A Bluestocking Knits

"Floral" Ho!

Despite having a modest-but-tantalizing list of new sampler charts at my elbow, I dug out my poor half-worked "Floral Sampler" the other day, and my bundle of potential thread substitutions, and began the onerous task of picking it all out a band at a time, from the ribbonwork that seemed the best place to start, then on upwards.  I've now re-started the large floral band, and re-worked the red Montenegrin-stitch divider and the last line of the motto in the new colors.  Queen stitch is a bit of a pain to work, but it's rather hellish to pick out, I must say -- I am not looking forward to that little floral band about a third of the way down from the top, but I like the "Charlotte's Pink" miles better than the bubble-gum "Victorian Pink," so I'll just have to get on with it.

Well, the new issue of "Piecework" has a rather handsome pair of knitted mitts from a 1909 Weldon's magazine, and I must say that I'm tempted to dig out some needles and see if I have a suitable wool --

I wanted some comfort reading last week, and so as I was heading out the door I went to my shelf of D.E. Stevensons and chose one of my favorites, Fletchers End.  I like the main character, Bel (Lamington in her eponymous earlier story, now Brownlee and happily newly-wed) but I love stories about houses, and Fletchers End charmingly combines both.  Fletchers End is a cottage in a small village somewhere in the Cotswolds, which has been in the Lestrange family for generations but has been left by the late owner to her nephew, a navy man away in foreign parts who, being chronically short of funds, has not only neglected the cottage but wants to get it off his hands as soon as possible.  Louise Armstrong, one of Stevenson's characters who reappears in other novels, comes to see Fletchers End, looking for a house for Bel and her husband.

An abandoned cottage on the outskirts of Aston-on-Clun, Shropshire, 2018 (Jeremy Bolwell, Geograph.org.uk, CC BY-SA 2.0).

Mrs. Warmer, a local woman who has been looking after Fletchers End during the long absence of the new owner, has grown unexpectedly fond of the house during her six years there, finding herself strangely reluctant to show the house to prospective buyers -- though of course she does, honestly and dutifully, but she is secretly relieved when they go away again and don't come back -- and it soon becomes an indicator in the story of her approval of a certain few of these prospective buyers that she offers them tea, which includes freshly-baked whole-meal scones.  Now, being a reader who also appreciates good food in books, and better still being able to make something very like that good food myself, I had a go at some whole-meal scones.  These are my own bash of a couple of different recipes -- not quite up to Mrs. Warmer's yet, I expect, but not bad, even without clotted cream --

And for something completely different, a Lemoyne Star block auditioning for a 1:12 quilt, with some small-pattern fabrics I picked up on Etsy (the brown ones).  I think this turned out well, so I will throw a backing on it and see how it goes --

On the Needles

This is the back of the DROPS 118-26 vest/waistcoat/sleeveless cardigan/thingy, for which I decided to use the Knitpicks Palette that my mom decided she didn't want any more.  I started this a while ago, then waffled about it, then decided the other day to carry on.  I got down to the lower edge of the armscyes, shushing the inner voice that said "it's too small, something isn't right," then laid it out like this and knew at once that it is indeed far too small.   Part of that, to be sure, is that between "a while ago" and "the other day" I forgot which hook I used to work my gauge swatch, and then picked up the wrong one -- smaller, of course -- but part was that the instructions do indeed tell you to work 5cm before beginning the increases for the bottom of the armscye, when clearly 5cm is nothing in the world of armscyes.  I decided that, joy of joys, I am confident enough to adjust a crochet pattern to fit me, and so in looking around for some advice about shaping armscyes and coming across Elinor Brown's article and the calculator linked therein, I worked out that I need to have 5 inches, not cm, before (because it is worked top-down) beginning the increases.

And so the piece in the above photo was ripped out and re-worked into this -- which is the right front, instead of the back, being a smaller piece to work before I judge whether the alterations will be sufficient --

I figured that since I was ripping it out to modify the pattern anyway, I might as well shape the shoulder while I'm at it, so I worked a graduated set of SC, HDC, DC, and TC across the 17 sts of the first row (to be worked in the opposite order for the corresponding back shoulder). 

And in knitting news -- because, glory be on this knitting blog, there is some -- David asked for a ski-helmet liner for his birthday, so I've got the beginning of one on the needles.  I can hardly bear to confess how many stitches I've had to ladder and pick back up in the proper direction because I'd purled instead of knitted here and there, but it was a lot.  Oh well, dark green wool in distracting times! there it is.

Thoughts on the "Ghislaine" Mitts and "Henslowe"

The Bluestocking still knits!  I've had two finished projects sitting around waiting to be photographed and blogged for months, I'm sorry to say -- well, not even "sitting around" because I've worn the shawl a couple of times already.

First is the Ghislaine mitts by Sara Varty, here in a long-awaited skein of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in "Water" (blueish greens/greenish blues).  I've had this yarn in my drawer for at least ten years -- I think I had some fancy of knitting a pattern that had a watery name, but nothing ever appealed quite enough, and so when I saw the Ghislaine mitts somewhere, I decided that elegance would suit the subtle sophistication of the yarn's colors and delicate sheen perhaps even better than a name would.

The top hems are sewn down per the new-to-me method in The Knowledgeable Knitter, which is a kind of duplicate stitch.  It's a lot more bother than simply knitting the front and the hem stitches together as you go, but much smoother and quite soft, so especially pleasing on a pair of mitts.

This pattern probably would have been quite easy if I had paid a little more attention -- it's possible that it is too easy, as I kept making little mistakes like repeating Round 2 three or four times (!) in a row, or ... or -- somehow -- picking up an extra loop somewhere and ending up with too many stitches (!!) at the end of the gusset.  Well -- I think I noticed all of these before it was too late, and the resulting mitts are quite elegant.

There is something about certain faggoting combinations that tend, on my needles at least, to sort of scooch to one side -- and I think usually on the left edge, though I will have to take note the next time it happens -- thus obscuring the faggoting.  This one did as well, so I came up with a little trick that worked pretty well.  The stitch pattern has you yo, SSK on the first patt round and K2tog, yo on the second, and since it was the left edge of the column that pulled in a little too much, on the second patt round I did a YO twice, and simply dropped the extra yo on the next round, thereby giving it a little more wool so that it could spread a little better.

For the first mitt, I did as the pattern suggested and decreased around the top edge before working the picot hem, but -- possibly since I shortened the top length a bit -- this made the hem too tight on my hand, so I picked it out and reworked it with the full number of original stitches.  It does flare out a bit, but this is an acceptable compromise for me, since I prefer the shorter length.

The next time that I use this picot hem, I might work one round less on the turning (the inside), as mine usually seem a little concave where they should be either flat or convex -- I'm assuming that having the turning ever-so-slightly shorter would pull the edge of the hem towards the inside just enough to solve that for me.  It might also be that the hemming method adds just a smidge of length, so that's something to keep in mind.

I really like them -- classic and elegant, with a lovely smooth line and fit.  Full marks!

And then a skein of Seven Sisters Arts' Meridian merino/nylon blend in "Havran" --

became the "Henslowe" shoulder shawl by Beth Kling.  This is one of those charmers that is much easier than it looks, for the lace is a fairly simple one, and the interesting effect of the alternating diagonals is accomplished simply by working one repeat from the RS, then one from the WS, and so on.  And there is minimal finishing to be done, as the sections are joined as you go, with no hemming necessary.

The wool looks rather purplish in these photos, but the one of the skein is for the most part more accurate -- it is a sort of RAF blue, but changeable -- very handsome.

Thoughts on the "Mittens Knitted on Two Needles"

Poring over the March/April issue of "Piecework", I was reading the article by Lesley O'Connell Edwards about two Midlands sisters who were writers of knitting "receipts" in the 1860s and 70s, and one of the photos was of a "mitten knitted on two needles" (mentioned in passing in the text) from one of the sisters' books.  It was an interesting little thing that piqued my curiosity, and it wasn't difficult to track down the book, scanned and available on the internet thanks to the wonderful folks in charge of the Richard Rutt Collection at the University of Southampton.  There was apparently an earlier edition of this particular book around 1866, but there doesn't seem to be a copy online, and my mittens are knitted from the 1876 ed. instructions.

Edwards notes the "radical construction" of this mitten, wondering what prompted the change from the usual welt-up versions.  It certainly crossed my mind while knitting, too -- the thumb gusset is a rather ingenious use of short rows, but what's wrong with working them in the round?  Maybe Miss Harriet was one of those who find four needles a bother, or -- like Elizabeth Zimmermann a few generations later -- exceedingly fond of garter stitch, much easier-worked flat?

But never mind!  The pattern is quite easy to follow, with no unfamiliar abbreviations and only a few things like "put your needle at liberty through the last stitch" which is very euphonious but just a little bit puzzling nowadays (I'm pretty sure I know what she means, but I don't know why the needle is "at liberty" -- is it not at other times? &c. &c. &c.)

I had no idea what this new-fangled "Laine de Vienne" wool is, but some leftover Regia 4-ply came up to gauge for me quite nicely.  The Kroy Sock is a bit heavier, but turned out all right as a border.

I used the lace cast-on (like the usual cable cast-on but instead of putting the needle between the last and next-to last stitches before making a new one, you put it into the last stitch) -- I figured this would make the later seam a bit softer.  I also decided to interpret the injunction to "observe the 1st stitch in each row must be slipped" more specifically as "slip 1st st purl-wise with yarn in front, and K every last st" as we often do now, so as to get the "chain" selvage (you must be sure on Row 5, though, to K the last st, not P as you have been merrily doing, or you will have a little "bump" in your handsome chain).

The original pattern has you work a "colored border" in K2, P2 ribbing before sewing up the mitten.  For once in my life, though, I decided that something I'm going to wear myself looked a little too plain, and that just a touch of pretty at the top would be quite appealing.  I didn't feel any qualms about not sticking to the source, as I think this would be quite in keeping with a period knitter if these were being made for a lady or girl, instead of the more sober 2x2 ribbing.

I did have to juggle the gauge and number of stitches more than a bit, but fair enough, and ended up working this picot crochet edging from the wrong side, as the picots tended to lean towards me, which would be outwards if on the RS.  I have found also that I quite like that little rope-like line that comes from working single-crochets through the front loop only, and liked the look of that here, so my edging turned out to be this:

Rnd 1 (RS): SC to end, turn.
Rnd 2 (WS): Ch 1, SC into front loop to end.
Rnd 3 (WS): Pico 1 (SC1, ch3, Sl into same SC), SC1, rep to end.

I wrote down what I did on the first mitten so that I could repeat it easily on the second one, but as you can clearly see in the above photo, I apparently did not use a US5 hook, as the second border turned out much bigger! and I had to rip it out and do it again, after I'd already washed and blocked them.

There is no method specified for sewing up, but since these are done horizontally, I used the duplicate-stitch method, stockinette for the rib section and garter for the hand. This turned out pretty well, and much of my wobbliness -- it was difficult to get the tension just right -- is happily disguised by the welt pulling in at just that spot!

I also sewed up each mitten before working the crochet border, as it seemed simpler to accomplish the latter that way.

Note that I did not have to make the last section on my mitt a little shorter than the pattern's as I usually do -- I like mitts to end just about at my knuckles -- so you could certainly add some stitches to the top end (slipping them with the pattern's "first 7" onto a stitch holder before making the thumb gusset) if you want the top longer.  You could also easily make the welt at the wrist a bit longer if desired.

(The fabric in the background is, by the way, a rather neo-William-Morris-y print I have bought for my Edwardian-apron-to-be ...)

Year or Period: 1876, though possibly earlier as the first ed. is ca.1866
Materials: Regia 4-fädig in color 1991 (grey heather) on US0 needles, and Paton's Kroy in "Muslin" with US3 hook
Hours to complete: Less than a week, including numerous false starts with the crochet edging
How historically accurate is it? Aside from the non-period wool, the body of the mitten is worked entirely to pattern, and the crochet edging is I feel a typical mid-Victorian modification
Sources/Documentation: The pattern is found in Miss H.P. Ryder's Winter Comforts and How to Knit Them (1876), available through the University of Southampton's "Victorian Knitting Manuals" page

Consolations

Ghislaine in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, and Twining's Darjeeling.

Thoughts on the Two-End-Knitted Mittens

These have been sitting around for a while, ready to post about, but one thing and another -- you know.  To recap, these are Nancy Bush's pattern for two-ended or tvåändstickning mittens, based on the traditional style of mittens from Mora parish in the Dalarna area of Sweden -- these are in Bush's "house yarn," a Z-ply that comes in natural and grey shades (and by the way has a lovely sheepy smell!).  For the contrast color, I dyed a short length with one packet of black cherry Kool-Aid.

The learning curve was a bit steep for me, taking what seemed like ages to knit the first mitten, but the second was done in about a week, even after a long hiatus due to the summer heat and my not even wanting to think about wool, much less knit!

I was very pleased to find that the pattern fits my hands without any adjustment whatsoever, as usually "one size" is too small for me.  These mittens might even have a bit of extra room for shrinkage with wear -- which I fully expect them to do, with this kind of wool.

I had a 24g ball of wool left at the end!

I have to say, I really enjoy this technique, and of course its historical connections, but that twisting is a pain.  I do not understand why, when this Z-ply wool is touted as being the best for two-end knitting (it "allows for the threads to twist and not 'corkscrew' around each other"), it was worming and corkscrewing constantly for me.  I suppose I can't really complain that it took me less than one week to knit a mitten in a complex technique from start to finish, but goodness, I have a great respect now for those Dalarna knitters who made sleeves and whole garments in two-end knitting, especially at a much finer gauge!

Previously, I had found the Knit Buddies tutorial most helpful for the three-color cast-on, but for some reason when it came to cast on for the first of these mittens, I just couldn't seem to make it work, and so I used Anna H's video instead, in which you stand the single needle vertically (wedged between your knees, perhaps) and use both hands to wrap the wools around, I mean without using the needle tip to pick up strands as in most cast-on methods -- but this appeared to produce the same result.  After knitting a bit, though, it was clear that something was different as it didn't lie as flat as my sampler and wristwarmers had done.  I suspect now that my tension was much looser with the upright-needle method, so that although the wool strands are lying in the same manner as the horizontal-needle method, because there is simply more wool involved in the first one, it flares.  Unfortunately, this didn't occur to me until after I was well into the second mitten and wondering why the second one was lying flatter!  Oh well.

The thumb is a new-to-me construction, and very comfortable --

I puzzled for a long time over the cord at the wrist -- there is no mention of a cord in Nancy Bush's pattern, and indeed the ends are all woven in on her pair, although the photo on Ravelry shows a member-submitted pair with the ends in a simple braid.  But the historical examples at DigitaltMuseum, for example, almost all have the cord, so of course I wanted to do it that way -- and it just looks cool!  But the two colors clearly spiral, like a twisted cord, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to twist the ends into a cord that looked like those historical mittens.  I finally just decided to give up and do a four-strand braid and, Googling this to jog my memory about which way to arrange the strands, a number of the hits that came up with a search for "four strand braid" were for "four strand round braid" -- and yes, I now suspect that this might be what the historical mittens used, as my results, after only a few minutes' investigation and experimentation, produced a spiral-effect round cord.

I ended up using the instructions from T.J. Potter, though I must say the video from Tying It All Together was intriguing -- I just couldn't get my brain to quite follow that one when I was holding the colors in a different order.  (Amusingly, since the ends on the second mitten were hanging differently, I started the second one with the left-to-right movement first, instead of the other way round, and the result spirals in a different direction from the right-to-left-first braid!).  The trickiest part was remembering to twist the strands under, as I'm so used to the usual three-strand braid (on my hair, for example) and putting the strands over.

All in all, I'm delighted with the process and the results, and can hardly wait for some cold weather!

(The newspaper is a recent issue of Nordstjernan, "The Swedish Newspaper in America".)

Year or Period: 19th century
Materials: 1 skein Mora Z-ply wool by Wooly West in natural white, with a short length dyed red with Kool-Aid by me; 2.5mm needles
Hours to complete: I misplaced my notes, so I don't know now how long the first mitten took, but the second was about a week of not-particularly-obsessive knitting
How historically accurate is it? Being a Nancy Bush pattern, I assume that that is quite accurate! the Kool-Aid not so much ...
Sources/Documentation: This particular pattern is available in the January/February 2007 issue of "Piecework" and again in the Winter 2010 "Knitting Traditions" magazine.  (Note that the pattern in "Piecework" and on Ravelry is called "Northland Mittens", but in "Knitting Traditions" it is simply titled "Mittens with the Two-End Knitting Technique".)

Thoughts on the Parley Cardigan, and Some Catching Up

My Parley was finished and worn exactly a month ago, to be honest, but it has been quite summery lately, really too warm to want a sweater, and I've been rather busy with other things as well, so haven't had the wherewithal to photograph it.  But the weather dropped about twenty degrees quite suddenly this past weekend -- I kid you not, twenty degrees -- and I wanted wool, so I am wearing the cardigan again today.  It is of course the Parley by Mary Lou Egan of Yarnerinas, from her book with Gale Zucker and Kirsten Kapur, Drop-Dead Easy Knits.  The book is full of good-looking knits that are fairly low on the concentration scale, which is great for those of us who tend to have -- cough -- numerous projects going at once.  This particular one comes in pullover and cardigan versions, with simple shaping and lots of stockinette, with a bit of twizzle at the edges to keep it interesting.

This is just four skeins of Briggs & Little Sport in mulberry, which I got from Penelope Fibre Arts in British Columbia, as it's apparently a rather small line produced in Canada, and not many US shops carry it, even online -- it's worth perusing the B&L website to see the "tour" section and how the wool is processed, from grading to shipping.  Mine is a lovely purply color, with hints of blue and red and black giving it a lively depth which is very difficult to capture with the camera!  The yardage on the Sport wool is quite impressive, as I still had a good-sized ball and another full skein left over -- I bought five.  The wool is a single-ply, so tends to worm a little while winding and knitting, but not frustratingly so, although it doesn't feel particularly pleasant to knit with since it is rather rough in itself and perhaps it is that combined with the single-ness that makes it feel a little like wire when wrapped around my fingers.  Much of the roughness does wash out, though, and so now it has a sturdy wooliness to it and a light sheepy smell which is not atal unpleasant.  I am a little concerned about the alarmingly frequent thin places as I went along, two or three of which were such a hair's-breadth, literally, that I broke and spliced them on the spot.  I was tempted to weave in a bit of extra wool as a reinforcement in the less-alarming places, and had at least a dozen safety pins marking them as I went along, but in the end I didn't -- although I do have so much wool left that at least there is enough for repairs if that does become necessary later on!

The buttons are La Mode no.214 (eleven, not ten, since the buttonhole band came out with that many, as it happened).

The purple is generally a bit darker than I could get in these photos --

The sizing is quite generous, and I probably could have made the next size down instead of the 42 for my US12 figure, but there it is -- it's a great no-fuss cardigan, and in this yarn is good for nicely-cool days, not too light, not too heavy.  It probably does look its best with a scoop neck underneath, not a collared shirt, to play up the slightly-rolled neck, which has a gracefully curving line to it that I really like.

We had a good bit of rain this past winter, much to everyone's relief.  The down-side is that all of the weed seeds that have been lying dormant for the past three or four years of drought have apparently all decided to sprout and grow now.  Our backyard, which has a gigantic pine tree in it and therefore little else, has been since February or so a veritable sea of stinging nettles and crabgrass, which I have been digging up -- with a shovel, mind, not one of those mild-mannered forks -- an hour or so every morning, filling usually two trash cans a week. 

Unfortunately for the butterflies, some of whose caterpillars subsist pretty much exclusively on stinging nettles, this is not good.  I fully expect the nettles to come back again next year (she said, weeping quietly into her tea), but this year for the bees and other insects in our little patch of wilderness in the middle of suburbia, I scattered around a packet of California wildflower seeds in the few spots that get any sun, and a packet of shade flowers for the more woodsy corners.  The photo above is the very first bloom, which is a baby blue eyes (Nemophila maculata).  It looks like a little bit of everything in the sunny packet has come up so far -- I am quite looking forward to the mountain garlands and the lupines!

This is something else that has been keeping me busy, albeit indoors -- a pair of Elizabethan venetians (which are sort of ur-trousers) for David's Renaissance Faire garb.  These have been a real pain in the neck, to be honest, but I am on the home stretch at last, and only need to do buttonholes and lacing eyelets now, which will mean that -- huzzah! -- David will for the first time have a complete period outfit, bar the shoes of course.  More photos to come.

We took the afternoon Saturday to go and see the "Dressing Downton" exhibit at Muzeo in Anaheim.  I have rather mixed feelings about "Downton Abbey", not as keen in the later seasons as I was at the beginning -- but from start to finish, the clothes are pretty wonderful.  This suit of Lady Sybil's, from season 1, is probably what I would choose if they were to say, "Yes, you may have one!" although Mary's red suit from the same season would run a close second.  Cora's court dress from season 4 would be my favorite of the fancier ones, I think, but, goodness, how often would I get to wear it?!  More photos later of this, as well ...

The weather has been cool enough too, this past weekend, for me to enjoy again the feeling of wool running through my fingers, so last night when I had three hours in front of the television (new episodes of "Call the Midwife" and "Home Fires", and a repeat of "Wolf Hall"), I managed to get the rhythm going and finished the thumb gusset and worked over half of the medallion of the first two-end mitten.  It puzzles me why this cast-on doesn't lie as smoothly as the first one, but I tried a different technique, so I guess it just does.  V. glad that these fit well, to be sure!

And, yes, there is a new petit-point carpet!  It's spring, how could I resist?  This one is the Flower Trellis by Sue Bakker from Venus Dodge's Dolls' House Needlecrafts.  I haven't yet worked a Bakker chart that was free of significant errors and this one is no exception, I'm sorry to say, and in fact has some real doozies.  The chart gives symbols for "red, light red, green, gold" etc. with the materials list specifying which colors of DMC floss are used, either by themselves or in combination with similar shades -- but although there are symbols for "blue" and "yellow" there are no indications in the materials list that you need any blue or yellow at all.  I had to just choose shades I thought went well with the other colors.  The chart has the full border and the "trellis" in the main field, but only one each of the flowers inside each medallion, so the stitcher must decide where to put what -- this is perhaps not a serious drawback for a more experienced stitcher, but a beginner may not appreciate this, nor the fact that one long edge of the "vine" is clearly marked with the symbol for yellow, not green. 

But, yes, it's a very pretty carpet now that it's finished, I must say!  I worked out before I started the flowers which one I wanted where, and whether or not I would reverse it (just to make each medallion a little different).  I also reversed the light and medium pink blends here and there, for the same reason.  I used a partial chart for the half-medallions, leaving a one-stitch edge between them and the gold border, to match the trellis-work -- some have worked it differently, I find from poking around the internet.  Mine is kind of busy as a result, but in an ordered sort of way -- quite garden-like.

I used the following shades of DMC floss (3 strands, on 22-count mono canvas) --

• dark gold = 680 and 420 (1 + 2 strands)
• yellow = 745 and 3078
• blue = 931 and 932
• pale pink = 223 and 224 (2 + 1)
• medium pink = 223 and 3372 (1 + 2)
• red = 356
• pale green = 3347
• medium green = 3347 and 3052 (2 + 1)
• grey = 646
• background = 3033 (instead of ecru)

Note that I needed 3 skeins of the background color, not 2 as on the materials list, and that the number of red stitches (the "tulip" stamens) is a mere six per medallion, so if you have a bit of a pretty red already, you really needn't buy a new skein!

Thoughts on the Winter Cuffs in Double Knitting

Here is my first historical knit of the year, and very timely it is, too, as the weather here can be quite cold at the moment (for southern California, mind), and in fact has gone all gloomy this morning, so a pair of warm cuffs is just the thing.  I wanted to make something with that lovely Blue-faced Leicester wool, though at DK weight it is considerably thicker than the original "four-thread Berlin wool" (The helpful article "Everyone His Own Knitting Needles" by Colleen Formby tells us that four-thread Berlin is equivalent to modern fingering weight) -- but the British Blue is a pleasure to knit with, from start to finish, and I don't mind compromising a bit now and then, especially since I am also being economical by using what is on hand!

The Godey's page shows how very basic old knitting patterns were -- I mean, yes, it's pretty obvious that you would have to bind off at some point (!), but it doesn't tell you how long to make the cuffs, to put the top border on, or to sew it up.  It's pretty generous of them, in fact, judging by a number of historical knitting patterns I've seen, just to tell the knitter what size needles to use.

The cuffs are fairly obviously knitted flat, by the double knitting instructions.  But I really don't much care for seams on my hands, so I worked my cuffs in the round, since of course this was well-known in 1861.  I can understand why this particular pattern isn't though, since double-knitting in the round nearly makes me tear out my hair.  Knitting the first attempts -- and I made numerous ones, trying to get the sizing right in this gauge -- I said, "Gaahhh!" more times working these things than in all my life up to this point, I guess.

Over an even number of sts:

• Round 1: *K1, sl 1 p-wise wyif, rep from * to end.
• Round 2: *Sl 1 k-wise wyib, P1, rep from * to end.

For a long time, my brain just did not want to slip a knit stitch and work a purl one.  This was not "mindless knitting," to be sure! I ended up having to stop murmuring to myself, "slip one, purl one, slip one purl one" since even though I was actually saying it, after a few minutes my fingers would just knit the stitch I was supposed to be slipping -- I had to stop thinking about the slipped stitches entirely, and just say "purl, [get the next one out of the way], purl, [get the next one out of the way]".  It's also surprisingly difficult to tell which round you are on, since once you have moved the working yarn around to wherever it's supposed to be for the next stitch, the just-worked stitches compress and you can't really tell unless you really interrogate it whether you just worked it or slipped it.

I couldn't help remembering Elizabeth Zimmermann saying in The Knitter's Almanac that double knitting always seemed to her "though fascinating, a great waste of time," because each stitch has to be handled twice, either knitting it or slipping it, then vice versa on the next row.  "The result is a rather charming tube of stocking-stitch, which occasionally sticks together where you made a mistake".  She does admit, though, that double knitting is light and fluffy, which she of course would have understood is because of the slipping process, since it stretches the stitch a little bit lengthwise -- this makes one's gauge a bit larger than regular stockinette would be even on the same needles, but does give the fabric that soft fluffiness.

To compensate for this difference in gauge, Elizabeth always casts on far fewer stitches for the edging and increases to size for the double-knitted section.  I suspect that the reason the Godey's pattern calls for such a large number of cast-on sts relative to the double-knitted section is because if you use a smaller number for the garter edges, you will have to work a more-than-usually stretchy cast-on and an exceptionally stretchy bind-off, otherwise you won't be able to get the cuffs over your hands!  But I like a snug cuff, and so having learned the lesson early from Elizabeth, I went with her suggestion to cast on half the number of sts required, so that the cuff fitted smoothly but not tightly.

I ended up casting on 30 sts in crochet cast-on with the white wool, working 6 rnds of garter st (not 4, it just looked better with another ridge), with purple Kfb on every st, then 50 rnds of double knitting, then with white dec'd every other st (with an SSK because it looked better, disguising the decrease rnd), then 5 more rnds garter, and finally a suspended bind-off to match the crochet cast-on.  (It's curious that although the British Blue must be considerably heavier than a fingering-weight "four-thread Berlin", my double-knitted section is only 6 sts fewer than the original larger size!)  And as it happened, I set this down for a few weeks, and then when I picked it up again my fingers seemed to suddenly get the hang of double-knitting in the round, and I managed to whip out each cuff in merely hours.

I was tempted, though in the end I did not, to make a vertical buttonhole a few rounds from the top of the double knitting section, so that the cuffs could be worn as muffatees if so desired -- I think this would also be an appropriate period variation, and I might make another pair later and incorporate the idea.

(Double knitting in the round with one strand of yarn, by the way, produces a tube except at the beg/end of the round.  Because the wool must be moved from one side to the other, it will necessarily have to go across the inside of the "tube" at this point.  There is also a slight ladder here, so I would advise taking these into consideration also, when deciding whether or not to work it in the round.)

The new badge is a painting called "Old Woman Knitting" (ca.1882) by Thomas Eakins.  I don't find anything more about it online -- I wonder if it was an oil sketch for a proposed, more finished, painting, hence the grid.  I like it very much the way it is.

The Project: "Winter Cuffs in Double Knitting"
Year or Period: 1861
Materials: 2 skeins British Blue Wool (pure Blue-faced Leicester) in Milk (white) and French (greyish purple), 2.5mm needles
Hours to complete: 29 January and 31 January 2017 (a day for each cuff!)
How historically accurate is it? I think my modifications are quite within the bounds of what a period knitter might do with the wool she had in hand, except for the gauge of the British Blue and possibly the suspended bind-off
Sources/Documentation: Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, no.62-63 (1861), p.164 (the pattern is reproduced in full in the image in this post)

Mora Mittens, First (Mis)steps

I started the Mora mittens on Wednesday -- it's slow-going, this two-end knitting, and the Mora Z-ply wool is rather a different beast from S-ply.  I expected the two-end process to require regular untwisting, which it does (I usually do this twice every round), but each strand is also untwisting itself as I knit, which means that quite often, it isn't really a "two-ply" yarn but "two plies lying next to each other", which makes it worm up on itself.

Then I was knitting blithely on, thinking I'm getting the hang of it and feeling pleased with myself, as one does, when I realized, looking at the gusset edging, that the purl stitches didn't stand out nearly as much as I expected them to.  I kept going for a few rounds thinking it might get better, but it didn't, so I looked at the instructions more closely -- you can see where this is going, I expect -- and discovered that I thought I knew how to make a purl stitch, but for the two-ended version, you don't just bring the yarn round to the front, purl, then take the yarn back, you have to bring it round a stitch earlier then take it back a stitch later, which gives you that little swoop on either side.  So I ripped the mitten back an inch or so -- although not far enough, as it turns out, since you can see at the bottom part of the gusset edging in the photo above that it looks a little uncertain just there.  It was a real bother ripping it out, because of course you work from a center-pull ball, and you can't just shove the center strand back in -- so I used a tip I'd seen somewhere, and stuck a spare double-pointed needle across the entry-point for the center strand, and butterflied both strands around that using the needle as a sort of cleat.

This morning when I looked at it in a rare patch of brilliant sunshine, I realized that, yes, the hook stitches I'd done earlier, around the cuff, were exactly the same -- viz., wrong.

See? they should all have that little swoop, similar to the chain path just above.  So I'm waiting a little this morning to make up my mind whether to rip it back to the beginning of the damask pattern and use the cleat trick to avoid rewinding, or just take the whole thing out completely and rewind the ball properly.  The first option might be more trouble than it's worth, but would (at least today) keep me from feeling like I've wasted all this time, but the second option would, in addition to having a properly-wound center-pull ball, also give me the opportunity to try and smooth out some tension blobs here and here.

On the bright side, I'm very happy with the cast-on, now that I've figured it out, wh. I must admit took some doing.  I will post some step-by-step pictures when I get to that point later.  It looks remarkably like the cast-on edge on the half-mittens in the Nordiska Museet, so that's a good sign!

"Mora Vantar"

The description of this lovely pair of twined-knitted mittens says that they were given to the museum by a Dr. Hazelius in 1873, who "got them many years ago from a Mora girl" -- a Morakulla, which is the same word used to describe many of the young women in Anders Zorn's paintings, as well as this one by Emelie von Walterstorff --

Ever since my first steps in two-end knitting, I've been dreaming about the Mora wool from Nancy Bush at The Wooly West, and so with my Christmas money I splurged on two skeins. This is Swedish Z-ply wool -- apparently especially suited to two-end knitting because of the way the twist lies -- so I'm looking forward to making Nancy's pattern from the Winter 2010 issue of "Knitting Traditions", with enough left over for the Ormsta wristwarmers!

Plain mittens in sheep's wool (fårull), from the village of Vinäs in Mora parish.  This well-used pair was acquired by the museum in 1891.  (I wonder what the hook-and-eye are for ...?)

The museum gives surprisingly little information about this pair in beautiful condition, except that they were acquired in 1879 as part of an ethnographic collection.  These are halvvantar, half-mittens.

This elegant pair of Mora vantar were given to the museum in 1877 by the committee for Sweden's participation in the World Exposition -- it doesn't specify which one, but I'm assuming the one in Philadelphia the year before.

Clearly two-end-knitted, but wildly different from the others.  According to a post by Lars ("Baritono") of Lappone, this kind of mitten was probably knitted to sell as souvenirs.  (I think that not only because the Dalarna region, having kept their traditional costumes as everyday wear longer than most Swedish regions, was especially picturesque, but also because of Carl Larsson, Dalarna was particularly popular with tourists.)

These images of Mora vantar -- mittens from Mora parish in Dalarna -- are all from DigitaltMuseum.se.