A Bluestocking Knits

Thoughts on the Camptown Races Cowl

I should put exclamation marks in the title.  Camptown Races (Sort-of) Cowl!! Finally!!

I don't remember when I started this, summer of 2021 is the closest I can get, as I well remember knitting during Zoom meetings and usually having to rip out large portions afterwards since I'd get distracted and lose my place.  It's only partly the Camptown Races pattern because of course I didn't need to work any stripes, the yarn doing it all for me, sometimes handsomely, sometimes crazily.  The yarn is "Gluttony Sock" superwash merino/nylon blend from Forbidden Fiber Co. in the "When Presents Explode" colorway.  It pooled and flashed in some strange and not particularly pleasant ways -- why do these yarns always start off so well, then go off the rails?! -- but luckily for me, with this style, I can wrap it up and tuck the weird bits under.  I have had a number of compliments when I've worn it, actually, so that's all right.

I was going merrily along with "Virtue Outshines the Stars" when I realized with a thud that I had mistaken the large dot for the small dot on the old hand-drawn chart, and that the "picot" line down the left-hand side should be gold and the outlines of the large flowers should be red.  Since I had done only one thread's worth of the picot, that was a simple matter to pick out, but I was this far with the flower outlines, and not only was that some hours' stitching, but having filled in the first flower, picking it out might cause a number of problems nearby.  It doesn't look wrong -- unless you know it's supposed to be red, of course! -- in fact it doesn't look bad at all.

And I had made up my mind to leave it, when I found myself the other day picking it out.  As it turned out, it was a bit of a bother, but not trouble, really, as I had feared. 

The next hurdle is that I wasn't sure at this fabric count -- 32 threads per inch, on the fence now and then as to using one strand of floss or two -- if the queen stitches in the border would look better with one thread or two.  I decided on one, and indeed they look quite tidy, although upon reflection they look very delicate next to the 2-strands cross stitches, like using your Denby stoneware teapot with your Spode china cups -- both lovely in their own ways, but rather imbalanced together!  Looking ahead at something else on the chart, I realized that another set of queen-stitch flowers (for this is a Darlene O'Steen chart, the Queen of Queen Stitch!) uses a blended color, definitely two strands, and so one can assume that she meant there to be two strands in the border as well.  Queen stitch is not fun to pick out, but ... oh well.

Page 2, and Some Other Things That Are Taking a Long Time

Page two is the next-to-last page in my journey through the "Quaker Virtues" chart!  I made an effort the past few weeks to focus on this and get to the join between pages two and three -- and page three is less than half of a page of chart, because of the diagonal corner.  Whee!

My Camptown Sort-of Races scarf -- "sort of" because of course I'm not doing stripes, just letting the yarn go where it will, pools and all.  I don't even remember when I started this, but it was at least during lock-down in 2020, as I knitted on it during Zoom meetings (!).  It's an easy pattern, but also therefore easy to go wrong, because *you start daydreaming and all of a sudden think, "Oh no!  I should have worked the pattern row way back there," rip it back, re-knit, repeat from *.

The 1909 Ladies' Mitts which I started back in July -- well, at least it was this year, ha-ha.  I finished the first mitt a month or so ago -- it took so long partly because for some reason my brain just did not want to keep track of the stitch pattern, and I kept getting off and having to rip it back and figure out where I'd gone wrong, or to get that second stitch of Kfb, which I don't know if I'll ever understand how to pick up when I've inadvertently dropped it.  With the second mitt, I bowed to Fate and used stitch markers after every repeat.  I still have to tink back now and then to get a dropped Kfb, but at least it's obvious when I've gone wrong!  I'm not crazy about either of these stitch patterns, to be honest, but the yarn is lovely to work with, so that's a plus.  (For some reason, I decided to cast off the first mitt in purl, then changed my mind, but I haven't gone back to re-do it in K1, P1 rib yet, which is why I haven't woven in that last yarn end!)

Pomegranates and Pinwheels

Linen and threads to start the "Pomegranate Sampler" by Darlene O'Steen -- I'm looking forward to this very much!  The linen is Weeks Dye Works' in "Cocoa" with a collection of threads from Weeks, Classic Colorworks, and Simply Shaker, converted from the DMC list on the chart.  I'm also relieved to see that although I had to choose both the fabric and the threads without seeing them in person, the results are fairly successful!

A crocheted snowflake for an exchange-by-mail with our lace group.  This one is called "Matterhorn" one of the amazing variety from SnowflakePatterns.  I had planned to use starch to block this, but it is so ethereal that I was concerned it wouldn't hold its shape for long, so I re-blocked it with full-strength white glue.  This one is in Coats size 30 crochet cotton using a US9 steel hook, and, impressively, is not as difficult as it looks!

The second of my two Temecula Quilt Company kits, an unnamed pinwheel.  I'm quietly pleased to find that I'm getting better both at piecing and at hand-quilting.

The "Léontine Coutances" sampler by Mamilou, a free reproduction chart of a ca.1900-1910 French sampler.  I decided to work this to look a bit more like the original than like the chart, so I left out most of the now-missing stitches and kept some of Léontine's mistakes, though I confess I added a few of my own!  I like the effect of using three strands of floss instead of the more-usual-these-days two -- it does have that plump "vintage" look, as I'd hoped -- and was not too much for this rather loosely-woven Charles Craft linen.

And my "Camptown Races," thanks to no less than three concerts of Julia's for which I sat knitting while waiting for the curtain to go up, is actually starting to look like it's going to be a scarf!  Huzzah!

Saturday

Not long ago, David needed to go down to San Diego to collect some tool or other that he was buying from a friend, and said, "Let's have a little road trip," and so he and I went to Temecula and visited the Temecula Quilt Company shop which has been mentioned rather frequently here of late, and which is going to online-only in the next few months.  I had thought, "Gee, what can I do with all of these mini quilts once I sew them up" as I'm not really the quilt-on-the-wall type, and eventually I thought, "Duh!  Placemats!"  And so I came away from the shop with one each of their last two mini quilt kits, a booklet of doll quilt patterns (which are often about the same size as placemats ...), and some pre-cuts of TQC fabrics.  After lunch in San Diego, we stopped off to visit some friends who recently moved to the wilds of the Santa Ana Mountains -- had a good visit and a delicious dinner, with the bonus of a gorgeous sunset -- so all in all, an excellent day.

I sewed up the first mini quilt kit in an afternoon, deciding to arrange the squares randomly instead of in four-patch. The kit is of the same high quality as the others, with a generous selection of fabrics and clear, concise instructions.  I backed this with some navy Kona Cotton and hand-quilted it, pleased to see that I'm getting a bit better at the latter, though that may also have something to do with the batting being thinner that what I used previously, and thus easier to manipulate the needle through!

I'm glad I started with this one, as it was thus clear to me early on that for placemats, I think I will want most of them slightly longer than the 16" here.  I've sewn up the pinwheel kit, and will start quilting it soon.

I do have -- of course -- another distraction --

which is Mamilou's charting of an antique sampler which I found almost accidentally while I was researching French samplers.  I decided, since I had some linen that has quite a loose weave, to experiment with three strands of floss instead of two, to get that rather "thick" look that so many antique samplers have, usually (I guess) from the original stitcher using wool and not modern cotton floss.  It's actually quite a success, I think! and because of the loose weave isn't at all too much.  I was originally thinking that I would veer towards a "re-creation" and follow Léontine's mistakes as well as the now-missing stitches, but the chart has a few "corrections" and I've made a few mistakes of my own (!), so it is Léontine as well as a soupçon of both Mamilou and me!

And I do, I assure you, still knit, although it may not seem like it!  I like this wool and think this will make a fabulous scarf, but I cannot knit it during Zoom meetings, as I lose track of which row I'm on and find after an hour that I worked a plain row when I should have worked a pattern row, or vice versa, and have to rip out all I've done since then.  This is the longest it's been yet! --

A Little Bit Here, a Little Bit There ...

Well, it has been over a month since I posted, and I didn't even realize it.  I finished the "Honeysuckle Sampler" ages ago, enjoyed it very much despite the egregious number of queen-stitch flowers in that border (!) -- haven't blocked it yet, though, obviously.  I made some very slight changes, re-positioning the signature line a little, and centering the date by moving it down a single thread -- feeling a bit of an outlaw as I did so, as nobody ever seems willing to suggest that sort of thing even though sometimes a motif looks quite strange with two two-thread rows below it and only one above.  (I think I made the "J" a stitch wider as well -- and why not?!)  These thread colors look very well against the natural linen, I think!

Also unblocked, "Samplings IV" by Ellen Chester, from her "Quaker Samplings series.  This is on the 36-count Edinburgh linen that I coffee-dyed over the summer.  I enjoyed working this little sampler very much, and the thread is quite handsome -- Gentle Art's "Brethren Blue" -- and so I look forward to the rest of the series, which I will do in a selection of different colors.  I've started the "Samplings V" -- in Gentle Art's "French Lilac" but got distracted ...

I got a new phone for free so felt entirely justified in splurging a bit on a new case, the first one I've ever bought, since all my others were hand-me-downs.  Some folks might recognize the place names as being in the Lake District, others might realize, from, say the campsite just there near the compass rose, and the Amazon Boathouse across the lake, that it is actually Swallows and Amazons!  It makes me happy every time I see it, and that's the first time I've ever said that about a phone, to be sure, so well worth the extra few dollars.  And it has prompted me to start rereading the series -- I'm now in the middle of Pigeon Post, so about halfway along.

I had a bag of Jaeger Baby Merino in the bottom of a box, that I kept passing over because while the yarn is delicious, the color was just kind of meh.  I debated with myself for months about overdyeing it -- what if it went badly? aaugh -- but a few weeks ago, I said to myself, "Right, just do it."  I wound into skeins and dyed it with one envelope each of grape-flavored Kool-Aid, and was pleased to see that everything turned out rather well.  It's a bit more mottled than I was expecting -- that was really the only surprise. 

I had been half-planning to make a Christmas-present afghan with it for Laura -- whose favorite color is purple -- and I liked the "Modern Classic Baby Blanket" by Kirsten Holloway, though I've stalled a bit after working the first end section.  It seems to me that the mottled color of the yarn obscures the intricacy of the design -- the purple is a bit darker in real life than in the photo -- ironically, the yarn and the pattern would most likely have suited each other better with the yarn in its original state.  The stitches are on the complex side, and it took me a while to puzzle through some of them, but it worked out well -- but the other thing that is giving me pause is that it's very yardage-hungry, and this bit alone used up a whole ball and a good portion of another, and I've got only ten!  So my choices are to forge ahead and hope for the best, to try out the "plain" panel and see if the yarn goes further, as I could omit the inner fancy-work, or try something else altogether.  Ten skeins sounds like a lot; I can hardly believe that I couldn't make a lap blanket out of ten skeins!

In my indecision, I came across this "Japanese View" cross-stitch chart, available free at Smart Cross Stitch, and thought it also might make a good present for Laura --

and so as I have accumulated a considerable stash of 28-count Monaco in the past few decades, I thought, "Go for it!"  But I have had the dickens of a time with it -- counted wrong and somehow couldn't figure out where, picked out all of the mountain bits I'd done, got off again and picked it all out a second time (luckily not so far along as before), ran out of the medium-purple (of course, half of it was in shreds on the floor), did it a third time using a couple of in-betweens I had in my needle case as re-positionable guide lines.  Now at last I feel like I'm getting somewhere and it looks like the beginnings of a mountain view instead of a bunch of random specks, which is encouraging.

(Why multiple presents for Laura?  She has just gone off for her first year away at university, after spending her post-high-school years thus far at the local community college.  She is still in the same time-zone, but far enough away that I know she isn't living at home any more.  The compulsion to make things for her is especially strong.)

Lest you think I do not knit anymore -- I have been working on this scarf (which is "Camptown Races"), albeit for what seems an eternity.  I might rename it "Grandmother's Footsteps" as I keep finding that I've been daydreaming and lost track of which row I was on, so that some of the sections have far too many stitches, and I have to rip back to the point where it went wrong.  It's very nice yarn and lovely to knit with, thank goodness, and doesn't seem to mind my two-steps-forward, one-step-back.  If we take the train to visit Laura, this will be a perfect carry-along!

And there is the binding on my "Persuasion" quilt, which binding is very long (somewhat over queen-sized), but of course would probably be finished already if I didn't keep getting distracted ...

Experimenting

Well, we might be heading at what feels these days like breakneck speed towards normality, what with now-readily-available vaccinations here in California, but I am still stress-crafting, clearly.  I rarely have less than a half-dozen things going at once, some of them new to me or mostly-new.  Some are things that I've been thinking about for a while, others are admittedly impulsive but no less fascinating.

These two skeins of yarn have been sitting on my dresser since Christmas, caressed now and then while I pondered what to make with them.  I was amused to see the differences in the look of this yarn from skein to ball to knitted fabric -- it is "Gluttony Sock" superwash merino/nylond blend from Forbidden Fiber Co. in the "When Presents Explode" colorway.  I have no idea what these colors have to do with exploding presents, but there it is.

It is now becoming a modified "Camptown Races" cowl -- "modified" because I don't need to change colors, of course!

This is the first time I have encountered "print on demand" fabrics -- it's a bit disconcerting, to be honest, but one must move with the times I suppose, at least occasionally.  This particular selection, from Spoonflower, came out a bit more turquoise than I was expecting, but I was certainly looking for midcentury-modern prints, that is true.  I like them all, but the two on the far left at least are too big for the quilt I have in mind, so that the design would get lost.  I'm definitely interested in the three on the right, but will have to see how they work with screen-printed fabrics, as the feel is noticeably different.

David built two more "Victory Garden" beds this spring, in the patch of sunlight made by cutting down an old tree (both decrepit and vile) in our backyard, and I planted them with vegetables, and at the recent tomato sale at our local arboretum, managed to score five young tomato plants, now residing in our sunny front garden.  This one is "Uluru Ochre".  I haven't had much luck with tomatoes in previous years, thanks to an inordinate amount of suburban wild- and semi-wildlife, but we're trying some (non-chemical, of course) methods of protection, so we'll see how it goes!

The Furrowed Middlebrow imprint of Dean Street Press has just reissued a spate of previously-long-out-of-print Molly Clavering books from the 1930s.  I splurged on three of them, since I had enjoyed Mrs. Lorimer's Quiet Summer and perhaps even more, Near Neighbours (which was a few years ago reprinted by Greyladies, alas now gone from their catalog, though I believe some copies are still available from Anglophile Books).  These new editions themselves are handsomely put-together with covers featuring details from artwork contemporary-ish to the novels -- my only quibble is that, since the text has been re-set, presumably to conserve space, the gutters are very narrow, meaning that to actually read the book puts the reader at risk of breaking the spine, certainly of distorting the covers.  But it's what's inside that counts the most, of course -- so I'm off to read for a bit --

Knitting Days

Because there is still some knitting going on chez Bluestocking ...

It will shortly be Miss Watts's "Figured Comforter" Mark 2, though, as the first one, while handsome, is far too small.  Miss Watts unfortunately gives no indication of what weight of wool, so I picked a rather fine one -- too fine, obviously.  But I like the pattern stitch, so re-making it is not an effort.

This is FibraNatura's "Shepherd's Own", formerly in its natural cream color, dyed multiple times with Kool-Aid until I got a red that I liked -- unfortunately it took so very many times that I nearly despaired and now I've forgotten which colors I used.  I'm quite pleased with the three skeins above, though a bit puzzled by the marling (marled-ness??) of the one on the left below, and the certainly-not-100%-natural-wool intrusion in the one on the right.  I think I can pick it out without ill effect, though ...

Page 8

Finished page 8 of the "Quaker Virtues" sampler this morning!  The line runs down the center of that big motif just below "SIMPLICITY", with the top of the page through the word itself -- which isn't crooked, I assure you, the fabric is just a little stretched there!  I'm finding a rather surprising number of mistakes in the chart, and not just subjective things like spacing (which I admit to having tweaked here and there), but missing or extra stitches, one of which took me quite a bit of picking-out to fix, since the error was near where I started the particular motif, and I didn't realize it until I got to the next cardinal point.  Oh well.  I'm still enjoying the piece immensely!

Being so very near to finishing Laura's quilt (!), I felt justified the other day in starting a small knitting project (!!) -- having had a conversation with Brittany by way of the comments about Stephen Maturin's comforter, I thought, "well, I must have some suitable wool, let's just see what one of these 'comforters' looks like, eh?"  This one will be the "Figured Comforter" from the 1840 edition of Miss Watts's 1837 book -- about twenty-five years after the events of Desolation Island, but presumably things didn't change overmuch between.  This particular comforter's shape will narrow a bit where it rests at the back of the wearer's neck, then widen out again at the other end.  (I was a bit concerned at first that it wasn't going to lie flat, but once it got a bit of heft behind it, as it were, it settled down nicely.)

This miniature sampler was finished some weeks ago, and again I put off making the frame, had trouble with same, etc. etc. etc.  The chart is the "Heritage VI" by Annelle Ferguson -- I lightened all of the colors by one step, which result usually pleases me very much though in this case I suspect wasn't quite successful, but there it is.  I had great difficulty getting the picture-frame molding mitered properly, so rather than keep wasting it I ended up using plain strip wood (this is 1/8 x 1/4") and "scratch carving" a simple line around the opening to make it look like a home-made frame.  This didn't turn out too badly -- it looks old-ish, at any rate!

I have been reading quite a lot -- I keep meaning to write about that, then find myself absorbed in yet another book --

Knitting, Knitting, and More Knitting

I watched the entire series of the 1980 version of "Love in a Cold Climate" last week.  Of course I had heard of it, both the series and the book, and was impressed by how many people love both, but I must admit that I did not see much of the charm of the story that others talk about -- I like Fanny, who except for her inexplicable fondness for Linda seems a sensible person.  It seems more than a bit depressing that so many of the characters insist on marrying for love (to the dismay of their families) only to have it fizzle away not long after the wedding.  I don't know if that is Nancy Mitford's view of love and/or marriage or if she is pointing out the folly of the young, of whom as the Bolter says, "One always thinks that, always".  There is certainly much wit, most of it biting -- the English do not come off particularly well as a species -- and there are also some satisfying moments, such as the one in the photo above, in the last episode, set during the second War, in which Fanny and Louisa are seen more than once, knitting busily on the sofa as they talk. 

And for something almost completely different, Julia, who is a dedicated "Star Wars" fan, was delighted to point out this in a recent episode of "The Mandalorian" --

so knitted garments are now "Star Wars" canon, it seems.  In case you don't quite believe it (a knitted Aran on a semi-amphibious species in the outer reaches of the galaxy...??), this still shows absolutely clearly the knitted cables --

As for me, I am actually knitting rather a lot lately, but on a gift-to-be so I don't want to show it yet just in case.  Other things will also have to wait to make their bloggy debuts until after Christmas, but here is the state of my Copilot cowl, after a Zoom meeting last night (of course I knit during Zoom meetings!) --

"And the Vase and the Flowers Were the First Motif"

The first motif on the "Quaker Virtues" sampler, finished this morning.  I didn't find it as jarring as I thought, switching back to the soi-disant "Danish method" of working all half-crosses in a section, then going back to make them full crosses, so I probably could have worked on both at the same time, but as it happens the stitching on "Anna Ohman" is finished --

-- and as I said, has been a pleasure every moment.  I'm delighted with the color and the ThreadworX floss, and the linen from R&R Reproductions, and even more with all of these together.  I "signed" it with my initials and the year in half-cross using a beige-brown strand -- of I think DMC 840 -- very similar to the background so that it would clearly not be an antique sampler but wouldn't jump out at you.

It has been good to have these calm, almost serene pieces to work on, these days.  David was called back to work a few months ago, which was a great relief though of course these days few things feel particularly secure, and then this past Monday he was told that along with most of his department he is being furloughed again.  It is what it is, of course, and we are all healthy, there is that.

I am still knitting, though admittedly not much at present, but when the weather turned suddenly cold last week, I decided it would be a good time for that Copilot cowl.  I haven't got very far yet, as the rows are extraordinarily long, but the wool is deliciously soft, like knitting a cloud --