Month: June 2024

Halfway

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Hello! I hope this finds you all well. Here, after a very wet spring, we’re suddenly having a week of hot and dry weather. Personally, I prefer cool and rainy days, but it is summer after all. We’re halfway through the year, and I’m halfway through my current take-along project – my third Polka Dot Scarf.

I’ve given the other two away. This time I’ve chosen a colour nobody I know likes, so that I can keep it for myself.

I’m also halfway through a simple pair of socks and halfway through a bee-themed embroidery kit.

All enjoyable and relaxing projects, but I’m beginning to feel restless. I really need something more interesting and challenging alongside, but what? My problem is never a lack of ideas. I often have so many ideas that I feel overwhelmed and paralysed. Where do I go from here? Do you know that feeling?

So I do what I always do when I don’t know what to do – write about it. My thinking process is also helped by tea.

After making a long list of the things I’d like to make and considering the pros and cons of each, I have a lightbulb moment. Didn’t I have some kind of plan for 2024? Of course! Halfway through January I made a short list that was meant as a kind of map for the year.

One of the things on it that I haven’t done much about yet is Norwegian knitting. How could I forget about that? Some of you even gave me great ideas for Norwegian books to read, too! Never mind the hot weather, that’s just what I need. It feels good to know where I’m going again.

Last week I wrote that I’m trying to make my posts shorter, and I really won’t ramble on any longer, but I just have to show you where the pictures of the Polka Dot Scarf were taken. It was in a lovely out-of-the-way place, with a hidden, disused lock from the time peat was extracted here and transported to other parts of the country by boat.

Just follow the grassy path below and enjoy a moment of calm in this special place. Xxx

Teaching Someone to Knit

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What I haven’t written about so far is that I’m teaching someone to knit. It all started on New Year’s Eve when I was taking batches of traditional knieperties round to our neighbours. Invited in for a cup of tea by a neighbour across the street, I commented on her cross stitch embroidery. She asked me if I was still knitting and then her 6-year-old blurted out, ‘Mummy wants to learn to knit!’ She did, but hadn’t dared ask me. I said I’d love to teach her and we started lessons in February.

I thought I’d share what we’ve done so far, in case you’d also like to teach someone to knit and could use some ideas.

1 A Swatch and a Knitting Notions Case
(Techniques learnt: Garter stitch, casting on and binding off)
We started with a garter stitch swatch. I cast on for her and knit one row, and then it was her turn. When she’d got the hang of it, I bound off. Then she cast on stitches for a knitting notions case herself – a simple rectangle in garter stitch. This was good practice for making her stitches more regular. She also learnt how to bind off. I seamed the notions case for her and gave it a lining and a zipper.

2 A Scarf
(New techniques: Edge stitches and slipped stitches)
When I asked her why she wanted to learn to knit, my neighbour said, ‘I’d love to be able to make beautiful things with my own hands, like my grandmother used to do. Perhaps a cosy scarf for myself or things for my children.’ An excellent motivation, and a scarf for herself was the next project.

To make it a little more interesting than just garter stitch, we chose a nice stitch pattern that is basically garter stitch, but with columns of slipped stitches on the wrong side. I wrote it out for her and added edge stitches to make it extra neat.

My student chose an aran-weight pink yarn knit on 5 mm needles. The scarf will take her months to knit. A huge project for a new knitter, but that’s perfect for her to relax with in the evenings, when the children are in bed. Meanwhile, she can learn other techniques through smaller projects.

3 Another couple of swatches
(New techniques: Purling, stocking stitch, ribbing and seed stitch
Next up: learning to purl. First a swatch in stocking stitch that I didn’t photograph. And then a swatch with various combinations of knit and purl stitches – ribbing and seed stitch.

4 A Doll
(New techniques: Decreasing, seaming and duplicate stitch)
The next project was for her youngest child – a doll the image of this 4-year-old daughter, down to the ponytails.

This little doll is knit flat in one piece.  Apart from being good practice for stocking stitch, it teaches decreasing (for the top of the head) and seaming. I found the pattern on Ravelry – Fairisle Friends by Esther Braithwaite.

Only instead of a Fairisle sweater my student knit a plain sweater and added a heart in duplicate stitch afterwards – another new technique learnt.

5 A Teddy Bear
(New technique: Cabling)
My neighbour’s middle child (the boy who told me his mum wanted to learn to knit) wanted a softie as well – a teddy bear instead of a doll. We used another of Esther Braithwaite’s patterns, the Izzy Teddy Bear Dolls. The pattern gives instructions for knitting in the round, but I thought it too early for that and had my student knit it flat like the doll. The pattern has 4 sweater variations and we chose a cable.

My neighbour’s eldest child, aged 9, hesitated for a while but in the end decided that he was too big for a softie and preferred a ‘cloth’. He got a 25×25 cm/10×10 inch square, knit on the diagonal from very soft wool that he could carry with him and cuddle secretly (sorry, no picture).

In less than 5 months my (very driven and enthusiastic) neighbour learnt A LOT. I’m very proud of her, love teaching her and hope to pass on more of my skills to her over the coming months.

If you don’t have anyone to teach, the small projects above would also make great little gifts. And they are excellent for using up some of those leftover bits of yarn that I’m fairly sure you have in a box (or multiple boxes like me) somewhere.

That was rather a lot of information. I keep trying to keep my posts shorter, but there is always so much to share. Well, I’ll have another chance next week. See you then!

Laundry Day

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Except for a few warmer days in early May, we’ve had a cool and very wet spring. But now, mid-June, it really is time to wash those warm scarves, shawls and wraps and store them away. These are the ones I’ve worn alternately through the colder months.

From left to right: Story Lines, Color Play Mohair Scarf, Thús 2, a modified version of Sursa, and Striped Linen Stitch Wrap. I’ve only hung them on the washing line to take a picture, because after giving them a lovely lavender-scented bubble bath I dry them flat on our drying rack.

(An earlier post about the spa treatment I give my knits can be found here.)

Pottering about on a quiet day at home, washing my scarves and spending some time at the spinning wheel that had been idle for quite a while, my thoughts went back to my visit to an antiques shop just before our German holiday.

They were holding an exhibition of old textiles called ‘Monday, Laundry Day’. It was like visiting a museum, with the difference that the exhibits were for sale and visitors could rummage among them.

There were knit and crocheted bedspreads, lots of white underwear with crocheted and embroidered details, table cloths, bed linen and all kinds of samplers.

I found the old everyday items strangely moving. In my mind’s eye, I saw some of those nimble (or not so nimble) fingers spending hours and hours on practice pieces, so that they would later be able to make useful and beautiful things for their homes and families. I’ve seen cross stitch and darning samplers before, but new to me were the practice parts of socks – separate toes and heels. In the middle of the picture below two practice heels:

Did the girls who had to knit these enjoy or curse the hours spent on them?

The objects showed so many techniques and such great skill.

Two practice pieces for sewing techniques and this darning sampler came home with me:

Just imagine: a young girl at school, perhaps in the early or middle 20th century, perhaps aged seven or eight. First she is told to knit a square divided into nine squares by bands of seed stitch. Then she has to cut holes in some of the squares and try out different mending techniques. One technique she practiced over and over again – why that one in particular? Intriguing!

I have no idea what I’m going to do with it, but I just fell in love with it. Do you love old textiles, too? Do you have any heirlooms or acquired items? What do you do with them? Display them, use them, store them in a box and take them out from time to time?

If you’re in the Netherlands and would like to give some old textiles a good home, the exhibition runs through July 7 at De Oranjerie in Zeijen, Drenthe. More information can be found here.

Mosel Travel Knitting

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The first thing I always pack for a trip is my knitting. Do you do that too? During the last meeting of my knitting group, I discovered that most of my knitting friends do. At home, I made a small start on my knitting project for our holiday in Germany, a smaller version of my Seventh Heaven Scarf, to make sure that the yarn would work and the needles were the right size.

Arriving at our cottage on a farm in the Mosel region, we felt very welcome straightaway.

We didn’t visit any yarn shops or textile exhibitions this time, but if you keep your eyes open, there is always something knitting or textiles-related to be seen. A yarn-bombed drainpipe…

… a tiny spindle whorl no bigger than the thimble next to it…

… and a saint holding a weaving shuttle. The patron saint of weavers, I thought, but it turned out to be Saint Severus, who was a wool weaver during his lifetime.

Beside the church to which Saint Severus gave his name was a fountain with a fun owl chair next to it. At least that’s what I thought at first, but looking again, no, not an owl…

Everywhere we went, my knitting went too and I photographed it here and there along the way.

It was fun to see the colours develop and the scarf grow.

This slightly macabre picture was taken in the incredibly picturesque town of Bernkastel-Kues, with its beautiful Fachwerkhäuser and narrow alleyways.

Only a few days after our visit, after huge downpours, the centre of this little town as well as many others was flooded. In some places people had to be evacuated and there was huge damage. It was frightening to see how quickly the water rose and how fast the river flowed, now brown with silt. Viewed from above, submerged trees in what is normally a park:

Our cottage was about 150 metres above river level, and our only worry was whether my brother and German sister-in-law would be able to visit us (or we’d have to eat all the cakes ourselves). With some detours they reached us, and my animal-loving SIL immediately bonded with a cow.

A couple of days later the roads along the river were passable again and we drove to Cochem for some shopping. The water level in the river had subsided considerably, but we thought we’d better not park here just yet:

Fortunately no lives were lost this time, but it was a disaster for many of those with homes, shops, campsites or restaurants along the river.

During the rest of our holiday, we avoided the area that was hit and stayed up in the mountains. I knit some more.

And we walked in the beautiful countryside, enjoying the views…

… photographing flowers and insects in the amazing flower meadows…

… seeing fox cubs play…

… and almost stepping on a fire salamander – the first time ever we’ve seen one.

At the end of our stay, my scarf had grown quite a bit,

but it wasn’t finished yet. When it’s finished and if I’m happy with it, I’ll add the details to the Seventh Heaven scarf pattern and I’ll also tell you more about the yarn etc. The knitting is almost done now, but writing everything up may take a while, so please be patient. Meanwhile there will always be something else to write about and I hope to see you here again next week. Bye!