Here Is Some Pretty For You

Last weekend I taught a day of lace (History, Methods and Styles of Lace followed by Lace Edgings: Before, During, and After) to a gung-ho group of students. One of them brought a surprise: a box of nineteenth-century knitted lace stockings.

I thought you might like to see them, and though I'm still learning to love the camera that lives in my new telephone I was able to take some tolerable photographs during our intermezzo.



They are family pieces. The knitter (who prefers to remain anonymous) says they were made by her great-grandmother (who was married in 1819) for her grandmother–a sweet and all-too-rare example of a knitter's handiwork being lovingly preserved and properly documented.

All are white cotton. There are knee-highs and thigh-highs. The knee-highs have ribbed tops.



The thigh-highs were obviously extra-special: turned-over picot hems, lacy tops, and then a row of eyelets just below for threading a ribbon tie.





The leg patterns were beautifully varied and the workmanship was impeccable.





And how to do you make a gorgeous gift like this even more special? You knit the recipient's initials and the date into it.



Notice that the initials are upside-down, just under the fancy leaf-lace top. I wonder if this was intentional (so that the wearer would see them when she pulled them on) or whether the knitter was halfway through when she realized what she'd done; and then decided she was absolutely not going to start over again. Hey, it happens.

Nineteenth-century knitters...knitters just like you and me.

Less Impressive Socks

The new Knitty is out, and as ever my column is in it. This time, by coincidence I wrote about a Victorian sock. A kid's sock. A flat kid's sock. A flat kid's sock knit from an 1870 pattern I just absolutely hated.

Blow Me, Thou Winter Wind

And the crabbiness continues over at the Lion Brand Yarn blog, where I wrote about spring, or the lack thereof; and drew a spring chicken.

Is this any way for a grown man to make a living?

Stars in My Eyes

I went to Iceland to teach knitting on a tour for knitters–and forgot to bring something to knit.

I left with knitting in my bag, sure. I didn't have a hat or neck warmer to wear on the trip, so I whipped them out en route. But that left me with nothing to knit once I landed.

Of course, in Iceland you are never more than two feet from a yarn display and I picked up two balls of Lopi Einband. Einband is Lopi's laceweight. Fuzzy, warm, decidedly on the crunchy side. Takes dye like a mofo, blocks like a dream.

Total cost: six United States dollars.

I started playing with the yarn during the tour, and now it looks like this. I'm calling it Iceland Sky–fathoms of blue studded with stars and draped in the aurora borealis.










Pattern forthcoming. This week, as soon as the Anna Shawl comes back from the splendid new tech editor, Iceland Sky heads out for him to review.

Oh Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy

Yesterday, in an antiques shop near the harbor in Reykjavik, I found these* under a stack of old sheet music.



Last night, inside the blue one, I found this.



That's the most exquisite hand-drawn lace chart I've ever seen. I think it's time for a mystery knit.

*Kunst-stricken is "art knitting"–in other words, knitted lace.

Whew.

Hi. I'm sitting at Logan Airport, in Boston, waiting for my flight to London for KnitNation. I saw on Facebook that Clara Parkes is getting ready to leave Dulles for the same, and I know other teachers are on the move as well. Most of us will hit Crumpetsville tomorrow.

I like the idea of mass migrations of knitters. More colorful than migrating wildebeest. Less liable to poop on your head than migrating birds. Far more pleasant than the roving swarms of locusts or beetles or whatever it is that has been eating the damn leaves in my flower bed. (Oy. Don't even ask, seriously.)

My schedule for the next three weeks may be summarized thus:

1. Fly to London.
2. Teach in London.
3. Play in London.
4. Leave London for Southampton.
5. Leave Southampton for New York.
6. Leave New York for Portland.
7. Teach in Portland.
8. Leave Portland for Chicago.

Packing took nine hours and six different lists, and I still left the apartment without my #@$%!* phone.

This will be a family event. Tom joins me for numbers 3 through 5; Dolores and Harry will be in attendance for the whole shebang.

(Shebang is, don't you think, an almost too-apt description of an undertaking in which Dolores becomes involved?)

Getting ready for all this has turned me into a terrible blogger, and I beg your indulgence. Will you think more kindly of me if I show you some actual knitting? No kidding, actual knitting. A whole shawl, in fact. I was going to wait until after this trip to post about it, but I can't stand it any more. It's been finished for yonks.

Tell you what, I'll show you some of the test photos; the pattern will be for sale via download come August. If you want to see it in person, I have it with me.

It's another in the series named for women in my family. This one's for my mother, so it'll be called Anna. Anna is Giovannina's daughter, Pauline's daughter-in-law and Sahar's mother.



The yarn is Cascade Heritage Silk, about which I do not believe there is yet enough happy screaming. I fell in love with it halfway through Swatch #1; and having completed one project in it I'm already in the mood for another.



This piece taught me something interesting, which is that you cannot sum up your mother in a couple of stitch motifs. Or at least I can't sum up my mother in a couple of stitch motifs. So there's less overt symbolism here than in, say, Pauline; and fewer outside references than in Giovannina.

While I was designing the lace patterns, I tried knitting Things That Spoke of Mother; and every time the results fell short. How could they not? A woman goes through very scary labor in order to bring you into the world, then spends decades dealing with your quirky child self and your weird teenage self and your annoying adult self. She never once complains, she never stops loving you. And then you turn around and say, "Hey, I put everything you are and have done into in this bunch of yarnovers that kind of looks like a flock of doves if you squint." Right.

In the end I set the whole idea of symbolism aside. I just played with the yarn until what was on the needles seemed to bear some kinship to my mother's spirit.



So almost every time I look at this shawl, I see different things. Once it was honeybees–very suitable for a mother who has uncomplainingly spent her life in near-constant motion, making things for other people. Another time, during the knitting, I realized that the little pair of yarn overs that pop up periodically reminded me of her eyes. Especially since they were all over the place. If there is anything that makes me think of my mother, it's all-seeing eyes. She was and is a modern Argus, only she's a hep chick from Detroit and she can dance better.



Mom, I hope you like it. In the end, I admit that I can't sum you up in one shawl. But what the heck. You know the truth. They're all dedicated to you, even when they don't have your name on them.

A Stole Full of Peas

If Chicago's rainy streak doesn't break soon, I'm afraid I'll break out in moss. Everyone passing the café window is bent forward, shoulders hunched under the weight of the persistently beastly weather.

This has been a dreary spring even for a city in which dreary weather is a specialty. The only thing grayer than the sky is the grass. Optimistic trees that put out buds during a freak warm spell weeks ago are now shivering with regret. We got a few daffodils and tulips, here and there. Most died quick and humiliating deaths, beheaded or stabbed in the back by the north wind.

To garden near the lake in Chicago is to be a masochist. Nature intended this land to be swamp, wind-swept and mostly populated by grass and skunk cabbage.* You are reminded of this every time you watch a perennial trumpeted as "bulletproof" pop its clogs due to the sort of bizarre weather you thought went out of fashion after they put the finishing touches on the Book of Exodus.

Mind you, the city's official motto is Urbs in horto–city in a garden. Hah. A fib in Latin is still a fib.

But this is the first place I've actually got dirt to play with, after a frustrated lifetime of poring over gardening books and poking dejectedly at window boxes. It's not my dirt, but it's dirt. Though I don't own it–it's a series of neglected beds attached to a condominium in my neighborhood–as long as I've got it, I'm going to make it bloom, dammit.

Unlike many of my strong impulses, which will not be itemized here as my mother is probably reading this, I know where this urge to garden comes from.

One of my very earliest memories, clear as a bell, is of sitting on the turf by my grandmother's vegetable garden, watching her dig and plant. I can't have been older than a year-and-a-half. I may have only just learned to sit up. But I recall the scent, and the feeling of the clammy earth, and the print of her cotton shirt and the soft sound of the spade. It was a moment of pure joy, and before I die I plan to recapture it as nearly and as often as possible.

The garden is long gone, but I know for certain that my fascination with planting and growing–which for years has been stifled–comes from that moment.

A New Pattern

When Véronik Avery asked me to do something with Boréale, the fingering weight yarn from her St-Denis Yarns line, the color and texture sparked the memory of my grandmother's garden. I'm sure it was because of the richness of the brown–deep, not dull–very much like well-worked soil.

I turned into a stole, Pauline, named after this lady, to whom I owe more than I can ever hope to repay. It's in Issue 3 of the St-Denis Magazine, now winging its way to local shops and online shops pretty much everywhere.



The pattern is designed to be extremely adaptable. Without any complicated math whatsoever you can change the width and length to suit your purposes. It'll scale down to a scarf or up to a bedspread with ease.



And the framework will accommodate your own choice of small lace motifs if you so fancy. I've put in things I remember my grandmother growing: peas-in-the-pod, strawberry blossoms, and (because even a vegetable garden should be pretty) hydrangeas.



The overall look is rustic. I wanted to see if I could make lace look pretty, but tough...just like my Grandma.

Royal Wedding Report

In case you haven't been following the unfolding events via Twitter at @yarnpoetharry and @doloresvanh, Harry made it to London. So did Dolores. She wasn't supposed to go, of course, but was (this is what I've been told) a victim of her own selflessness.

So worried was she about Harry's ability to negotiate the perils of O'Hare Airport on his own that she jumped through hoops to secure a "gate pass" from the airline and accompanied him to the aircraft. After helping him settle his snickerdoodles in the overhead compartment, she tried to exit, but tripped and got stuck under an empty seat in First Class.

Fancy that. It's a good thing she had a toothbrush, a copy of Liberated Ewe Quarterly and a week's worth of clothing with her.

I asked why the airlines didn't send her right back upon arrival at Heathrow. All I got was somewhat incoherent babble about one of the pilots busting in on her in the loo, and now having something in his private life he'd rather not have her tell the tabloids. If you want to know more, you can ask her. I'm keeping out of it.

Harry's Twitter feed suggests that he is having a marvelous time, making friends with Australian yarns who are also staying at the International Yarn Hostel in Wapping, visiting Kew Gardens, and going to see friends at I Knit London. Dolores can barely type at all, so I infer that she is also having a marvelous time in her own way.

I have been promised a full report after the solemn occasion, so look for it here this weekend or keep an eye on Harry's tweets. I hope he remembers to iron his formal morning ball band before setting off for the Abbey.

*Shikaakwa or chee-ca-gou in the tongue of the native peoples, from which comes our name.

Mrs. Weber's Lace

Last night, I am pleased to report, we had a rip-snorting good time at The Fiber Gallery. The official topic was photography; but before the class one of the students, Sabrina, pulled out something she'd brought to show me.

This is Sabrina's Romanian grandmother, Regina Weber.



When Mrs. Weber passed away earlier this year at age 87, she left behind a legacy.

Lace.



Some of the pieces were knitted.



Others were crocheted.



Still others appeared to be–to our eyes anyhow–a mix of crochet and...tatting? Are those rings tatting, perhaps? Sabrina's not sure.



Do any of you out there recognize this sort of work? Can you tell us about it?



One thing is certain: Mrs. Weber was an accomplished needlewoman. I feel lucky to have seen her work. Thank you, Sabrina!

Bridal Suite

Talk to any professional artist or designer you can find (seedy bars and discount grocery stores are good places to look) and chances are they will agree that inspiration is probably the most misunderstood ingredient in the murky chowder of creativity.

In movies, inspiration looks much like the manic half of manic depression. The artist runs amok in montage, flinging paint around in a large, white studio while loud bits of Mahler (or possibly the Pointer Sisters singing "I'm So Excited") flood the soundtrack. He is hyperkinetic, unfettered, unstoppable. He is not the person you want living in the apartment upstairs. But he can't help himself...he is inspired.

I admit that occasionally, out of nowhere, the Inspiration Fairy socks you in the gut with a full-grown idea so damned good it almost lifts you right off the barstool. But if you intend to make a living from your ideas, and you only sit down to work when that happens, you'd better have a rich uncle or a back-up plan in something nice and stable like accounting or dog grooming.

Inspiration (for me, anyhow) is less like a lightning bolt than like being constantly pecked by a flock of unfocused chickens. Here a peck, there a peck, until the combined pecking reaches critical mass and you can't take it any more and you scream, "Stop, chickens! Stop! Stop!"* and you sit down and draw the cartoon.

This can be every bit as unpleasant as it sounds.

The only way to avoid going mad, which usually happens to artists in movies shortly after the Pointer Sisters stop singing, is to learn to love your chickens. Think of the pecking as their way of alerting you to little details that will move you along, by slow inches, towards something good and whole and new.

And now I want to show you some drawings of old wedding dresses.

That sounds like a non sequitur, I know, but the old wedding dresses were inspiring. Everything you've just read was intended to lead up to them. But then I introduced the chicken motif, and it hasn't come out where I thought it would, and it's almost dinner time so I'm not going back and rewriting it. Sorry.

Inspiration at the Chicago History Museum

This is my second year as a member of the Chicago History Museum, which not so long ago was the Chicago Historical Society. In the old incarnation, it was just as clubby and dusty as it sounds–mostly of interest to the people around here who have major streets named after them.

After a grand renovation and expansion, however, it has become one of my favorite places in the city. Along with a first-class permanent exhibit about the Great Fire of 1871 and several rooms of Lincolniana unmatched by anything at the Smithsonian, they have frequent and splendid shows of items from the textiles collection.

The latest is called "I Do! Chicago Ties the Knot," and it's a doozy. Wedding gear from the mid-19th century (when Chicago sprang, almost overnight, from the mud) to the present day, including bridal gowns, corsetry, going-away attire, and men's costumes–including a pair of matching tuxedos worn by a gay couple, thankyouverymuch.

Oh, and there's a perfectly preserved 120-year-old top tier from a wedding cake, just for good measure.

They don't allow photography in the exhibit, but I spent a fun afternoon there, sketchbook in hand, drawing interesting details under the puzzled eye of the guard.

Here are a few. I plan to go back soon and collect more.

I would write something about the chickens here if I could think of a good tie-in, but it's Thai delivery night and I want my panang curry.

*If it's near Christmas and so they happen to be French hens, I suppose you could scream "Arretez-vous, poulardes, s'il vous plaît!" If they're German chickens, I got nothing, but that almost never happens.

Nupp-tial Bliss

Today in the United States we celebrated Independence Day–the anniversary of our country's formal split with Mother England. It was a great moment in political history, worthy of fond remembrance even if it did mean that two centuries later I'd be unable to get a copy of Marie Lloyd, Queen of the Music Hall that will run in my DVD player.

It used to be the tradition on this day for every family or assembled group to read in full the Declaration of Independence. This is, sad to say, no longer common, as most folks are too busy rushing to the emergency room to treat third-degree burns from illegal fireworks or salmonella poisoning from improperly stored potato salad.

I'm fond of anachronism, so I've started reading it to myself. And I'm corny enough to get misty-eyed over the most famous passage:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men* are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

After that, I patriotically pursued happiness by blocking the Leaf and Nupp Shawl from Knitted Lace of Estonia.

Working this piece was an uninterrupted tango of bliss and chocolate kisses. For once, I made it all the way from Point A to Point Z without committing a thundering whoopsie and having to rip back fifty rows. I don't expect to do it again. I think the Knitting Gods only hand out one free ride per customer.

A boy can hope, though.

[Personal to Nancy Bush: I love you. But you knew that already.]

*In some parts of the country, it is customary to append here the phrase, "Except the faggots, of course."

Pick-Ups Without Hiccups

With all due respect to Mr. Aesop and his one-note tortoise, I'm not entirely convinced that "slow and steady" always wins the race. I can report, however, that it will get you through a long stretch of lace knitting. That leafy nuppy number from Nancy Bush's book reached a turning point on Saturday when I finished row 3,246,782 of the center. As Nero said after he broke a fiddle string, taa-daaaaaa.



Time for the edging. However, Tom and I had plans to go hear a little Rachmaninoff down at Millennium Park. And while the setting, the weather and the music were all gorgeous,





they were hardly conducive to the next step: evenly picking up about 800 stitches all the way around the panel. So I set it aside and–I can't believe it–sat through the entire concert without knitting. But my mind kept drifting to the task ahead.

The short ends were straightforward. One was already live stitches, the other was created with a provisional cast-on that could be easily removed to reveal live stitches. It was the long sides that would be a challenge.

Out of curiosity, I went over to Ravelry to see who else had made this shawl and how their edgings had come out. The results were telling. Among 20-odd finished examples, easily half had no edging, or kept it to the short ends. Nothing wrong with that, of course. One should knit what one wants to knit, however one wants to knit it. But me, I liked the look of the full edging and would simply have to buckle down and make it happen.

Scary

Occasionally we knitters will refer to a maneuver or technique as "scary." I know I've done so. At such a moment, it helps to step back for a fresh perspective. So I pulled out at a few photographs I made earlier this month of people in the park spinning fire.







Yes, spinning fire. They quite deliberately set bits of things ablaze, and then whirl twirl and toss those things around their heads and limbs. For fun.








Upon reflection, I decided that picking up stitches evenly is not the scariest thing a hobby can throw at you.

On the other hand, getting to the end of the long edge for the third time in two hours and finding you're supposed to have 274 stitches but you only have 236, or you've overshot to 286, could make a person consider setting himself and/or the project on fire.

Divide and Conquer

I might be typing this from a bed in the Burn Unit if I hadn't remembered a sewing technique shown to me long ago by my seamstress grandmother. She didn't invent it, nor did I, and for all I know y'all already know it. But I don't recall seeing it online recently, so here's a little demonstration.

When you're faced with picking up stitches evenly along an edge, you may get lucky and find that the ratio is (for example) 1:1, meaning that for every slipped stitch or garter bump or whatever, you need to pick up one stitch. Easy.

Often, however, you will have a number of edge stitches or bumps that bears little or no relation to the number of stitches you need. Nancy Bush, bless her, gives a clue for this project: about 3 stitches picked up for every two slipped stitches. Not all designers are so thoughtful, alas. Or it may happen that you are the designer, and have nobody but yourself to rely on.

In such cases, break your lengthy edge into smaller segments. Here's how Grandma did it, and how I do it now.

1. Clear off a flat, level work surface large enough to comfortably support your project at full length. (Hint: not your lap.)

2. Procure an ample supply of coil-less safety pins, or stitch markers (shown) that open and close like safety pins. (The pins make fantastic markers, but can be tough to find. Schoolhouse Press is a good source.)



3. Lay your project on the table and smooth it out. Then, carefully lift one end and fold it, creating a single fold line halfway down the length of the edge you'll be marking. Place a marker at the fold line.



4. Pick up the folded edge and fold the project in half again, in the same direction. Your new fold marks the quarter points. You'll see that this time there are two layers. Place a marker in each.



5. Continue to fold and mark in this way until you've divided the length into as many sections as you deem necessary. In the case of this shawl, I did one more fold so I'd have eight equal parts.



6. Unfold the piece to full length, smooth it out, and check your markers. They should be placed evenly along the edge. You can adjust them if you see great discrepancies, but I find that it's not necessary to be incredibly precise. Your eyeball should work as well in this instance as a ruler.



Now, instead of having to consider the whole edge at once, you can divide the number of stitches you need (in this case, 274) by the number of segments you marked off (in this case, eight).

I figured out that I needed 34 stitches in seven of my segments, and 35 in the eighth.

After that, it was easy to pick up according to Nancy's suggested ratio and check my progress every time I reached a marker. If I needed 34 stitches and had too few, I'd back up a bit and add more. If I'd picked up too eagerly, I'd back up and drop a few.

I kept track of the count for each segment on a sheet of paper, which allowed me to stop without hesitation and resume without error whenever I was interrupted by the telephone, or by Dolores falling off the sink and into the toilet. (Don't ask.)

When I was finished with the full circumference, I had exactly the proper number of stitches, and it was all done in under half an hour.

Thanks, Grandma–what do you know about spinning fire?