Mrs Miniver Returns!
My ongoing series of art socks is currently having its second solo show, this time in a local art gallery, The Spring in Havant, Hampshire. As well as those pieces that I showed at Prick Your Finger last spring, there are three new additions to the series.
The Sherlock Holmes sock, as it was then called was in its infancy last April and has grown somewhat and been rechristened ‘The Gathering Mystery of the Silk Sock’.
Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book was the inspiration behind the smallest piece in the show, ‘The Progression of Nobody Owens’.
The most recent new work is Hodbins-All! which if you are a fan of the works of Connie Willis, you might have more than an inkling about already.
I will be sharing a little more of the stories behind the three new pieces over the next couple of weeks, but if you are local and would like to visit in person, the exhibition is on in the Sadler Gallery at The Spring until March 24th. If you are coming to the Stitch and Craft show at Olympia on Saturday 19th March, I will be giving a talk about the Mrs Miniver series at 10.30am too.
All photographs taken by my lovely chap, Giles and copyright Giles Babbidge Photography.
Throwing a Lifeline
The knitter whose work you saw in the picture above used a contrasting cotton crochet thread, so it would both be easy to see and also to remove from the knitting afterwards. Linen thread and waxed dental floss are also good to use. If you don’t have any of these handy, just make sure that you use a yarn that is a lighter weight than the main yarn you are knitting with and that it has a smooth finish.
All you need to do to rip back to the lifeline is to slip the knitting from the needles, carefully unravel the knitting (this may be more difficult if you have something which has mohair in it, like Kidsilk Haze). Once you get to the lifeline, you won’t be able to unravel any further. This is the point where you will need to put the knitting back onto your needles. Carefully insert the needle into the first stitch that has the lifeline through it, and pop it onto the needle. You can either take the lifeline out of each stitch as you go along, leave it til the last one is done, or just leave it in to continue being a lifeline (I prefer leaving it in, especially if I’ve gone wrong once!) Move on to the next stitch, popping it onto the needle and continue until you get to the end of the row. You will be left with a correctly knitted row which will have no dropped or twisted stitches.
Basically then you continue on as you were before, and if you make another mistake that warrants frogging a few rows, you have a lifeline there still.
The Peapod Sloucher
The Peapod Sloucher, copyright Ingrid Murnane
I’m very pleased to announce that I have a new pattern available. I designed and knitted it up just before Christmas because I wanted a hat that would cover up my rather large hair (have you seen it when I leave it curly?) However, as not everyone wants a big slouchy hat, I have included a smaller version which makes a great beanie (or a child’s slouchy hat).
Knitted in the round on a circular needle, it has an unfussy textured pattern. Even the large size can be knitted from just one skein of either Cascade 220 or Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted so it makes for good stashbusting too. You can see the hat’s pattern page on Ravelry here.
The Peapod Sloucher - back view, copyright Ingrid Murnane
The Peapod Sloucher is available through Ravelry as a pdf download for £2.50, and the good news is that you can buy and download the pattern on Ravelry even if you aren’t a member.
Knitting Classes at the Mary Rose Museum
I’m going to be teaching a range of knitting and textile classes at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth in February and March 2011.
If you’re in the Portsmouth area, you can learn to knit (or refresh your skills) with me on either February or March 5th (or both if you’re keen!)
There are only 10 places on each course, so if you’d like to book one for you or somebody else, please do get in touch with Fiona, pronto, as detailed above.
The classes are running as part of the education programme that goes alongside their latest exhibition The Tudors Courtly Couture Collection. If you’re a fan of The Tudors tv series, this is a really great opportunity to see the original costumes up close. I went to see the costumes when they arrived at the museum and the detailing even on the costumes is amazing. They really were the Kings of Bling.
It is all in aid of the Mary Rose 500 appeal which raises money for the new Mary Rose Museum which will house King Henry VIII’s flagship at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
There will also be two more classes on 12th February and 26th March, where I will be teaching how to make knitted bouquets and buttonholes for a Winter Wedding, and the Scroggers from Glee, respectively (scroggers were Tudor leg or arm warmers).
If you’d like to book up, please do get in touch with Fiona Harvey on 02392 750521 or email her at f.harvey[at]maryrose.org
The Countdown has Begun
The Spring Arts Centre in Havant, Hampshire have just listed my forthcoming exhibition on their website. Suddenly the exhibition seems REAL, you know? This time there will be new additions to the Mrs Miniver series of art socks including the Sherlock Holmes silk sock that I’m knitting from clues sent to me by my own sock-knitting Moriarty, Susan Crawford. It will be displayed as a work in-progress as the mystery can’t be solved all in one fell swoop.
Here is the decoding so far. You can just see the start of some long-stemmed flowers in the heather colour.
Pictured below is Katie‘s half of the friendsocks that we made last year. It has winged its way back from Boston, Mass, where Katie now lives to be part of the exhibition. It will return after its tour.
Mrs Miniver ’s Socks
By Ingrid Murnane
1 Feb – 24 Mar
This exhibition takes its name from Mrs Miniver’s Problem, a concept in geometry concerned with overlapping circles. According to Jan Struther’s wartime character Mrs Miniver, a relationship of two people should share exactly two thirds of their interests. Ingrid has combined these ideas through a series of hand knitted socks.
Music to Sew Up By
Yup. Exactly what it says in the title.
Sewing up, copyright Ingrid Murnane
I’ve been making this as-yet mystery item (on the off-chance that the recipient sees it here) as a commission, and after some epic knitting last Thursday, finally got around to sewing up my efforts that night.
I have to admit that I need something calming, yet uplifting to sew mattress stitch by (and frankly it’s even more vital if kitchener is involved!)
Here is a taste of what I was listening to today:
Skinny Lister. Discovered them at Festibelly this year and I’m eagerly anticipating their debut album.
Sophie Madeleine - Wonderful ukelele music, including The Knitting Song.
Bishop Allen’s Like Castanets is just a beautiful song with subtle onomatopoeia in parts.
Thea Gilmore – Heads will Roll is my favourite from her album Avalanche. The lyrics are scrumptiously gothic.
They all helped the night along, with a good dose of Belle and Sebastian to boot. I wonder if you have any more suggestions for music to sew up your knitting by?
Review: Twisted Woolly Toppers by Woolly Wormhead
In Twisted Woolly Toppers, Woolly Wormhead’s third book, she brings us a fabulous collection of new hat designs with its focus: cable, twist and bias techniques. Beautifully photographed on location in Italy, there are ten great designs for men, women and children. Each hat is sized to fit three or more head sizes so by altering the colour and sizing to suit, each hat can be made for a range of people including those with big hair, like me.
The hats have great names which reflect the designs such as the curved, windmillesque lines of Turbine which meet centrally at the top and the directional arrows of Freccia. There are a combination of styles to knit, some beanie-shaped, some with double points at the crown, some upright, some slouchy and yet others still, like Lollie, finishing with the flourish of an i-cord topknot. They all have a characteristic twist pattern in common either on the brim, in the body or at the crown.
Unlike her previous book, Going Straight, there are no tutorials included, but don’t let this put you off, as ‘…all techniques needed to complete the projects are available online or in general knitting techniques books.’ Although some of the designs seem complicated at first glance, they are cleverly written with clear and concise instructions which are easy to follow. What’s more, each pattern has both charted and written instructions giving an option if you prefer a visual over text, or vice versa. There is an excellent two-page abbreviation/chart key in-one at the back of the book, as well as useful sizing information and a resource guide.
I loved this book and look forward to knitting many of these creative, fresh and fun patterns.
If you’d like your own copy, click here to purchase one from the knitonthenet shop, and please do check out Woolly Wormhead’s website for more of her designs, tutorials including making your own woolly dreadlocks, and some really great blog posts.
First published for knitonthenet.Teaching Knitting a Century Ago
Girls knitting, 1918. Image courtesy of UA Archives.
Hand knitting was brought formally into the British school syllabus with the 1870 Education Act. It had been taught in many schools, and especially to girls for long before that, but was not formalised until the late 19th century. By the time of the First World War, knitting was a required element of girls’ education and of many boys’ too.
The examiner for the London School Board 100 years ago was one Ethel Dudley. She wrote the 1914 standard school book Knitting for Infants and Juniors which I recently consulted in the Knitting Reference Library. Sadly, due to copyright and library rules, I wasn’t able to show you a photograph or any of the text here.
I really love looking at old textbooks, (especially old textile-related ones) because I’m just geeky like that. This one was particularly fascinating because it was a textbook for the teacher, not for the pupils. The book showed how the teacher of this period was expected to instruct a class of both boys and girls from age five to eleven. At this point, British children attending state run schools were generally taught in separate single sex classrooms except when they were very young.
In the book, techniques are explained for the teacher using both diagrams and text and teachers are advised to physically demonstrate the knitting techniques in front of the class. This makes a lot of sense today in the light of what we now know about learning styles. It also suggests that either the teachers may not know all of the techniques or that they may need to improve on them in order to meet the programme of learning/teaching.
In her book, Dudley suggested lesson plans and instructions for patterns suitable for varying ages such as the following for five year olds:
‘Duster for school blackboards. Needles 5. Number 8 cotton. 30-40 minutes.
Cast on 18 stitches. K (chain edge) 36 rows.
Cast off and make chain of 12 stitches to hang up.’ (1930:14)
It seems surprising to me today, that five year old children would be able to produce a duster in 40 minutes. Certainly when I have been teaching small children to knit, even those who are ‘improvers’ would struggle with the speed of this due to the dexterity of their fingers. I’m not sure of the comparable weight of number 8 cotton (but would guess DK to aran weight), but number 5 needles are 5.5mm or US9.
Other items recommended by Dudley to be knitted by children at ages six to seven included lace-panelled, pieced and fitted doll’s clothes, and shaped and pieced slippers. I have to say that they appear much more complex than projects in knitting books for children of a similar age today.
So, is it just that knitting is seen today to be a leisure activity that children might be interested in as a hobby and therefore has to be simple and fun? Was it that 100 years ago, knitting was a necessary life skill that they had need to be competent at from an early age and therefore seems more complicated through our 21st century lens? Or do we expect less from our young learners today?
From the teaching point of view, I wonder whether the school knitting teachers of today would know all of the skills that Ethel Dudley had in mind for those of 1914, or perhaps we should have our own kind of training manuals today? In some ways, I’d love a book that told me how to teach people certain skills. As an example, it took a few tries for my (adult) student and I to work out a good system for teaching her to knit left-handed with me as a righty.
What do you think to these century old differences in the percieved skill levels for teaching and learning to knit?
Do let me know in the comments.
‘…a chair where she can always find her needles’
When I first found this great piece of film (whilst actually looking for something about making your own banjo, but thats another story), I decided to share it with the world on the knitonthenet blog, but really it is so good, that you all need to see it too.
Picture the scene, It’s 1952: Britian is still under rationing, space in the home is at a premium and advertising voiceovers are delivered in a condescending manner to the housewives of the day.
Forgiving the blatantly chauvenistic overtones of this piece of film from the British Pathe archive, wouldn’t you just love one of these chairs with a hidden extension for your knitting?
Here’s the link to the site so you can watch the entire video. Skip to 53 seconds for the chair.
…I wonder if they still make them?
The Gathering Mystery of the Silk Sock
The first email arrived on a chilly February morning.
Subject: To my Arch Nemesis
Coded clues are within { }
The Clues
recommended colours – { country singer formerly married to Julia Roberts: Lyle __ }
& {A one legged EX? __ Mills}4 double pointed needles, sizes {__ days of christmas} or {Psalm __ – How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever?}
To begin:
Cast on 4 score & 10 sts .
Work 6 rounds with Lt in a rib of K2, P1.
The Code
1st Round – * K4 Lt, 1 Hr, 4 Lt, P1 Lt. Repeat from * to end.
2nd Round – * K3 Lt, 3 Hr, 3 Lt, P1 Lt. Repeat from * to end.Solve the puzzle before the daffodils bloom or a hideous fate awaits….
…with thanks to my friend and nemesis in this project, Susan.
Keep a look out for the mystery’s progress.
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Myrtle
Myrtle Green © Kirks Studios, Cowes, IOW
This is the lady who got me onto my lifelong making kick. I was first taught to knit, sew and craft by my Nan, Myrtle Francis when I was about 5 years old, in the early 1980s. She seemed to be constantly knitting when I was young – she would make jumpers and cardigans for me with intarsia Mr Men, Smurfs or Care Bears on them, then later ones with Postman Pat for my sister. My Mum also knitted but with less enthusiasm (and probably with less time available). I remember her making a mohair cardigan for herself which my Dad washed soon after it was completed, shrinking it irretreivably.
She was a prolific knitter and sewer all her life and could easily adapt patterns to fit anyone. She also crocheted and I think kept all this going to ease the pain in her hands from arthritis: the more she used her hands, the longer her joints would keep going.
It was so exciting to go on holiday to her house on the Isle of Wight. I would be collected from the mainland by my Grandad (always known to me as Georgie), and we would take the bus down to get the passenger ferry across to the Island. It was a slow, slow journey on the ferry at that time. Taking almost a hour, there was enough time to have a leisurely lunch and to get out on the top deck to see how close we were to Ryde.
Isle of Wight Ferry by Just_Tom. Used under Creative Commons license.
After another ride on the bus to Newport, we were finally there. My Nan had the most wonder understairs cupboard which doubled as a food larder for pickles and jams, and craft supply area, with a good stash of wool and hundreds of patterns from the 1930s on. I was in my element in that cupboard and would sit and play for hours with my friend Amber from across the road.
I was a real bookworm when I was younger (actually, who am I kidding. I’m still a real bookworm. Nothing changes.) One school holiday, after I had read all of the children’s books in the house, and all of Amber’s ones too. My grandparents were fed up with me complaining of being bored, so my Nan taught me to knit on short metal green needles. It was an epiphany and the beginning of an itch that I still have to scratch every single day. I had all the usual problems with dropped stitches and adding about 25 more stitches as my garter stitch scarf grew and grew. It ended up a nicely triangled bright orange thing, but my teddy bear, Robert didn’t seem to mind.
So that’s how I got started. I’m still inspired by my Nan: in photographs, in her knitting patterns and her 1930s sewing book and even when I’m making something and think to myself ‘what would Nan do with this bit I’m stuck on?’
Tell me then, who taught you to make things? What were they like? Do they still inspire you today? Tell me about them in the comments: I’d love to have a conversation about this.
Friendsocks (finally)
Remember the Friendsocks?
Remember how originally we were going to make two Mrs Miniver style double ended socks: one each to keep once they’re done and Katie returns to America? If you’ve been following the story, you will know that in the event, a pair of ordinary socks seemed to fit the bill. We knitted them up concurrently, swapping them over at our knitting group, taking over where the other left off. We didn’t follow the same design or use the same yarn, but knit in a way that is typically ‘us’ and independently showed the way we individually like to knit. We helped each other when we needed it and didn’t worry if we didn’t knit them for a couple of weeks either. That’s the nature of our friendship, thus it was reflected in the socks.
They even were exhibited at Prick Your Finger in London, where Katie and I did a small performance to just finish them at the Private View.
In knitting this fraternal pair of socks we are decided to mark, in the knitting, significant (or not so significant) events which take place in our lives as we made them. Katie came up with this idea from a lady who she knew that marked events that happened whilst she knitted a shawl. This lady wrote a note on a piece of paper and attached it in the appropriate place with a safety pin. This idea very much appeals to my geeky museum-collections-management side, so we did indeed catalogue events in our lives during the sock-making with labels.
It certainly was a journey!
All photographs copyright Giles Babbidge photography.
‘.. if an old lady tried to knit that many, her hands would catch fire’
I love David Shrigley‘s work. I first came across it in an exhibition in Prague while I was there on a uni field trip a number of years ago. He was recently commissioned to produce this humourous short animation for the fashion label Pringle of Scotland, to mark their return to Milan Fashion Week this year. It is all about how jumpers and cardigans have been made over their 195 year history, and is just brilliant. Do enjoy.
PlateaKnit!
I’ve just announced the latest @platea project (our sixth) over on their blog: excitingly it is to be PlateaKnit! Well, there had to be a knitting performance sooner or later, didn’t there? It is going to run 25th – 29th January 2010 (Monday to Friday), just on Twitter. I’m really excited to be leading a @platea project and I do hope that lots of you want to will join in.
The full instructions of how to participate are over on the @platea blog, but I’ll give you the gist of what is happening here. If you think you’d like to join in, please let us know in the comments section of the @platea blog post, and be sure to follow the other performers taking part as well.
I will be making something whilst dipping in and out of the instructions throughout next week. It may be a hat: it may be a scarf. After the performance is over I will be making up a larger item ( probably a scarf) following the full set of instructions. I’ll post what I come up with here along with links to what others come up with.
If you’d like to participate yourself, just drop your name and Twitter ID into the comments at the bottom of the @platea post, follow the other performers, and get instructing or making!
The Trials and Errors of the Tension Square
No, not the Gauge Swatch, my friends across the Atlantic: the Tension Square. Must be properly British, you know…
Actually, that comment was prompted by my Mum asking me what on earth I was talking about when I mentioned that I was swatching for a jumper last week and then made comments to the effect that my Nan (who taught me to knit) would ‘turn in her grave if she had one’ to hear me say it! So, for my Mum and my Nan, I will be talking about tension squares.
Stack of Tension Squares for Sun-Ray Ribbing
If you’re a member of the A Stitch in Time group over on Ravelry, you will know that we’re starting a Knit-Along (KAL) on Friday 8th January. We’re knitting the pattern Sun-Ray Ribbing from Susan Crawford and Jane Waller’s book A Stitch in Time. The garment is a lovely 1930s jumper with the quintessential sun-ray pattern, popular in design and architecture of the period. I’ve been knitting up tension squares to test out different yarns for the project over the past couple of weeks and after quite a bit of heartache ( more of which later) have come up with my final decision.
Swatches for Sun-Ray Ribbing
These are the same swatches as in the first photograph, above. You can see from this photograph the importance of making tension squares in deciding the final yarn and needle size to use. It really is essential to make sure that your square is knitted to the right size, as a little bigger or smaller at this size (generally 4 inches) could make a difference of one or even two sizes in your finished garment. The pattern instructions will ask you to knit a certain number of stitches and rows over a desired size. Below are my attempts to get the right tension, the right yarn and the right needles for this pattern.
The square top left is knitted in Rowan Cashsoft 4ply, as called for by the pattern. I used the suggested needles but as you can see, it came out rather too big, as I knit a little loosely. I had a number of other yarns to try out, and on the top right is the same yarn in a different colourway, knitted on needles a size smaller. It came out just right, but I’m not so keen on pink for this jumper and decided to keep it for a cardigan. I was set on a green so tried out some double knitting yarn that I had in my stash (bottom left) with the smaller needles, and while the density of the knitted fabric was better the tension square was much too large. My last attempt (and in all honesty the yarn that I really, really, really wanted to use) was with some Artesano Aplaca 4 ply. I knitted it up with the smaller needles again, but despite my best efforts to talk myself into using it, the tension of the fabric was really too loose and holey. It is a rather thinly spun 4ply in contrast with the much bouncier Cashsoft.
Bearing this in mind, and revisiting my stash yarns, I found that I had enough Sirdar Country Style DK in a warm mid-brown to make the jumper. It is a wool/nylon/acrylic mix which and I wasn’t sure if it would have enough bounce to retain the shape of the garment as wool would, the tension square turned out quite well, so I’m going with it. Although my previous attempt swatching DK yarn turned out rather large, this is more thinly spun and similar to the American sport weight yarn. Using the smaller needles it actually knitted exactly to the right tension, so that is what I’ll be using.
Final tension square
There’s still time to join the Knit-Along for Sun-Ray Ribbing if you’re on Ravelry, and if you don’t fancy that pattern, we’ll be having another in April, so do join the group and get voting for your favourite pattern from A Stitch in Time and get your tension squares on the go.
Making Merry
Remember the brooches that I mentioned I was knitting for the Making Merry exhibition in Winchester? Well, it turns out that they and the felt bead necklaces that I also put in have been a bit of a success, so I’ve spent the past few days making some more! Do drop in to see the exhibition if you’re in Winchester – it is in City Space in the Discovery Centre and runs until early January.
Friendsocks!
Katie and Inny
Katie and I have been great friends for just over a year. Having both moved into a new area, we made contact on a Ravelry board, looking for a local knitting group. Well we found one, which we still attend weekly, but the best thing was that we immediately clicked as friends. On the face of it we are very different: Katie is an American living for a couple of years in Britain and works as an instructor at an outdoor centre: I am a Brit who works in a museum. There is the odd cultural misunderstanding, such as that which is now known as ‘The Water Butt Incident.’ Whoever knew that my asking her to help water my garden would cause such linguistic hilarity! Not me…
So, I bet you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this. Remember Mrs Miniver’s Petulant Sock? Remember how I said I’d like to do a whole series of them?
Well, now I am.
To start, Katie and I are to make Friendsocks together. She and her husband return to the US next year and we will no longer be able to hang out and trade craft skills and make cookies. We have learned lots of things from each other: I taught Katie to magic loop and introduced her to the marvel that is Spaced, and she taught me to spin on a wheel and play Cranium. I think we’ll miss each other a lot once she’s back in America, so in the meantime we have hatched a plan.
We’re going to make two Mrs Miniver style double ended socks: one each to keep once they’re done. We plan to knit them up concurrently and swap them weekly at our knitting group, taking over where the other left off. We are not going to follow the same design or use the same yarn, but knit in a way that is typically ‘us’ and will independently show the way we individually like to knit. We’ll help each other when we need it and won’t worry if we can only fit in a few rows some weeks. That’s the nature of our friendship, thus it will be reflected in the socks.
Although in the early stages, I have started the first of the Friendsocks. Using some Rico Design Creative Poems Aran I have cast on a lace-patterned slouch sock. For the ‘me’ part of the socks I wanted to try a new technique: the lace in socks and a new yarn. That’s typical of me really: I don’t like to repeat what I’ve done before if I can help it. I like to keep learning something new each time. The yarn is a multicoloured pure wool aran. I particularly like yarn with a long colour change, and this changes from purple through to green and back again making wide stripes as it is knit up (below).
Friendsock, begun
You can read Katie’s blog here: I’m sure she’ll have something to say about the Friendsocks too as they pass between us.
We’ll keep you updated.
…and I even taught someone to crochet
The Knitting Reference Library event at the Hambledon in Winchester was a great success last weekend. We sat, we knitted, we chatted, we taught, we all started our Christmas shopping from the Hambledon’s stock, but most importantly we got the word out about the KRL.
Here are a few pictures of the proceedings:
The Hambledon's Window
The Study Table
Knitting poppies
Browsing the Collection Guide
KRL at The Hambledon
Our last KRL event at Cornershop
Just to let you know that The Knitting Reference Library will be at The Hambledon in Winchester on Friday 6 and Saturday 7 November. I will be there on Friday so do come along and say hello!
We will have books, patterns and the Knitting Collections Guide. There will also be spare needles and yarn if you would like to learn to knit. The Hambledon is going to display a selection of our vintage knitting patterns in the window and showcase knitwear plus any related books.
There will be space to sit down and knit as well, so bring yours along. Hope to see you there.
Passion or Obsession?
The Last Knit: When knitting becomes an obsession.
Directed by Laura Neuvonen, from Finland. 2005.
Can you go a day without knitting?
Brooches and brain work
Blimey, lots has been happening this week. Much of it brainstorming, drawing, researching and article writing. Oh, and quite a bit of plodding along with powerpoint, making slides for a talk that I’m giving next week about my master’s dissertation. But there was some knitting too…
Brooches for Making Merry
I’ve been on a real push lately getting more brooches ready for the Making Merry exhibition in Winchester next month. I sewed all of these together this afternoon whilst watching the marvellous Brief Encounter and drinking many cups of tea.
I was lucky enough to get a review too! My scroll brooches were featured on the Found on Folksy blog this week as part of their Neu Vintage feature. Exciting times!
I’ve been on a real creative kick and much of the research that I mentioned has been in trying to decide what socks would encapsulate the essence of literary characters so I can make more Mrs Miniver socks about their relationships: Holmes and Watson, Crowley and Arizaphale and Jeeves and Wooster are on my list currently, amongst others.
A friend at work lent me The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes so that is proving a great inspiration, not to mention a gripping read. I still can’t quite work out what Holmes socks would be though. He was such a master of disguise. How to get that over in the pattern, material and construction method? (I think Argyle pattern for Watson, by the way: possibly quite loud).
As for Jeeves and Wooster, I found a great 1930s sock pattern in my Nan’s knitting and sewing book, with a false seam up the back of the leg. I will be using that one for Jeeves. His half of the sock will be black, of course. I’m rather tempted to make Bertie Wooster one of those ‘jolly purple socks’ which Jeeves was so disdainful of in The Inimitable Jeeves. Perhaps in silk. After all it was Bertie’s former valet’s theft of some silk socks which caused Jeeves to come into the employment of Wooster in the first place.
Knit a Poppy Campaign 2009
We have just announced the 2009 Knit a Poppy campaign in support of The Poppy Appeal.
The background to this appeal is that the Royal British Legion provides financial, social and emotional support to millions who have served and are currently serving in the Armed Forces, and their dependants. Currently, nearly 10.5 million people are eligible for their support and they receive thousands of calls for help every year. The British Legion’s annual Poppy Appeal is one of the ways in which they raise money for their work.
 Poppy Brooch designed by Just call me Ruby ©knitonthenet |
Please visit knitonthenet to download our elegant poppy brooch pattern (designed by Just call me Ruby) by making a donation of £2.00 to The Poppy Appeal.
We shall be keeping you updated of the Knit a Poppy Campaign via theknitonthenet blog and website, Ravelry forum and Facebook page. We would love to see photographs of your finished brooches and also hear how much money you have raised.
Please email me the details at ingrid(at)knitonthenet(dot)com.
Making it up as you go along…
Sometimes a whole lot of similar ideas come out at once, independently of one another.
I’ve been thinking for a while about crowdsourcing tweets to make a knitting pattern. I’d flip a coin to tell me to knit or purl but receive the rest of the instructions from my twitter followers. It’s something which I’ve sort of done before, with the aid of a few friends, but not on such a scale.
This is Mmm – Entrails, or The Red Un-Round. The result of pub-instruction knitting, it was originally cast on as a mobius wrap. It didn’t end up that way.
Mmm - Entrails (or The Red Un-Round)
From my Ravelry notes:
I liked the first version of The Round so much I decided to cast on another.
But… what happens in this one is going to be dictated by other people’s suggestions at the pub quiz. I’ll cast on the amount of stitches they suggest, knit the amount of rows that they want and make it to their specifications rather than mine. I will change colours when they say and make the buttonholes to their request (size and placement).
Given that I usually knit this at the pub, random suggestions are making it all the more entertaining!
So, they asked me to stop knitting. I did.
Then they said: Cut it in half. Er… okay.I think its quite good actually!
I’m planning to make a pair of wrist-warmers this time with the crowdsourced instructions which will come out with all kinds of weird patterns on them: I hope! There’s still a bit more planning to do, but I’ll be setting that up and executing it within the next couple of weeks.
It seems that quite a few other people have had similar kinds of ideas for knitting just recently: playing with making patterns or being influenced by social media.
How about knitted tweets? Knitters in the north of England, organised by the glittyknittykitty blog came together at the Shipley Art Gallery for an evening event which included freeform knitting something in 140 stitches or under. You can see one of Brendadada’s knitted tweets here.
Then, last week I found knitting dice, which are available from Knitivity. Basically, you throw a set of five dice to determine where your pattern goes. I’d love to have a go with some of these!
Lastly though is Lee Meredith’s new e-book Game Knitting.
Orange Game-Knitted Hat by Lee Meredith. Used under Creative Commons licence.
Its concept is ace. In her own words:
The easiest way I’ve found to describe how game knitting works is this:
You make a list of reoccurring things that happen in a TV show, as if you are going to play a drinking game to the show (drink each time something on the list happens), and you want it to be a crazy night! Which means, if you really were to turn your list into a drinking game, you’d either want to take very small sips of light beer, or you’d be too drunk to play after a couple of episodes. So, once you have this game list, you design a knitting pattern around doing/changing something in your work every time something on the list happens. This may be as simple as switching from knit to purl stitches, or making an eyelet hole, or something a bit more complex, like cabling or turning your work for a short row. Just don’t try actually playing a drinking game as you game knit!
So, I tried this out while I was watching Strictly Come Dancing with my family at the weekend. Casting on for a sideways hat, I knitted an eyelet every time one of the following happened:
- Len Goodman said ‘seven.’
- Someone went wrong during the dance performance.
- Bruce Forsythe made a dire joke.
- One of the professional dancers got feisty with the judges.
- One of the dancers came on in something akin to a tablecloth.
- Craig Revel-Horwood said something bitchy about the performance.
- There was actual paso music for the paso doble.
- Tess said that the judges’ scores were in.
Strictly Come Knitting Hat
I was knitting in a mid-grey, and you can’t really see very clearly the patterning of the eyelets whilst it is being knit. I think it will come out more when it is blocked. In the meantime, above is a glaring photo in front of the window so you get the general idea. I’m going to continue with it next week, but with shows of two and a half hours each week right up until Christmas I think I’m going to end up with a whole lot of Strictly Come Knitted items!
‘H’ is for the knitted poem
Knitted H square for the Poetry Society
I knit like my fingers were on fire this Sunday to make a last-minute ‘H’ for the Poetry Society’s Knitted Poem which is a project to celebrate their centenary. They were missing both Rs and Hs and put out a call last week for speedy knitters to make some before the sewing-up deadline on 26th September. The Poetry Society had a stand which I saw at I Knit, showing some of the finished letters. I had thought that the deadline had passed, so I was really pleased to get a chance to take part.
It was the first time that I’ve done intarsia and found that it wasn’t all that bad after all! Sometimes I just need a prod in the right direction to try something new. Using small amounts of yarn on cards helped a lot to eliminate tangling.
Intarsia anti-tangling mechanism
We were asked to mark the back with our favourite poem, but to be honest I couldn’t choose. I put two titles onto my label. Two which create somewhat of a paradox when read together: one which I occassionally address but have yet to resolve in myself.
I chose The Tyger by William Blake with its religious imagery and the sceptical Storm which is a beat poem by Tim Minchin.
You can see how everyone else is doing in the Ravelry Knit a Poem group. There are some lovely, inventively knitted letters there. Also stay tuned to find out what the final poem will be (it’s a secret until the sewing up is finished).
