Chop Water, Carry Wood

As the weather turns to fall, we start to think of warm cups of tea by the stove, and maybe a cat curled up nearby. At least that is what we are supposed to think. Today it was 103 in Jackson, the warmest day of the year.

As we were hefting our winter firewood, it was raining on my shirt. More precisely, it was raining directly under my sweaty brow, and saturated head. “Wood heats you many times” is the old saw. The irony did not escape me.

We shifted the jumble of cherry chunks into the semblance of a proper wood pile and uncovered a mouse. Mouse dashed out from under one log and dove under another. Zip! Whoosh!

There was something strange about her. Mouse had extra stuff hanging off her tummy.

I stopped throwing wood and tried to reconstruct what I had just seen. Grey fuzzy mouse, (knew it was a mouse by the big ears and eyes) with fuzzy grey tendrils attached to her belly. For a horrible moment I was afraid we had injured mouse with our rough and tumble wood chucking. But mouse wasn’t bleeding.

She made another dash to a weedy pile of bark. It was then I realized what I was seeing. Mother mouse had baby mice and she must have given them the word to hang on tight. “This might be a bit bumpy.” She accomplished her change of address with little fuss, no losses and no notice from the resident cat population.

May we all see change coming, and manage it with such economy.

Thanks for the Fine Knitting Needles!

Coming home from SOAR in the early 90’s I sat next to Priscilla Gibson-Roberts on the plane. The weather was deteriorating, and the takeoff was through icy rain, and blustery winds. I had already made my usual peace with the maker but still…

Priscilla seemed oblivious to the situation, looked me right in the eye, and launched into a discussion of the history of knitting, using “the voice” so that even the captain could overhear her. Gratefully, I relaxed, focused on her face and what she was saying.

What she had to say was fascinating. The earliest surviving piece of knitting is a pair of cotton stockings, very complex design work. Surely, these were not early escapades into sock knitting.

This spring, KNITTING TRADITIONS had an article about those same stockings with a photo. This was the first time I saw the arabesques, two-color knitting in indigo and white. My heart went” lubba-dub”.

I was in the throes of working on a conference, but I HAD to do something with this.

The first step was to draft the fancy two color pattern. A general “middle” of the pattern was declared, and stitch by stitch, “reading”, the pattern transferred to graph paper.

The next step was to proof the pattern with some likely yarn, to check the pattern, gauge and grist of the yarns I’d need.

The photo shows how far I got. The lower part of the bag has the pattern doubled because I wasn’t sure that it would be “square”. Well, doubled it wasn’t square at all. The top of the bag, is the pattern straight knit and it isn’t square either. It is too wide, so I need just a smidgeon finer yarns.

I am off to spin some more yarns and that means the story doesn’t end here. Whoo hoo!

Oh, I titled this, “Thanks for the Fine Knitting Needles” because I knit the sampler on fine pins and got to thinking about how the originals were knit. Not bone, horn, or wood, they had to be wire needles. These stockings represent a technology of metallurgy with a history of innovation that goes back thousands of years. Damascus steel is a product of that same technology. And my beloved steel pins.

A Propos Opera Props

A couple of weeks ago we had a most interesting email. The prop-master from the Houston Grand Opera contacted us for information concerning their upcoming production of Brittons’ “Rape of Lucretia”. One scene begins with a group of women spinning. Megan had already convinced the director that the women of Classic Roman times would not have used spinning wheels. Her question was what type of hand spindle and distaff would they have used?

After some conversation back and forth it was agreed upon that the women in the scene only had to look like they were spinning while they were singing and acting, and not actually make yarn. (Some of us have issues using a drop spindle and walking, much less remembering lyrics and smiling.) So we came up with the spindle and distaff pictured below.

The simple low whorl spindle has a swivel at the top. Commercial yarn attaches the spindle to the distaff which holds some fluffy, fibery stuff. This permits the spindle to actually rotate but if the “spinner” holds the spindle at the swivel, the twist does not run up the yarn.

The grim model in the picture is attempting to take the pose of the original Venus de Milo as suggested by Elizabeth Barber. I guess it must hurt to be a Goddess.

Eugenie the Costume Box Monster

A little while ago I stumbled across a different knitting book: “The Big Book of Knitted Monsters” by Rebecca Danger. The book was bursting with humor and play. For instance, the monsters are listed by their location: ceiling monsters, closet monsters, refrigerator monsters. So, of course, I HAD to make a costume box monster.

In no time I had cast on two legs and was happily knitting a pudgie body all the while thinking of the next possible yarn to use. The great fun is that you can use little bits of left over project yarns. It is a monster after all, do you really need to overthink the color sequences and choice?

Eugenie soon emerged from my knitting bag and announced that she needed something au tours the original book monster, thank you very much. I picked up stitches around her middle and knit a fabulous fandango skirt. 

If you need a knitted monster, do check out the Big Book of Knitted Monsters. But please, ask your monster if changes are needed before you stuff the little guy. It was precious slow picking up the stitches and knitting around her, umm, rotundness. But well worth it.

Flail or Paddle-type Twister

'Primitive' rope maker. 16" paddle for twisting straw, moss, grass, rush, bark strips, honeysuckle, hair, hide, etc. into strands. Strands so made can be laid into ropes. Set consists of flail handle, blade.

$25.00

Reflections on 'Du temps perdue' (Ancient Source Spindles)

These are simple spindles, just a shaft and whorl, made from wood with the occasional stone whorl thrown in. One of a kind. Not fancy. Just elemental.

I pick up one of these. The whorl is part of a branch made smooth and round, the shaft split out of a stiff bit of soft wood. The spindle twirls easily in a bowl. Fine cotton yarn peels out of the cotton in my hand and winds on to the shaft above the branch whorl. There is something timeless about this spindle. There is something timeless about the act of spinning on it.

American Saxony

We have been making this one to custom fit since 1975. 26" or 28" heavy-rim 'felly-built' wheel, precise vernier tension adjustments, superb flyer & bobbin arrangement (to your choice), any reasonable native North American wood (again, your choice)... this is the one responsible for the term 'production wheel'. Function first & foremost, but even so, much attention to decorative details, turnings & finish. Flyer and bobbins are statically and dynamically balanced, proofed at high speeds. Bearing inserts used with all rotating surfaces, except tension screw.

Furnished with oil bottle, extra drive cord, wheel hook, bobbin rack, 3 spare bobbins, and leg starter, & a cake of beeswax. 24 to 36 month wait.

Custom built, starts at $1,400.00