A Bluestocking Knits

Gardening, Poetry, Travel

Lilting with Color (Sissinghurst Gardens, part 1 of 2)

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Bluestocking

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29th October 2017

I realized today that I haven't yet posted photos from our visit to Sissinghurt Garden in Kent this past summer. It was a lovely afternoon, and I recommend the place to anyone with an interest in gardening or just with an eye for beauty and little details, from color combinations like pinkish-yellowish poppies with purple verbena, to the different leaf shapes and textures such as ferny matte leaves with glossy green ones with delicate pale lavender flowers drooping gracefully around them both. I could have wandered happily for hours! and I certainly had enough photos that I couldn't bear to leave out any more, and there is enough for two posts …

(The second post is here.)

"Fortunate gardener, who may preoccupy himself solely with beauty in these difficult and ugly days! He is one of the few people left in this distressful world to carry on the tradition of elegance and charm."

— V. Sackville-West (source unknown)
“Historical Knit Challenge””, Mittens, Gloves, and Hats, Scandinavian Knitting, Two-end knitting (Tvåändsstickning)

Thoughts on the Two-End-Knitted Mittens

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27th October 2017

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".)
Shawls and Scarves

Merino My Heart

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25th October 2017

Last week at Tuesday Morning I was poking through the eyelash and ladder yarns in the knitting bins, and David, standing idly nearby, put his hand in and said, "What about this?" It was a skein of Queensland Collection's Rustic Merino Sport in a deep foresty/olive-y green. "Oh, yes," I said, and we managed to find four skeins, and then another in a very handsome plum. Half off of the sticker price — my word. I'd not heard of this yarn before, but it feels very good in my hands, light but smooth and strong, something that doesn't shout but sort of waits to be noticed, a Celia Johnson of wool. I didn't really have any particular projects in mind — perhaps a scarf, or some mitts? possibly both? So I bought two of each color.

I thought the green would do very well for the Henry scarf from Knitty, but upon swatching I found that the color variations in the wool, which look fairly subtle in the skein, made the herringbone stitch just sort of disappear, and so I have filed "Henry" away for another time (and a more solid color of wool) and decided on Nurmilintu for the plum and Regina Marie for the green.

(This effect fascinates me. It is mathematically a triangle, with the left side at a 45-degree angle — increasing every other row — and the right at a 60-degree one — increasing every row, but the bias makes the edges curve beautifully in this wave-like manner — "when math and fabric collide!")
About the Bluestocking, Crochet, Family, Knitting, Miscellanea, Needlework

10th Update

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Bluestocking

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10th October 2017

(Not the tenth one, on the 10th …!)

I finished the knitting on the second Mora mitten late last night — now only have the weavings-in and they're done!

This is less successful — my nth attempt at a sontag, which every single time so far has either been far too big or far too small, curled mercilessly, shrivelled ditto (twin rib stitch), or just generally disappointed. I keep varying the stitch pattern or the sizing, without yet finding the right balance. This one is too small — again.

These, however, turned out exactly as I'd planned. I have been continually dismayed at the ease with which the girls manage to dent and scratch the metal water-bottles they take to school daily for lunch and various after-school activities. Most of our older ones don't stand up straight any more, from being dropped or knocked over, etc. etc. etc. When I found these new ones at Costco recently — the mouth is large enough to easily get ice cubes or a bottle-brush into, and the lid has no moving or difficult-to-clean parts! — I decided that I should take some protective measures, and so of course being me I thought, "well, what about a crochet sling-type cover?" These are a mash-up of two free patterns, Kat McCab's "Water Bottle Cozy" and Kelly Spenhoff's holder with a strap — I used the stitch and the shaping of the former, and the latter as inspiration for the carrying loop. So far, so good!

I am also slowly doing some handy-man work on the dollhouse — regluing loose pieces of trim, mostly. Am dreading sanding that dark-green paint from the upstairs room, which I am sure is going to be a challenge to cover up, but it is just not attractive — I should just get started, I'm sure it will give me great satisfaction once it's done!

A few weeks ago I joined Postcrossing, an international postcard exchange group. Ireland is the latest country to issue a postage stamp in honor of the group. I used to collect stamps, a very long time ago, found it interesting at the time but only from a distance once I stopped, but it is appealing to think of the occasional first-day cover like this one, to keep in a box or perhaps an album now. I've just sent my second postcard, so am looking forward to my first arrival!

(I joined because I was feeling rather wistful about not really having anyone to exchange letters with any more, my oldest friend being hors de combat, as it were, and limited to e-mail as a result. It's just not the same. What a loss to the younger generation.)

I was delighted to see the Google Doodle for today — it's Nansen's birthday.

As for my current petitpoint project, the Turkoman is slowly coming into shape. I like the design a lot, mind, and the "faded" colors I decided on — but it's tedious, I must say. I've watched rather a lot of television, filling in all of that red background.

Goodness, I think I forgot to say that I started a separate blog over at Blogger (because it's free, to be honest) for the photos from our canal-boat journey. We enjoyed it so much that David and I certainly plan to do another trip as soon as possible (Julia says wearily, "just not so many locks") — maybe another stretch, or the rest! of the Stratford Ring, maybe Oxford …? I decided on making a separate blog so that I could play around with subject labels as well as focus exclusively on narrow-boating — plus of course it's more of a family thing than just my own natterings here chez Bluestocking.
Miniature Needlework, Miniatures – Hardy House

Slowly But Surely …

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17th September 2017

I have begun dressing the mahogany Arts & Crafts bed I finished a few months ago (from Jane Harrop’s Edwardian Era Miniatures in 1:12 Scale). The mattress is following the tutorial at Tiny Handmade, which I adapted only slightly by using cotton balls instead of foam, with a layer of thin quilt batting as a sort of pocket to hold the cotton. I cut the batting to size without seam allowances, then whipped the edges together so that it was all one unit (stuffed) before wrestling it into the “ticking”, which is an old work shirt of David’s.

(Why cotton balls? Because I had a coupon for a huge bag of store-brand cotton balls that ended up being about 75% off, and we don’t use them much in the bathroom, so I figured I could stuff dollhouse furniture with them. This worked quite well — I did fluff them a bit so that they lay more smoothly inside the batting pocket — and they are not nearly as lumpy as one might think they’d be.)

The tutorial is quite simple but effective, though I will say it is a bit of a challenge to get all of the seams straight, even if you use striped fabric! and also to get the tufting spacing to be the same on both sides. This is in fact my second attempt, as the first one I tried to tweak a little too much and it came out too small. I also think that next time I will try off-setting the rows of tufting. But I’m pleased with how very comfortable the mattress looks!

The lace skirt is made of 17 repeats of the Clover Leaf Lace edging in Lace from the Attic, with a crochet cast-on and then a suspended bind-off taking the place of the very last row, in an attempt to “match” the two ends as much as possible. The cotton is DMC 80 tatting cotton, which to my amazement I found at Michael’s –I didn’t think they would ever carry anything so esoteric … hurrah! It’s still a bit large in scale, but I’m not ready for the micro-knitting yet. I stitched the two pieces of edging to a hand-hemmed piece of muslin. I had hoped to have a piece of lace along the foot of the bed as well, but the construction of the footboard doesn’t allow that — it probably could, though, if one thinks ahead far enough while putting it together.

This is the Hepplewhite serpentine table kit from House of Miniatures. Mine is not as much of a success as it deserves, I’m afraid — since it is a lovely little table — but my kit-building techniques are still rather amateurish. Apparently it’s a classic newbie mistake to sand too much — you don’t realize that at this scale a little sanding goes a long way — and I took off too much of the delicate shaping of the legs. I decided to convert this into a design element, and roughed up the wood even more, to look like an older piece of furniture.

I also am not impressed with my polyurethane-finishing. I really like the linseed oil/beeswax finish on the bed, so I think I might stick to that or maybe Danish oil in future — more work in the applying thereof, but the results, at least for me, seem to be much better.

Still — this was a happy coincidence! —

I will keep an eye out for a better sewing-machine, but this will do very well in the meantime.

And this is the tile-topped table kit from Omniarts of Colorado, which I came across quite accidentally on Etsy a few months ago. This particular kit is probably from the 1980s.

I painted it with Martha Stewart’s satin-finish craft paint in “Wedding Cake,” and made the tiles to my “old favorite” tutorial from Wasting Gold Paper. The design is of course a Duncan Grant drawing, though I don’t know where it is from — it’s not quite the “Queen Mary” design but very like, certainly. I did trim it just a smidge at one side, to center the roundel.

I was really touched to read the tribute on the Omniarts website to the lady who started the company, so I made sure that the pencilled assembly number, which presumably she had written, was visible on the underside, the way so many full-sized pieces of furniture have —

(I did add in the extra bracing underneath, as the table seemed alarmingly delicate without! but I should trust that Aleene’s tacky glue more, it’s great.)

I am extremely pleased with the way this turned out — some of my craftsmanship is a bit rough, but the whole thing looks pretty much exactly the way I’d pictured it in my imagination!

And here is this month’s in-progress photo of the Turkoman petitpoint carpet — which I must say is very handsome but rather tedious. I do like the general effect though, so I will just keep plodding along! —
Socks, Techniques

Thoughts on the “It’s Tea Time” Socks

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16th September 2017

These have been finished for a while, but I'm only just getting around to photographing them — the "It's Tea Time" from Around the World in Knitted Socks by Stephanie van der Linden. This was my travel knitting, you may remember, though we were so thoroughly — albeit delightfully — busy that I did most of the knitting after we got back home.

They are worked in Shepherd Sock in "Whisper", a pretty sort of pale pink, on Kolláge 2mm (US 0) square dpns. The pattern is a bit more texture than I usually go for (!), but I like them a lot — memorizable but not difficult, so certainly a pleasant combination.

The heel-turning instructions refer the knitter to the glossary for short-row instructions, but I don't know why, as the heel requires only the most basic "turn work around" maneuver — the "slipped yarn-over" instructions are for a wrapping method, and that abbreviation (SLYO) appears in other patterns in the book for truly-short-row heels (i.e. not flap heels like this one), so I'm guessing that the "see Glossary" reference here is simply a mistake. It's not a serious one, by any means, except that for a while I was trying to cram the SLYO into a heel-turning that would not accommodate it. (Here is the errata list, by the way.)

One of the things that really appealed to me was the exceptionally handsome variation on the heel — done with stitches, not structure, so of course it fits like the flap heel but looks different.

As for the Kolláge Square dpns, I'm not sure that they made much of a difference for me. I found the needles at Tuesday Morning for almost half the sticker price — dithered, went back a few days later and they were still there, so I bought them — you can always use another set of sock needles, right?! I don't usually have a problem with ergonomics, thankfully, so that isn't an issue, and my tension — presumably due to my being tense all of the time — is usually fairly even, so I'm not sure I really see a benefit there either. The third selling-point is that they don't slip out of one's work as easily as round needles, but that for me is one of the benefits of wood, that the slight texture of the wood makes them a little "grabbier" — I did have the Kolláges slip out on me occasionally, but that was at the usual spots where I had one or two stitches left on a needle and looked away for a moment, to pick up my cup of tea or some such, and the needle fell. But they do on the whole feel fairly secure, so there is that. For me, I'd say that on the whole the jury is still out on this one. I do, though, really appreciate the very clear size markings!

And although it has no bearing on the needles themselves, I got them for a good bargain, so they are perfectly satisfactory to me in that respect!
Miscellanea

Solar Eclipse 2017

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Bluestocking

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21st August 2017

So we didn't get as great a view as some parts of the country, but I got caught up in eclipse fever this morning — why not? how often does this happen?!

I found this video from NASA —

about how to make a simple pinhole projector, and put my own together in about two minutes —

Worked like a charm, too!

The top photo is just before ten o'clock, and this one,

is at 10:20,

and this one at about 10:40.

Well, I'm sure that NASA and National Geographic et al. will have much more interesting photos, but for DIY I'm fairly pleased!
Uncategorized

10th Progress

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10th August 2017

The Petitpointers list I'm on does a "progress report" on the 10th of the month, just to show what everyone is working on — I like this because not only do you get to see what others are doing, but it keeps the list active as well. Since I do have a petitpoint project this month, I thought I'd cross-post, as it were, and do my knitting as well! I might make this a regular thing, as I know I have a couple of half-knitted projects stuck in a drawer somewhere, and this would keep things a bit more towards the forefront of what I still like to call my memory.

I am almost finished with the Teatime socks! hallelujah! I'm pleased with them, but gosh, it seems like they are taking just ages. I have I think one more pattern repeat left, and then the toe.

This is Sue Bakker's Turkoman miniature carpet from the Dodge Dolls' House Needlecrafts book. It may come as no surprise that there was a big problem with the chart, but upon pondering it for a long time, I now suspect that the reason that so little of it made sense — the estimated finished size compared with the chart, the photograph ditto — is that the chart is meant to be "flipped", i.e., you get one-quarter of it and you just repeat it, mirrored or flipped as necessary, for the other three quadrants, but presumably Dodge or the publisher said, "No, sorry, it's far too big!" and adapted the design without modifying the chart to have only three guls in the main field instead of the original ten (!!). Since I wanted my carpet at a smaller gauge anyway, I am working it to what I think were Bakker's original intentions.

That said, this has just been a tough chart! Maybe this is because I decided to work most or all of the gold before adding in the dark colors, and it is certainly more difficult to keep things in the right place when there isn't anything close by to "spot" off of. Please tell me now if you see anything that looks out of place, as good grief I've picked out yards already, including one I think you can still see the ghost of, when I miscounted those hourglass figures along the long edge and started going across a whole inch or so early.

The two-end-knitted mitten is still languishing without its mate. The wool is quite hairy and raw, as it were, which I like, mind, but makes it difficult to knit with in hot weather, which has been both hot and humid here for quite some time — the pink Shepherd Sock above is cottony enough that only on the muggiest days is it unappealing, luckily, but the mitten will alas have to wait until October or November, I suspect.
“Booking Through Thursday”, Books and Reading

The Joys of Buying Books on Vacation

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9th August 2017

There isn't a new Booking Through Thursday question this week, so I'll just make something up — here are the books I bought in England. (Looking at the stack like this, I guess I can see why David grew alarmed as the trip went on, but this doesn't even approach that heady fortnight of my youth when I came home with no less than six volumes of Virginia Woolf's diaries and letters! — in hardcover!)

From Waterstone's in Kensington High Street, the Lucy Worsley book I've already mentioned, Jane Austen at Home. I got distracted by some library books which of course had to be back before the due date, so I've not finished this yet, but it's no fault of Worsley's.

After having not one but two concierges at the Marriott in Regents Park stare at me in utter mystification when I asked if A to Zeds can still be had, David surprised me with a visit to Stanford's in Covent Garden. This is a truly wonderful bookshop, possibly the place to go in London for maps and travel books. I asked the sales clerk, and he said, "Yes, of course!" and showed me a whole shelf of that famous street atlas, which restored my faith in Britain at once. We could all have spent hours at Stanford's — I think it's three floors, and we only visited one — I bought How to Read Castles by Malcolm Hislop, The Walker's Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs by Tristan Gooley, and the spiral-bound A to Zed.

The only souvenir guidebooks we bought were for Windsor Castle, Ightham Mote, and Bodiam Castle. Believe it or not, I was actually trying not to buy a lot of books! but I think that Ightham and Bodiam were my two favorites of the Stately-Homes/Castles we visited.

At the New Place bookshop in Stratford-upon-Avon, The Shakespeare Circle and Finding Shakespeare's New Place, the latter of which I am especially interested to read, of course being fascinated with Elizabethan houses, not even counting the Shakespeare angle.

It has nothing at all to do with Chartwell, and I'm not really sure why there were so very many cookbooks in the shop there — maybe Churchill really liked his suppers! — but that was where I happened upon Sophie Thompson's My Family Kitchen — and at about a third of the cover price. I adore Sophie Thompson, and I like to cook, so all three of these together were Fate.

At a narrowboat/information-center/souvenir-shop at Stratford-upon-Avon, I confess I bought a number of little how-to narrowboat books including — obviously a weakness of mine! — a cookbook. Pork fillet and dried-apricot casserole on the first page — doesn't that sound good?!

The book shop at Sir John Soane's Museum was also a place where I could have spent hours, but the only book I came away with was At Home with the Soanes by Susan Palmer, wh. I haven't had a chance to do more than flip through to see the illustrations, but David has read it and says it's very good.

So some of these books were actually relevant to what we were doing or seeing those three weeks — the canal how-to books, obviously, and the castles book, and the Shakespeare, certainly — and some were just serendipitous finds, which I think is a happy outcome altogether!
“Booking Through Thursday”, Books and Reading

Booking Through Thursday: Format

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28th July 2017

Being a bit of a technophobe, I can't manage to subscribe to Booking Through Thursday, and so I don't know without actually going to the homepage whether a new question has been posted — so here I am thinking that there hasn't been a question since December or thereabouts, and there have been five. So I inadvertently answered one yesterday, and here is the most recent one.

All other things (like weight, cost, and so on) being equal, what’s your favorite format for a book? Hardcover? Paperback? Old? New? First edition? Digital? Audio?

I see the appeal of each of these, to be sure. For reasons of space, I am amassing a stash of classics on my Kindle (Austen, Dickens, Trollope, etc., as well as more modern things like the Cadfael and Miss Read series as they appear), and I really love some of my audio books (the Wendy Hiller version of All Passion Spent I mentioned yesterday, for one, the Irene Sutcliffe Pride and Prejudice for another).

First editions? not really, the exception being that I am slowly collecting D.E. Stevensons, many of which are first UK editions because for the most part those are more complete and more authentic — for some reason, her US publishers regularly lopped off whole chapters, and of course (why??) Americanized spelling and certain words us Yanks would doubtless be completely mystified by, such as "neighbour" and "lorry". (Grrr.) But for the most part, what is inside the book matters to me more than the imprint.

There is much beauty to be found in an old book, either the sort of universally-acknowledged beauty of morocco and gilt or simply that velvety softness that the edges of the pages get in books of a certain age. And new books certainly have their beauties, either in some really well-done design or simply in the thought that a new world awaits just inside.

But I find that this question is really difficult to answer! All kinds of books have their unique appeal, and for both practical and aesthetic reasons — but I suppose if I had my druthers, I would choose hardcover more often than not, though I suppose that the appeal is as much emotional as it is intellectual! I like the heft of them, the substantiality, the sense of permanence.