A Bluestocking Knits

A Pair of Clocked Stockings, ca.1650-1750

Pair of clocked stockings
1650–1750, European; 19 x 52 cm (7 1/2 x 20 1/2 in.)
Knitted silk, embroidered with silk yarns. Embroidered clocks of straw-colored silk yarns in decorative motif. Knitted rose silk ground, thirteen yellow stripes at top, polychrome sole.
The Elizabeth Day McCormick Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Mary Delany, a Nice Person

I am currently reading The Paper Garden : an Artist Begins Her Life's Work at 72 by Molly Peacock, a biography of the woman who invented the art of paper collage -- rather accidentally, it seems, by noticing the similarity of a piece of colored paper and the petal of a geranium.  Interesting to think that of such trivial coincidences are art forms born.

I don't remember ever having heard of Mary Delany (1700-1788), so this was all new to me, and thus perhaps all the more amazing, to look at a collage like the one above and try to comprehend that it is all little bits of colored paper meticulously cut and pasted onto a black background, with startlingly life-like accuracy.

Delany had an interesting life, a marriage arranged by her family when she was seventeen to a much-older landowner who turned out to be an alcoholic and a gambler, which hardly surprisingly with hindsight turned out to have been such a disaster that Mary could not help being more than a little relieved when he dropped dead quite unexpectedly after seven years.  Now only 24, Mary could perhaps have hoped to live the rest of her life in peace, but unfortunately her husband had not altered his will, and so she did not inherit even what little remained of his estate, and spent the next twenty years living with various friends and family, trying to secure a court appointment, setting up a small household and yet still finding time to produce reams of intelligent, witty, and sensible letters. 

In her forties, Mary received a proposal of marriage from Patrick Delany, an Irish clergyman of her acquaintance (later Dean of Down), who it seems had long held her in the utmost regard.  Now both widowed, the two enjoyed a very happy marriage until the Dean's death in 1768.  A few years later, Mary made the connection between the bits of colored paper and the flower petal, and made nearly a thousand of these flower portraits, what she called collectively her "Flora Delanica", until her eyesight failed in her late eighties.

I found the book at the public library, opened it at random and read the first pages of the chapter on the passion flower, and was enchanted.

A portrait of Mary Delany, by John Opie, 1782.

Peacock, being a poet, has a way with words, so that her prose too is often very poetic.  I did, though, I must confess, get a little tired of the amount of autobiography Peacock stuck into Mary's story.  I can understand objectively why she felt it works, I guess, but subjectively, as it went along, I really wanted more Mary.  The book itself is beautifully made, which I thought a lovely dollop of extra poeticism -- lovely creamy thick pages, a handsome dark font and wide margins.  I was not sure in the end, though, that I wouldn't rather have simply a catalogue of Delany's "mosaicks", and spend a great many hours enjoying a vicarious friendship through her letters.

Found Object

"Forever Plaid"

The cast of "Forever Plaid" on the "Tonight Show" in 1992.  Gosh, the memories this brings back! I don't want to say how many times I saw the show at the Canon in Beverly Hills, but it was a lot more than once.

The album is still a treasure, too --

Blackwork Sampler, Continued

This pattern is number 20 from Rosemary Drysdale's The Art of Blackwork Embroidery, adapted a little in that I shifted each line of medallions so that they nested together a little and left less white space.

Drysdale's pattern 14.  This one seemed to take forever; I don't know if that is why I don't like it as much as I thought I would, or if it just doesn't speak to me as much as some of the others, but there it is.  Perhaps it's too modern -looking?!

This one is lifted from Alina Silverthorne's "Chalice stockings", in turn being a pattern from Ein New Modelbuch [sic] of 1526.  Unlike the very-fiddly pattern #14 above, for example, this one is completely in Holbein stitch, and if I'd taken a little care would be completely reversible.  It says Catherine-of-Aragon to me -- I'm not sure why, perhaps the rather severe Catholic look to it?  Those Spaniards!

This was fun to work in a daring sort of way, in that the first pass -- every other stitch showing, as it were -- requires understanding how the pattern will look when finished without actually seeing the whole thing as you work it.  The first pass thus looks like a set of bird tracks in the snow.  The second pass was only a matter of connecting the dots, though!

(All of these samples are worked in one strand of black embroidery floss on 28-count Monaco cotton.)

And here are two contemporary examples of blackwork on garments --

Simon George of Cornwall, by Holbein ca.1533, a lovely little work now in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt.  His considerable technical mastery aside, Holbein's people always look so utterly real to me that I find it impossible not to be fascinated by them.

"Mary Nevill, Lady Dacre?" ca.1545–1549, by an unknown artist; also known as "The Wrest Park Portrait" from its former location, and also identified as Lady Jane Grey.  J. Stephan Edwards at Some Grey Matter writes convincingly and at length on his re-identification of this portrait as Lady Dacre.

Crocuses, Camo, and a Couple of Heels

Poring over my copy of Nancy Bush's Folk Socks of an evening -- as one does -- I thought that I would do some "school socks", fairly simple socks that use these different heels and toes.

First, a pair in Loops & Threads Luxury Sock in the "Crocuses" color, with a Dutch heel and star toe.

 
The first pair is in the new Luxury Sock yarn from Michael's.  It is very soft, rather limp with the bit of cashmere, but pleasant to knit with.  There was a partial splice in the first ball, insignificant enough that I could winkle the ends back into the twist.  The second ball, though, had an actual knot in it, towards the bottom of the leg, and then this --

I was going along swimmingly, very pleased with myself that I'd matched the color changes perfectly, when near the end of the heel flap I realized that I'd been knitting with white for nearly an arm's-length of yarn.  Not only was the blue-and-white section incomplete color-wise, it was shortened by nearly half.  The photo is slightly misleading, as I didn't notice that Laura had pulled the second sock higher, but you can see quite clearly that the blue-and-white band is only half the depth it should be.  (The colors are a bit brown in this photo: what looks like brick is more of a dusty rose in real life.)

So I ripped back the heel and whacked off an entire color repeat to get back to the right spot, and carried on.  When I got to the end of the second toe, I looked at the finished sock, and lo and behold the repeats were off again.  Now this may have been my fault, as in comparing the two socks I notice that the second is noticeably narrower, and even slightly shorter!  (This is an instance of where knitting two socks at the same time would be a good idea, as apparently my gauge on the second sock was considerably tighter.)

So I ripped out half of the foot,  back to the start of the next-to-last blue-and-white band, and worked it again v-e-r-y l-o-o-s-e-l-y, counting the rows in each band to make sure that the second sock was exactly the same row count and color match as the first one.

This is how much was left over from the middle of the second ball:

The top bit is due to pulling off a length in order to start at the same spot in the color sequence; the bottom (5 grams!) is due to the defect.  Perhaps this is why there is a good 15g more in each ball than you need for a generously-sized pair of socks?

 

As I said, it's a pleasant yarn, although while inexpensive, at $5.99 it isn't what I'd call cheap, and so I would expect a little more than knots and color flaws in it.

The Dutch heel is quite simple, and Bush's instructions worked like a charm.  I did the heel flap in a sl 1, K1 fabric, and kept this through the heel turn, which was quite easily done and I'm told will make the heel that much sturdier.  (In the photo just above, the sl-st section continues along through the purple section downwards from the flap, and into the first part of the blue-and-white section.)  The cashmere content seems to make the yarn feel a little fragile, so I'm hoping that the extra thickness here will counteract that.  The heel itself is a bit more square than the heel I usually use -- which is in fact called a round heel -- but this isn't really obvious once it is on my foot.

The star toe is also quite simple, and fits my squared-off toes nicely.  (I don't know why there is a little jog in the decreases line in the purple section there...?)  This toe is especially easy if you use 5 dpns, as the decreases are spaced a quarter of the way along each round, and will thus come at the end of each needle without having to resort to markers or counting in the first round.

Laura modelled both of these socks for me this afternoon.  She pulled on the Kroy pair first, and said, "Mom, there's something wrong with the heel."  The Luxury ones, she is still wearing an hour later, despite the heat wave.  (This is saying something, even more than you'd think, as she has declined politely to wear knitted socks at all for at least a year.)

The second pair are in Paton's Kroy FX in "Camo Colors", with a German heel and wedge toe.

I don't like this wool much at all, as it is very scratchy even after washing, although I don't notice it quite so much when wearing as I did while knitting with it.  (I shall be generous and call it "bargain wool", as it is about half the price of the Luxury Sock.)  It is, however, thick and quite warm. I might have better used 2.5mm needles, as the fabric is a bit stiff.

The German heel is also fairly simple, and went together easily with Bush's instructions -- so far my Becher's Brook is the Welsh one, it seems.  I did a plain flap with no reinforcement -- I think this wool will wear like iron anyway (she said grimly).

Both the Dutch and the German heels are essentially a square and a small rectangle, the sides of which rectangle (the turn) are joined to one side of the square (the flap).  This is noticeably different from the round heel, which is a square (the flap) with a triangle (the turn).  This construction makes both of these heels more squared-off than the round heel, and a good choice, I would think, especially for those wearers whose heel sits low to the ground.

The German heel doesn't allow for much of a gusset, though, at least not at this gauge -- there were only 2 extra stitches after picking up! -- and so I did not work the decreases as P2tog as in Bush's versions, since it looked more like a mistake than a line of purl decreases.  To get a teeny bit of length, though, I did work 2 plain rounds before the decrease round, and another 2 plain between the second (last) dec round.

The heel itself, though, is exactly as written by Bush.  It is very square in shape, and the angle of heel to foot is much sharper than with the round heel.  This is quite noticeable in the feel of the sock, especially compared with the much more subtle round heel.  (You can see in the picture of the socks laid flat, how much more square it is.)  I was looking for a difference when I put it on, of course, but even Laura noticed it right away.  It isn't bad, mind, only not quite as fitted as some; this could be adapted a little by making the turn a few stitches narrower, perhaps, or working it in a softer wool that molds more readily to the foot inside, or at a finer gauge altogether.

This toe is a wedge toe.  I did one of Bush's variations, which proved to be too pointed for my substantial feet, and so I pulled it out and used my standard wedge, lifted from Grumperina's "Jaywalkers".

And there are still four more heels in Bush's book!