one i knit up... i wanted the reds a bit richer...
Plus i dyed up this yarn...

It will be part of the R.I.P. line... It's called Banshee ... cuz it's screamin' pink!

she's walking...

2009-02-02T16:40:00.002-07:00

Jinniver... someone i feel honored to call a friend, that i met through ravelry, is walking... for those who can't. Just saying that makes me choke up a bit. She's raising money for MS... she was diagnosed some years ago and has been doing this ever since. She's raided her stash and is raffling off some awesome yarn... donate and win!

check out her blog!
http://sarahwinchesteroffiberarts.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/walking-for-those-who-cant/

hugs

WOW

2009-02-01T22:28:00.003-07:00

SCAB is half gone already... and it's only in presale because i haven't gotten the chance to dye it yet. I'm super excited about this new line... But i didn't expect them to move so quickly! I guess my bizarre-o sense of humor is a good thing!

coming soon... Old Bruise!

News and Gossip (spoiler)

2009-01-30T09:02:00.004-07:00

So... news? i'm done with the S&S socks. They are little shorty cuff socks and i've been wearing them ever since i got them blocked. i LOVE them. someone who likes a bit longer socks may want to increase the length of shaft by an inch or so. I had 35 grams of the 100 gram skein left, so there'll be plenty of yarn, if somoene so chooses. They are super comfy... and cute! I've gotten a ton of compliments... from strangers in restaurants... and friends! I think i've convinced about 8 people to start knitting because of these awesome socks! The sock kit is for sale in my store, so even if you did not purchase the club up front, you can now buy it month by month (limited number of extra kits--i'm thinking 8 or 10--i'm not sure, but hurry if you like them, they'll go quick!)

spoiler coming

MORE news: the Rough Yarn is ready for people to pick their prize. After some thought i'm also going to allow people to pick $10.00 of other yarn instead if they prefer. If you won, look for emails... here's the yarn!

OK, so juicy gossip... and a bit of fun news! This week the gossip that MommaMonkey of Socktopia fame is NOT dead. there is quite a lot of evidence, apparently, that she ducked out of commitments and such by pretending to die of complication related to lupus. Moreover, it is likely that she created a sockpuppet account or two on Ravelry, before she did it, so she could watch the fallout. People lost money... people were hurt... This all coming out in the wake of the MCY scandal...

so, the options are get mad, get even, or point and laugh. I choose the latter. I'm starting a new line of yarn. It's called R.I.P. (Undead yarn)... i have the first colorway dyed up. It's going to be called "SCAB". it's actually really pretty... dark dark reds.... Coming is "I'm Dead"... it'll make it hard to hide. Old Mummy... anyway... I'm pointing and laughing. it's better than crying! SCAB... don't pick!

2009-01-26T21:56:00.002-07:00

Jessica sent me these fab pictures of my kids doing Archery....

Brenden's awesome hat!

2009-01-25T22:12:00.004-07:00

I've been playing with hat ideas... and intarsia... and Brenden needed a hat... so here's my 1st practice hat...

he loves red so, he's pretty happy with it.. and i'm pretty happy with the practice i got...

here he is with Tuck... ok, you can't really see the hat, but isn't he a cutie?

The winning name is....

2009-01-23T13:26:00.008-07:00

After much agonizing and arguing with myself and my husband, i have picked the following two names... neither of which is QUITE what the winning people picked... but they will each win a skein of Rough Wool (I'll be sending out pictures of all colorways they can pick from soon)...

So Mrs. Feasance (MsFeasance on ravelry) suggested Anne (as in Green Gables)... which i changed minutely to "Anne with an E" for this one

and dobarah suggested Demeter (the greek god of the vine)... the thing is Demeter is actually the Greek goddess of the harvest, but Dionysus is the Greek god of Wine... so I'm calling this one Dionysus...

I am also, in the grouping of "random winners" going to send the people who suggested the following "runner up names" yarn...

Rusted Dreams
Celtic Copper
Dragon Scales
(for the first )

and
Frozen Fresia
Nordic Night
Lady of the Lake
(for the second)

other random winners will follow when my son gets home from 1st grade to pick "random numbers".

Good Luck!

2009-01-23T06:36:00.002-07:00

I'll leave comments on teh contest post open a couple more hours... then i'll shut them. Just so everyone knows how i handle this. (i've done contests like this before... i've never gotten quite this many responses, so THANKS!!!) I'll read through the comments, i try NOT to look at who suggested anything, so i've not read through the suggestions yet. I open the pages without avatars, and just read name suggestions (and related comments). I write down my favorites... usually about 10 a piece, but with 430 suggestions, i suspect there may be more than average, and then i spend awhile considering, usually i cross out those that are not my faves as i go... eventually coming down to 1 name for each skein.

for random winners, of course, i use a random number generator... my 6-yr-old! hehehehehhe

good luck!

Free Yarn--DON'T POST COMMENTS ALLLL DONE!

2009-01-19T22:23:00.009-07:00

I have two lovely new colorways and no names. I'm feeling a bit brainless i guess. Post suggestions for names and I will be giving several skeins of Castle's Rough Yarn away for free. (Rough Yarn is a slightly rougher yarn than my typical sock yarn and would work up lovely for felting purses or such. You can see pictures of some colorways here in my etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=11974&section_id=5002440).

Here's the yarn! What suggestions do you have? Be sure to post a name so i can identify who you are if you win. the names will be picked by me, but the winners will be picked at random, as well as those who pick the winning names. I will be giving away 1 skein of yarn (past the winning two) for every 25 people who post suggestions. So invite your friends and neighbors! (up to about 15 skeins cuz then i'll run out!)

Also visit my new website: http://castlefibers.com/ for more yarn to look at!

Contest will run through Jan. 23rd.

SPOILER WARNING...

2009-01-18T09:52:00.005-07:00

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I have one of the Sense and Sensibility Socks done. I love it. I blocked the lace on the cuff... yesterday, which made a big difference. Lace just looks so darned much better when it's all blocked. As typical, there will be a tiny bit of pooling on the gusset. I sort of think that all hand paints (or virtually all) will do this. When i do spaghetti dyeing, there is NO pooling. NONE. But, spaghetti dyeing takes hugely more time, and i can't do colors like this with it, since the yellow would get muddied up :-(

anyway... pictures!

I'm absolutely loving the cuff and heel. I really like the top pattern as well. I put the sock on for pictures... and it was so hard to take it off. It felt so comfy. i just wanted to keep wearing it. But, unfortunately, the other sock is only in the lacey-cuff stage. I have 4 repeats of the 7 done.

More Dyeing...

2009-01-15T19:31:00.003-07:00

I'm trying to get my new website all full of wonderful new yarn. i dyed this yesterday using my newest most fun technique of dyeing! it creates wonderful gradiations, and marvelous colors! come on over and visit: http://castlefibers.com

Today is the very last day for purchasing the Jane Austen yarn club... if you haven't yet, you should get in on fun! invite a friend!

more yarn...

2009-01-09T13:25:00.011-07:00

yesterday was a good day, i dyed some sushi yarn and some fabulous other yarn... i love this orange/red/purple colorway...mmmmmm

this particular technique leaves some light/white strands behind... and i LOVE that.

the colorways look bright and clean because of the shade variation, i think...

Prairie Soliloquy... was dyed with the same technique

I also dyed this: No Room For Cream Yarn with the same technique, only i over dyed all the white parts ... love it! i love the orangey and carmely shades... looks yummy!

I also dyed some Sushi Yarn! these are just fun, with long color stripes

two turned out surprisingly similar... even tho i thought they would be much different than they are...

and then there's this lovely orange-y one:

they're all dyed so that one could knit a sock from each end, and they would match!

overall it was a good day...

and tomorrow... there'll be more to show! some yummy teal and purple, and more!

dyeing day

2009-01-08T22:04:00.008-07:00

so-- i spend today playing. i'm generally pleased.

I dyed this yarn which is a lot different than my typical, highly saturated colors... I believe i'll call it Prairie Soliloquy. I dyed it with the picture in mind...

I wanted that sense of isolation... I'm not sure i quite captured it, but i like the yarn anyway!

then i played with other yarn... none is dry enough to show yet, but i'm really thrilled with some orange and red and purpley stuff. it is gorgeous.

i picked up kids, and then the sun set... it could not have been a more lovely, productive day...

and as days often do here... it ended with beauty. this, this is why i live here...

between the isolation of that rundown house and the gorgeous color of this sunset... it is worth it. totally worth it.

SPOILER ALERT

2009-01-08T09:13:00.005-07:00

so... don't look at this if you want to be surprised by the Sense and Sensibility project/yarn!
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I've been working away at the design for the S&S socks. I'm loving how they look--i particularly love how the heel flap looks... and the cuff... ok, i'm loving it all.

I've gotten past the fussy parts... the shaft/heel flap are sensibility--and the foot will be sensible--so it's going much faster now!

i'm still debating about whether to change the colorway somewhat. if i do, the yellow and dove grey will remain the same, and the pink and rose will sort of move UP a step... leaving rose and maroon instead!

SPOILER ALERT------Sense and Sensibility socks --the beginning

2009-01-02T09:18:00.008-07:00

so, i'm not a big lace knitter, but when i started thinking about socks for Sense and Sensibility, i immediately thought they should be a bit lacy. I decided after lots of thought that i wanted a turn down anklet with edges that had points. I looked at numerous lace patterns, didn't find precisely what i wanted so i launched off on my own...i cast-on and frogged entirely too many times to discuss, but have now reached this point

which i quite like. it is not too lacy. the yarn would obscure any significant lace. But a bit lacy. and has the edge that i wanted.

this shows the edge a bit better.

the wonderful and amazing thing is those needles. I got them for Christmas from my wonderful husband. I have asked for fiber related items in the past but never gotten any. I guess he has given in. I am officially (in his mind) truly an unrepentant fiber geek. i WIN!!!! heheehhehe.

Daria is coming over later to dye yarn for the shawl/cloak design that she is working on for the JA Yarn Club. Can't wait! i'm excited to get started dyeing.

christmas socks

2008-12-25T11:09:00.007-07:00

Route 66 socks for Brenden

and Americana Flag socks for Sandi

and Black Hills Sunrise shortie socks for Amanda

They were all well received! Glad they're all done... now for hats!

Jane Austen Yarn Club

2008-12-08T06:59:00.002-07:00

If you have not yet purchased your Jane Austen Yarn Club membership... don't miss out! http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=18128321

But more importantly... tell me, what is your favorite, favorite brand, type of the following:

acrylic yarn

wool yarn

other luxury type yarn

My cloak is come home, and here follows the pattern of its' lace

2008-11-19T19:48:00.004-07:00

--from Jane Austen's letter to her sister Cassandra of Sunday, 2 June 1799.

Jane Austen. I love her books. i am inspired by her books. so I'm doing a Jane Austen Yarn Club for 2009! I am very excited about it. this club will be different than any i've done in the past. rather than selling it all the time, there will be a limited time and a limited number of memberships.

Here are the not finalized details:

Sales of The Jane Austen Club would run from Dec. 15-Jan 15

Sense and Sensibility Socks-- Shipping Feb. 6-9 ($27 retail)
Pride and Prejudice Socks (two colors)--Shipping April 6-9 ($40 retail)
Not sure which book Shawl lace weight--Shipping June 8-11 ($45 retail)
Not sure which book Dk Gloves--Shippping Aug 5-8 ($27.00 retail)
Not sure which book hat--Shipping Oct. 6-9 ($27.00 retail)
not sure which book socks--Shipping Dec. 7-10 ($27.00) ________________________________________________

retail purchase price over $200.00
Regular purchase would be $175.00
(shipping is about $20.00)

The payment plan will be $65 due Jan 15, Feb 15, March 15

We'll do a read/knit along on Ravelry! let me know what you think!

back to knitting

2008-11-17T06:52:00.003-07:00

so, i'm still working on various projects for christmas. i'm starting to feel a bit like i'll never get them done. two pairs of socks are moving along slowly but surely. i haven't figured out what to make for a 14 year old boy. maybe i'll do a hat. maybe. and i also haven't figured out what i have time to do that i can get done by Christmas for Jeremy. hmmmmmm.

BUT i have big plans for next year when i want to knit new christmas stockings for everyone. Brenden wants one with a bear, stephen wants one with santa in his sleigh, amanda will love whatever, as will jeremy. maybe if start on dec. 26 i'll get them all done by next christmas.

shrug done!

2008-11-13T17:23:00.007-07:00

and it is beautiful. too bad i am fat. i am going on a diet. now. totally. i was looking at pictures from 2004 and am horrifed at how much fatter i look.

2008

2004

Driving in the Rain

2008-10-12T23:30:00.010-06:00

... the weather was wet and grey, but the colors were in certain ways more amazing than any i've seen out here on the prairie!

So... expect to see some autumn prairie colorways soon!

christmas socks

2008-10-06T21:18:00.003-06:00

not to be confused with christmas stockings... which i am not doing this year, altho i might sometimes. this year i am making socks for my youngest son for Christmas. Last summer, if you were following along you know we drove Route 66. (half of it anyway) and Brenden was in love with it. Every morning he woke up to say "are we still on Route 66?" Also, everytime i dye new yarn he tells me I should knit him socks in "those colors". (especially if there is any red). so... i am knitting him socks for Christmas. eventually they will have more stuff, but for the moment this is where i'm at. the shaft is supposed to look like neon lights. then i'm going to knit in the Route 66 sign into the heel flap. I know, i graphed the entirely wrong shape and have since regraphed it. ... the heel flap will be black with this white sign. the foot will also be in black (which isn't quite solid so it should look a bit like old black top i hope) will have white stripes down each side with a broken yellow line down the center, like road. I'm having great fun designing these. maybe if they turn out well enough i'll sell a kit.

.... and the winners are...

2008-10-01T18:39:00.001-06:00

Alaska Rose and That's the Ticket

Fun fun fun!

I'll be drawing one more winner for free yarn...

OK--so vote!

2008-09-29T10:47:00.005-06:00

I've picked the following 6 options for each yarn--

please vote ONCE for each... I will be sending out 2 free skeins of yarn --one to each person who suggests the winning name--and one more skein to someone randomly drawn!

Mavericks
Patriot
Primary Colors
That's the Ticket
Winning Ticket
Hero Hues

Alaska Rose
Simply Sarah
Pale in Pink
Perfectly Palin
Rink Pink
Mrs. Palin Goes to Washington

name help!

2008-09-25T10:43:00.004-06:00

by the way, to purchase yarn below: check out my etsy store!

OK--so i have this lovely yarn...

the following name suggestions:

Lipstick Pigs

Pretty in Pinks

Piggy Goes Out

Lipstick Dreams

Pitbull Pink

Trig’s Mom’s Lipstick

This Little Piggie goes to the White House

Pale in Pink

Hockey Mom

The Pink House

The New GOP

Palin Pride

Rink Pink

Wassily

Sara’s dreamway

Alaska Rose

Piggy goes to DC

Pink Elephant

Simply Palin

Lipstick

Palin Pinks

pit-bull

hockey mom

Putting on the Ritz

Palin Pink

Maverick 2.0

Barracuda

Lipstick on a Pit Bull

Lipstick on a Pig

Perfectly Palin

Pink Passion

sassy pink

pink politics

pink confidence

White House Pink

Sarah’s Choice

political in pink

Please vote below--just leave a comment voting, or suggest a new one! either way, the winning name will get a free skein!

NOW... i also dyed this yarn...

It is McCain/Palin yarn --his color blue and gold, the alaska flag is also blue and gold and red, because well, she wears red...and the red fades to pink a bit, lipstick pink, i think... so i'm also looking for name suggestions for this! so...

suggest me a name for either or both or vote--

the winning names will get a skein of the yarn!

Onions....they're not just for yellow anymore

2008-07-17T20:46:00.005-06:00

I've been told for years that dyeing with onions skins would produce, well, just more yellow, so i never did it. But last night out of sheer boredom i peeled some onions and tried it...NOT YELLOW!

I mordanted with alum and cream of tartar and...

Orange! Yes indeedy...a lovely orange. This was the first soak for about 20 minutes i think.

Second soak...a bit lighter...

Third soak overnight, we're getting somewhere close to yellow.Still much more gold than yellow.... I have one last bunch from a second cooking of the onion skins... i'll post pictures tomorrow!

here are all three...

Coreopsis and stuff

2008-07-17T10:11:00.006-06:00

Last evening i decided I had enough coreopsis saved to try a bit of dyeing. I did not have much but i was in need of stuff to do. I'm guessing there was a total of 30 small flowers was all. So...almost as soon as I started boiling them, the water turned really bright red!!!!

Yay! I decided to try dyeing some without adding ammonia, which one of my books says will make the color more red. In the past adding ammonia has made a lovely orange but nothing even close to red. Since i had such a tiny amount of dye stuffs i put in a small amount of silk. Just 5 grams. AND

WOW! RED! or at least very dark orange. When this was done i tried adding some ammonia, which did not make the dye more red at all. it made it more orange. I stupidly then thought maybe i'd add some vinegar and it'd go back to what it was...but it didn't. OOPS!

So here's what i got. On the right is the first soak, then after i added ammonia/vinegar, then i reboiled the flowers for a much weaker bath.

This morning while out trimming apple suckers i saw this little lady and couldn't resist taking a picture.

Upcoming--onion skins. They're not just for yellow anymore!

I'm Lichen Dyeing

2008-07-04T20:27:00.003-06:00

and i'm liken it too...

FIRST: a comment on collecting lichen. Do not collect it in National Parks or State Parks. It's illegal. When you do collect it in a legal place, do not ever collect more than 10% from any given spot. Lichen grows very slowly, and if you collect more than this you may permanently damage the ecosystem. If you are particularly interested in collecting lichen that dyes purple, which contains orchil, take a long a small jar of household bleach and Qtips. After scraping the top off of the lichen, if you dab bleach on it and it turns, red/purple...you have orchil containing lichens.

I have yet to find orchil lichens but i'm collecting what i find, because well, i'm obsessed with natural dyeing and lichens are the newest thing for me...

anyway, so i have a variety of jars on my back porch (which gets extremely warm in the afternoon sun) filled with lichen soaking in ammonia and water. I haven't actually tried dyeing any silk yet...soon, i hope, soon. I understand that they need to sit for weeks and weeks. I'm not very patient, but i am seeing some color already, which is exciting!
This is the first jar, i started a couple weeks ago. It first turned somewhat orange-y brown, then got darker and darker and darker. Today, i diluted the dye by half and am still completely unable to see what color it is...either extremely dark brown or maybe almost black.

These two i collected last weekend, near Badland National Park...not in that would be illegal. the one on the right is from bright orange lichen growing on rocks, the left is green lichen that grows on cedar trees.

(if you click on the picture you can see it much bigger and see colors better)
Today, we went out to a campground in the Black Hills, outside the National Forest, and behind the campground was a big hill and ton of different kinds of lichen... from left to right--
1. some moss that was growing between rocks
2. greyish green lichen that grew on boulders
3. greyish purple flat with occasional spots of black on boulders
4. orange lichen on oak trees
5. neon green lichen from boulders
6. dark brown on boulders
7. orange on boulders

Badlands Wander

2008-07-03T10:52:00.028-06:00

Last Saturday my family and I wandered through Badland National Park... taking pictures and hiking...

The Haystack Mounds (these yellow and red striped mounds are my very favorite part of the Badlands...normally the Badlands are very dry, so the green is quite unexpected.

The prickly pear cactus are blooming insane amounts this year...so i grabbed a few pics of those too.

This lovely little guy has the auspicious name of Gumbo Lily...much prettier than it sounds!

These rounded tops and sides are what give the Haystack Mounds their names.

I was enthralled with the watercolor like valley here...I've never seen colors like this in the badlands before.

The yucca are also in full bloom

with all the rain the striations are more visible than usual.

my little guy said he was airbending...with gusts of 60 MPH plus...it was exciting.

my 14-year-old was loving the climbing at the end here...

and my 6-year-old had to follow suit.

Here's all three of my wonderful kids...

It was beautiful and wonderful...and new Badlands Yarn is around the corner....

a simple cardboard loom--for a tiny tapestry

2008-06-16T10:58:00.004-06:00

So, for those of you who want to weave tapestries but can't afford, or don't want to purchase a big tapestry loom, here's a reasonably priced, simple alternative. Go to a local frame shop (not a place like Michaels or Hobby Lobby) and ask them if they have a small scrap of mat board. In the range of 10 inches square or a bit smaller works great. Have them cut out the center of the mat, like you were going to frame a picture, leaving about an inch and a half edge. If they are cutting scraps, this shouldn't cost you much.

Now, take your loom home. You have a bit of work left to do. Take a ruler and on the edge of the mat, starting where the center cutout is, measure and mark in incriments of an 1/8th of an inch all the way across. With a scissor cut slits in the edge of the of the mat board about an 1/8th of an inch deep. You need to do this on two opposite sides of the mat board and you're ready to warp your loom.

Warping your loom is easy too...taking some strong, smooth yarn (I like white sock yarn) slide the yarn into the slot all the way on one end, then stretch it across to the slot on the opposite side. Then, put the yarn across the back tightly, into the slot right next to the one you just used. Continue across this way, until the whole loom is warped!

Tomorrow...weaving a tapestry....

leaf dyeing

2008-06-05T14:46:00.005-06:00

Yesterday, while out mowing the lawn in the 2 hours of not rain...(don't ask...what a mess) I trimmed a couple very low hanging branches off the apple and the aspen tree. Because i had already trimmed them i decided to try dyeing with the leaves. I'd heard some pretty impressive results and had to try for myself. Anyway...i stripped of all the leaves and cooked both the apple and aspen (separately) for an hour or so. the results are really lovely!

apple leaves--first bath, second bath

aspen leaves--overnight soak, 20 minutes soak...as typical i find that a shorter soak gives a much clearer, cleaner yellow.

wholesale order

2008-05-31T21:54:00.003-06:00

So--in spite of my yarn blanks being on backorder (ARGGGGG) i am sending out half of my latest wholesale order. These are all Yarn(scapes) yarn--

colorways:

Early Hyacinth, Mom's Iris, After Sunset, Badland Evening, Bear Butte Morning, Grape Hyacinth, Prairie Pasque and Dakota Dawning

now...lots more to dye, lots more to spin. I actually did spin something today. I know it's shocking, because i am just entirely too distracted by politics and a new house...

more lilac dyed silk pictures

2008-05-23T09:42:00.002-06:00

here's more pictures--

first i boiled the lilacs (about 2 quart jars full) in water for a couple of hours. i strained off the flowers. then i put silk in the dye pot and cooked it for about 3 hours. I wanted as rich a color as i could get so i left it longer than i normally would. when i took it out there still seemed to be a bit of color left so i added more silk, cooked it for about an hour then let it sit overnight. it probably soaked for a total of 15 hours. i pulled it out this morning and got a yellow-y-er green.

left: 3 hour soak

right: overnight soak

Lilacs

2008-05-22T14:03:00.003-06:00

it's raining hard today...and the lilacs are blooming in my backyard. i love the way they smell...and the way they look. so i was curious. will they DYE???? i picked about 2 quarts squished and boiled them up in water. DANG...my house smells awesome! and here is the silk--

Natural dye class

2008-05-20T08:52:00.003-06:00

so--i taught a class at quest on natural dyeing. the results were not all that exciting unfortunately :-( this early in the spring i have no dye plants that get awesome results unfortunately. anyway...we tried some tree lichen, collected on the site, some heart wood that i got from Mebd of twin rose, and some gladiolas that i froze last fall...

i'm not sure what i'll do with the yarn but...here it is!

not my fave flower but...

2008-05-12T21:51:00.001-06:00

I am a
Sunflower

What Flower
Are You?

warning political rant ahead

2008-05-12T12:42:00.002-06:00

I sent this email to NPR today:

Today I listened to Dakota Midday (May 12, 2008) and I was sad to see NPR and SD public radio buying into the media nonsense. I hear your “political junkies” saying that the primary is effectively over and that Hillary continuing to run is going to make her a joke. A couple points:

1. The media may be painting Obama as the presumptive nominee but the last I checked Obama did NOT have enough delegates to be the presumptive nominee. Unless things change radically over the next few weeks Obama will NOT gain enough delegates to be the nominee without the super delegates, and since they can change their affiliations right up until they vote at the convention this means there will be no presumptive nominee.

2. When my son was in cross country I encouraged him to run his very hardest in every race. He was not a particularly good runner and his chances of ever winning were very slim. But I always thought that our country valued finishing races. We also value underdogs. When the boxer gets up from the mat after being counted down to the last number we cheer mightily for him. And when, just once in a while, he throws the knockout punch, we all feel a little bit better. We cheer for the last person to finish the marathon. No one runs out in a race where someone is two strides behind and tells the second runner to quit because they have no chance of winning.
3. I do not understand why these same values that we hold onto and tell our children to abide by: (Finishing what you start. Never give up. ) are not equally important in politics. No matter who I intend to vote for, I value Hillary’s insistence that she will finish what she has started. Her insistence that we, here in South Dakota have as much right to vote and have our voices heard as does Iowa when it caucuses first. It bothers me that the mainstream media has declared Obama the winner, despite his not having enough delegates to win. BUT it bothers me so much more when NPR and Public Radio do the same.

I hope that in the future you report more facts, and fewer opinions. If the “political junkies” have opinions, they should very much state that this is an OPINION. Saying that Hillary has lost and Obama has won, is NOT a fact. It is not even an opinion. It is too soon to declare a winner when two runners are still in the race and one is a few strides behind.

Finally done...

2008-05-09T19:48:00.004-06:00

I've been knitting these lovely socks from handspun yarn for several months. I have found out precisely why one should knit two socks right after each other. I knitted just the same number of stitches, etc. but i was knitting more tightly on the second and in particular the sock is slightly smaller around. But they look fine on!
The darker yarn is handspun 80% wool, 20% silk, the lighter yarn is 100% tussah silk naturally dyed with black lilies. I'm really thrilled with how they fit and they feel AWESOME.

So...I need to wait on the Egyptian socks because i need to dye the yarn with natural indigo first! So... i can't decide what to cast on. Any thoughts?

One down...

2008-05-05T21:32:00.005-06:00

one to go. I finished the first sock i've made from a single strand of spaghetti dyed yarn...it turned out beautifully. It's a shorty sock because I had less than a full skein of yarn.

Because my SSS is pretty bad i intend to finish the other of my handspun socks, then cast on these socks:

or maybe these:

I haven't decided which for sure. Anyway...I'm thinking i'll start with commercial yarn but indigo dyed for realism (or whatever). Next time i'll go with handspun. probably. Anyway... I need to finish my handspun socks...Cuz i want them for Quest!

May 2nd

2008-05-03T14:11:00.009-06:00

Ok--we were looking at lovely tulips getting ready to bloom and daffodils actually in bloom and then the morning arrived and we saw...

WELL, we didn't actually see this because as you can see here: there was snow stuck all over the outside of the house and windows so we couldn't see anything out at all...

Eventually, in the afternoon the snow stopped and the sky cleared and we could see what the blizzard had done

We were left with huge drifts in some places and no snow at all in others.

Tuck didn't seem particularly happy with the drifts halfway up the fence...

In some places the drifts were about 17 inches deep...others...were a lot deeper than that!and some were not.

666

2008-05-01T21:54:00.004-06:00

I hit 666 sales on Etsy today! YAY! In honor of my evilness I am planning a stash busting contest... I have not come up with all the details yet but they will follow soon. This lovely custom silk roving was the 666th sale.

It's so beautiful...and i'm so excited about being able to do this for a living!

Gosh...instead of evil.. i guess i'm blessed!

Spring!

2008-04-25T18:19:00.004-06:00

The flowers in my garden are coming up! The crocus are already blooming... other little green things are coming up and starting to bloom. I reminded of The Secret Garden...

I'm not sure what these little guys are yet...maybe tulips? But i love the color.

I love the crocus... Can't wait for tomorrow to see what else will open!

2008-03-23T11:34:00.011-06:00

I'm a bad blogger! :-( here's what i've been doing in the past while. some dyeing, a bit of knitting, and working at Smatterings!

tiny sock for sock class

more grape hyacinth yarn

Bear Butte Morning

Faded Roses

Raspberry Parfait (hums Raspberry Beret to self)

Box of Colors

Warmin' Up

James Van Nuys yarn...check out Yarn(scapes) blog... what's your guess on what this new yarn line is?

downright unimpressive

2008-03-13T09:07:00.004-06:00

so, rose hips were on my list to try dyeing with. the results? ehh

Just not that impressive. not worth the time, i'd say.

Another Sunday afternoon of Dyeing

2008-03-09T18:19:00.012-06:00

Today...i'm playing with dried hibiscus from our local health food store...the results?
AWESOME!

Sunday Afternoon Dyeing with Poms

2008-02-24T19:09:00.014-07:00

I used dried pomegranite skins that i had saved. Unfortunately, some molded so i ended up throwing almost half of what i had saved away. the dye vat started out yellow and got quite orange but produced no red shades. I got yellows and browns.

Top right: basic yellow--silk w/ alum

bottom right: silk w/ copper

top middle: ammonia and a second boiling of the dye stuffs

bottom middle: second dyeing in ammonia/poms

far left: vinegar added to the original dye vat

For those of you interested...

2008-02-15T17:26:00.002-07:00

Here's our new store blog for "Good Yarn @ Smatterings"!
We've gotten our new shipment of yarn from Berocco! OMG. the colors. the feel. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmm.

You need to come on in...we're next to Staple and Spice on Mt. Rushmore Rd.

http://rapidsmatterings.blogspot.com/

tutorial

2008-02-15T10:39:00.011-07:00

I have been asked often how to wrap a batt into a little roll...here's a quick pictorial tutorial.