Nuts and Knits

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When we moved here 18 years ago, friends gave us a walnut tree. Or rather a tiny sapling that had sprung up in their garden. It has grown, and grown, and grown, and now provides a shady spot for lilies of the valley, ferns and wood anemones.

It also provides us with nuts. Last year, many were shrivelled up inside their shells. 2020 is a much better walnut year. Still, our harvest isn’t huge. It’s the magpies, you see. They love walnuts, and this year there is a large magpie family to feed. Fortunately they are generous enough to leave us a few, too.

This is our share of the walnut harvest this year.

Our big old pear tree has also done very well. Last year, it didn’t give us a single pear, but this year it produced masses. So many, that we couldn’t possibly eat even a tenth of them. So one evening, I loaded wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow with pears to share with everybody in the neighbourhood who wanted some. A great opportunity to catch up on all the local news, too!

And then there were still many left on the tree to share with a big and noisy travelling band of starlings.

Now, the tree is dropping its last few pears…

… and also starting to shed its leaves, now a dull brown. Among the pear leaves, there are some fiery red ones blown over from the Amelanchier, like chili peppers in the grass.

It is really starting to feel like autumn. The temperature is dropping, and it is getting dark soon after our evening meal. Although I knit all year round, for me this time of year always feels like the start of the ‘real’ knitting season.

I realize that I tend to write about my knitting projects mostly when starting and finishing them – the most interesting moments. Now, for a change, here are two of my knitting projects in progress.

Here is my Indigo Sea Shawl on the needles.

I’ve thrown it into a corner taken a break from it, because one of the skeins was colouring my hands and the white blouse I was wearing blue. Aaaargh!

After a while I ripped the offending part out, washed the yarn, rinsed it, gave it a vinegar bath and rinsed it again and again, until it (almost) stopped bleeding.

Now I’ve picked up the needles again and have almost finished it. I’m thinking of a slightly more interesting edge than just an ordinary bind-off.

I’m also still knitting on my Panel Debate cardigan. Progress is slow. For one thing, yarn and needles are very fine. For another, I’ve been knitting socks and other small items in between.

I’m now determined to speed the process up because I want to wear it. And also because I feel like starting something new – something warm, cosy and woolly.

Unfortunately, I can’t literally share our nuts and pears with you here. But I can share a recipe using them. Here is my simple Pear & Walnut Salad recipe.

Pear & Walnut Salad

Serves 2 as a side dish or starter

Ingredients

  • 50 g mixed salad leaves
  • 8 walnuts
  • ½ pear

For the dressing:

  • 1½ tbsp (olive)oil
  • ½ tbsp good white wine vinegar
  • ¾ tbsp honey mustard
  • A pinch of sea salt
  • Some freshly milled black pepper

Method

  • Roast the walnuts in a dry frying pan and leave to cool
  • Rinse the salad leaves and gently pat dry with a clean tea towel
  • Halve the walnuts. Leave some halves whole and chop the rest coarsely
  • Whisk all the dressing ingredients together until they form a thick and smooth sauce
  • Mix the salad leaves with the chopped walnuts and arrange them on a plate. Distribute blobs of dressing over it
  • Peel and core the pear. Cut into thick slices and arrange on top of the salad leaves
  • Finally, add the walnut halves

Serve immediately and enjoy!

Embroidery Sampler

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Hello!

Here is the embroidery sampler I promised to show you. Like the knitting sampler I wrote about two weeks ago, this sampler isn’t spectacular or particularly beautiful. But unlike the knitting sampler, whose maker is unknown to me, I know with 100% certainty who made this embroidery sampler. It was my Mum.

Not only did she show it to me, she also embroidered her name and the date on it.

My Mum made the sampler at school in 1941, when she was 8 or 9. It was the beginning of World War II and the family lived in Leeuwarden, the capital of Friesland. She didn’t talk about it very much, but I have heard stories of bombings and scarcity.

One story that has stayed with me, is that they sometimes had ‘guests’ staying at their house. At those times, she and her sisters shared one bed to free up their own beds. During a razzia, the children were woken up in the middle of the night. The visitors were hidden in a secret space, and the girls had to run around the house, so that the Germans couldn’t see who had been sleeping where. A strange and scary time to grow up in.

To some girls, making an embroidery sampler may have been a welcome distraction. I don’t think it was to my Mum.

I’ve seen similar samplers, and compared to those, hers has only a few decorative borders. The alphabet is incomplete and the letters are jumbled up.

To the left of the actual letters, there are 3 aborted attempts (photo below, bottom left). Or were those the place where she started, meant for practicing cross stitches?

After this, she never did any counted cross stitch again. She did like embroidery, but of a different kind. She has made many, many colourful table cloths embroidering over pre-printed patterns.

Still, although Mum didn’t enjoy doing cross stitch, the sampler must have been special to her. After WWII, in the early 1950s, the family (minus one daughter who was already married) emigrated to Australia, hoping for a better life.

My Mum’s fiancé (later my Dad) came with them, but couldn’t acclimatize. And several years later my Mum and Dad came back to the Netherlands, with just one suitcase each holding all of their earthly possessions. The embroidery sampler must have been in her suitcase, travelling all the way to Australia and back again. An extraordinary story about an ordinary sampler.

I have an old magazine packed with pictures and patterns of embroidery samplers.

There are many much more elaborate samplers in it, but also several school samplers. Here is Mum’s sampler next to one in the magazine. Same kind of letters, same kind of decorative borders.

And here are three similar ones framed on a wall. They are almost always embroidered just in red thread, with a few exceptions using blue as well as red.

I’m thinking of having Mum’s cleaned and framed now, too.

Years ago, I knit a series of beaded wrist warmers…

…including a pair inspired by the embroidery sampler. One of them with my initials, and the other with the year I made them on it.

They are nice accessories that keep the wind from blowing up my sleeves when I’m riding my bicycle.

I’m now working on a project incorporating elements from both the knitting sampler and the embroidery sampler. More about that in a few weeks’ time, I hope.

For those of you who’d like to know more, this is THE book on Frisian embroidery samplers:

Letter voor Letter was written by Gieneke Arnolli, the now-retired Fashion and Textiles curator of the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, and Rosalie Sloof. It contains loads of information, many beautiful photographs, an English summary, and a complete fold-out pattern for a sampler. It is out of print, unfortunately, but there are some second-hand copies around, and it can still be borrowed from Dutch libraries.

The Fries Museum has a collection of over 600 samplers from the 17th to the 20th Century. A large part of the collection can be viewed on the website friesemerklappen.nl. A wonderful source of information and inspiration. Most examples of red school samplers like my Mum’s can be found on pages 6 and 7 of the website.

Click on the button ‘Alle merklappen’ for an overview. Zoom in on the samplers by holding the Ctrl key and scrolling simultaneously, or by holding the Ctrl key and using the + to zoom in and – to zoom out. Be amazed and have fun!

PYO Garden

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Hello there!

Following on from last week’s knitting sampler, I was going to show you my Mum’s embroidery sampler today. But I’m keeping that for later.

Instead, I’m taking you along to a Pick-Your-Own flower garden. It’s just outside our village – 10 minutes cycling at most. You can borrow a spare bicycle, if you like. All we need to do is adjust the saddle to your height and we’re good to go.

Through the tunnel underneath the ring road, left and left again and we’re in a lane leading past several farms.

A short stop to say hello to a few grazing cows. Hello girls!

Hop on again, cycle two minutes more, and we’re there.

‘Have a nice day’, the sign says. ‘Open 24/7’. And ‘Relax’ and ‘Enjoy’, too. And that’s exactly what we’re here for – to just relax and enjoy this beautiful spot for a few moments.

The owner comes up, apologizing that there isn’t very much to pick anymore at the end of Summer. I reassure her that it’s fine. We don’t need a huge bunch of flowers. Just being here is a treat in itself. And I can see that there are enough flowers left for a posy.

Besides, there are loads of ornamental gourds as well.

Displayed so attractively. And so many different shades, shapes and sizes.

Basking in the sun, on the very last day of Summer, the garden is filled with butterflies…

…bees and buzzing.

I can feel my heart-rate slowing down already – just what I need.

For me, it works like this: For a while I’m chugging along nicely. Then work/life gets busier, I speed up, am immensely productive for a while and think I’m doing great. But I start forgetting to take breaks, to exercise, and to relax intentionally in the evenings. And suddenly I’m not feeling so great anymore.

It’s an old familiar pattern. Nowadays, it usually isn’t too long before I recognize it, fortunately. And I’m better at thinking of ways to slow down again than I used to be.

So, that’s why we’re here in this PYO garden today. Let’s enjoy it a little more.

Everything shows that a lot of loving care and attention has gone into the garden. It’s not just the flowers and plants. Hidden between them are a few lovely surprises, too. Like this adorable chicken.

Well, it’s time to head for the wooden shed, where the secateurs, the guest book and the money tin are. It’s painted black as many traditional outbuildings around here are.

Inside, the same loving care as in the garden is apparent. It’s in the small, whimsical details.

Now, let’s hurry home, before the flowers wilt. I’ll quickly put them in a vase and put the kettle on. I hope you have time for a cuppa? I’d like to show you something else I did to slow down and relax – I cast on a simple pair of socks.

For me, sock knitting is one of the most relaxing things to do, especially using self-striping yarn.

I’m making these for a friend’s Birthday in early October. I haven’t knit with this yarn before and am not entirely convinced it’s suitable for socks, although it is sold as sock yarn. It’s Rellana Flotte Socke ‘Ariana’ – a single ply yarn with ticker and thinner (some really, really thin) bits here and there. Very soft and slightly fuzzy.

I’m giving it a try because of the beautiful colours. Time will tell if it’s a wise decision. My friend won’t mind being a guinea pig, I’m sure. If the socks shrink and felt, I’ll knit her another pair (or two).

Well, that’s all for today. Thank you for visiting. And with everything that’s happening in the world right now and alongside everything else you’re doing, please remember to rest, relax, knit (if you’re a knitter), and look for things to enjoy.

Knitting Sampler

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Hello again!

Last week, my musings about knitting traditions ended with a remark about something I found in my parents’ attic. Well, here it is – a knitting sampler. I found it in 1999, after my Mum suddenly and unexpectedly died from a brain aneurysm, aged 66.

During the decade or so before she died, my Mum worked as a housecleaner. She left other people’s houses sparkling and immaculate, but didn’t always have much time or energy left for her own home. The Christmas before she died, she told me that it bothered her that the house was so messy, and I promised to help her sort things out in the New Year. But then she died in January.

In memory of my Mum and for my Dad’s sake, I tackled the tidying after all. It was a difficult and hectic time. I was grieving over my Mum, my Dad was developing Alzheimer’s, I had a young daughter and a job. So when I found the knitting sampler, I just stored it away safely in a box in my own home and forgot about it.

It wasn’t until earlier this year that I remembered it. Now, I’m at a stage in my life where I can give it the attention it deserves.

Who knit it? And when? I have no idea. The strange thing is that my Mum never mentioned it or showed it to me. That is strange because I did know about her embroidery sampler.

At one end, it has knitted-in initials:

GW
EW
I

I know from embroidery samplers that girls often included their own initials as well as those of their parents. In this case, that would mean that the knitter’s name started with an I, and her parents were EW and GW.

That wasn’t my Mum. Her name started with a T. And it wasn’t my maternal or paternal grandmother either. Can it be older? I don’t know anything about my family further back than that.

Or perhaps it was knit by somebody else entirely. Perhaps it was given to her when she helped one or other of her friends clean out their parents’ homes after they died. I really have no idea and don’t know how to find out.

Well, a little more about the sampler itself.

It is 0.90 m/35½” long and 9-12 cm/3½”-4¾” wide, depending on the stitch pattern.

It isn’t a particularly beautiful or elaborate sampler. I’ve looked around on the internet a bit and saw some much longer ones with many more different stitch patterns, including lace.

Mine has only 10 different stitch patterns, separated by several rows of stocking stitch. And all of them are simple knit-and-purl combinations.

The yarn used is a whitish cotton. Was it knit in unbleached cotton and bleached afterwards? Or was it knit in white cotton that has yellowed a bit?

The knitting is rather stiff, at around 40 stitches to 10 cm/4”. Was the girl a tight knitter? Or did the knitting shrink due to washing at a high temperature?

Was it knit by a beginner? There are errors here and there, but the knitting looks quite regular. And then there are several knots in the yarn around the I. Why didn’t she choose a tidier solution?

I’d love to know more about my simple sampler (and knitting samplers in general) and would be very grateful for any ideas about where to look for information. Have you inherited a knitting sampler, by any chance? Do you know who knit it or when?

I’ve been thinking about what to do with it. I suppose knitting samplers were originally not only meant to teach a girl to knit, but also to provide her with inspiration for further knitting. Useful things for her home and her family in all probability.

I like the idea of adopting ‘my’ sampler in this spirit. To use it as a starting point for some knitting projects. I’m already working on one and will show you when it’s finished.

Thank you for reading and take care!

Knitting Traditions

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Hello,

Today, I’d like to talk a bit about knitting traditions. I’m not an expert or a researcher, but I am a great lover of traditional knitting techniques and patterns. There are many beautiful and interesting books about traditional knitting, and I’ve built up quite a nice library over the years. These books, as well as various museum collections, have always inspired me tremendously in my own knitting. But lately I’ve been thinking…

It started with a visit to a stunning sock exhibition last November. I was particularly inspired by three samplers with patterns taken from socks from all over the world (photo above), and thought it would be a great idea to borrow from them for all kinds of other projects.

Later, doubts crept in. Can we just borrow freely from other knitting traditions? Anything? From any tradition? When does borrowing become stealing? Or even cultural appropriation? What if a pattern has a special religious or spiritual meaning for the culture we borrow it from of which we may not be aware?

I don’t have the answers. These are just some of the questions that popped into my head.

Well, back to my knitting book library. Sometimes people generously and thoughtfully give me books to add to it. My sister-in-law brought back this lovely booklet from a holiday in the island of Gotland, Sweden, a couple of years ago.

It is filled with patterns for mittens, some with tiny roses, some with blueberries, and many with geometrical motifs.

All of them are beautiful, but are they unique to Gotland? They have a lot in common with Norwegian mittens I’ve seen, and the ones with the roses on the front cover look very much like some Latvian ones.

And here is a picture taken during our visit to the knitting museum in Selbu, Norway.

The 8-pointed star, prominent in the 3rd stocking from the left, is also known as Selburose and has been used a lot in that area. Does that mean that it was invented by the people of Selbu and belongs to them? Do they have a sort of copyright?

No, of course it isn’t as black and white as that. The same kind of pattern appears in textiles from many other countries and cultures.

Take, for instance, these hand-knit mittens I bought during a holiday in Shetland. There is a ‘Selburose’ on the back of the hand, but it looks slightly different knit in colour.

It’s only to be expected that the same kind of patterns and motifs occur in different regions and countries. Some motifs, like the 8-pointed star, flow more or less automatically from the nature of the knit stitch itself. Besides, Shetland isn’t all that far from Norway and there has always been a lot of trading and traffic between them.

Both have great knitting traditions, and there are similarities. But still, Shetland knitting isn’t the same as Norwegian knitting. They both have colourwork, but it’s different. Shetland has a fabulous tradition of lace knitting that Norway doesn’t have. Norway has thick mittens, while Shetland mainly has finer gloves. And Shetland has hap shawls, while Norway doesn’t. Why? Another question I can’t answer. I can only guess that it’s something to do with the materials available and the climate, as well as with local tastes.

Here are 3 of my favourite books about Shetland knitting: Heirloom Knitting (about Shetland lace), Fair Isle Knitting and Shetland Hap Shawls Then & Now.

Classics on the subject, but none of them written by authors from Shetland. Fair Isle Knitting was written by Alice Starmore from the Hebrides, and the other two by Sharon Miller from Devon. What do knitters in Shetland think of that?

I once knit a ‘Shetland’ hap shawl. I am placing Shetland between parentheses here, because it isn’t very authentic.

The wool is from genuine Shetland sheep, bought in Shetland. But, for one thing, I am not from Shetland and I spun the yarn at home in the Netherlands. For another, I used a pattern called Quill by American designer Jared Flood. It’s a hodgepodge. Is that okay? Or should we aim for more authenticity? And what exactly is authenticity?

I don’t think I’d be bothered about these questions so much if I lived in a place with a great knitting tradition, like Shetland or one of the Scandinavian countries.

And if I had grown up in a fabulous and colourful knitting tradition as that of Muhu Island in Estonia…

… I think I would be content with that, knitting within my own tradition happily ever after. (Photograph in Designs and Patterns from Muhu Island, by Anu Kabur, Anu Pink and Mai Meriste, p. 45).

But what if you live in a country without such a great knitting tradition? And at that my thoughts turned closer to home. Do we have a knitting tradition at all in the Netherlands? What kind of knitting did I grow up with?

To start with, I remembered a lot of acrylic, in orange, brown, purple and fluorescent green. But thinking about it a little more, I realized that even though our knitting tradition is not as impressive and extensive as that of some other countries, we do have a few things. There’s the Dutch heel for socks, for a start. We also have knitted lace caps for traditional costumes in some areas. And we have traditional ganseys (sharing many elements with English ganseys).

We also have Grolsche wanten – mittens with Norwegian-looking star patterns. Not bad, really. What else do we have? And then I suddenly thought of what I found in my parents’ attic.

To be continued…

3 Organic Cotton Yarns Compared

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As I already hinted at in a recent post about dishcloths, I’ve been trying out several organic cotton yarns.

Taking care of my family’s health and that of our planet is high on my personal agenda. For almost two decades now an organic farm has delivered groceries to our door.

Going organic when it comes to knitting yarns would be a logical next step. But going organic isn’t always easy. It takes extra planning and effort, it can be more expensive, and sometimes there just aren’t any organic options available.

For a long time organic yarns were few and far between, and they were not always terribly attractive, to say the least. But the landscape is changing, and I’d like to try some of them out now. To start with, I’ve chosen 3 very similar organic cotton yarns:

  1. Anna & Clara ‘100% Cotton 8/4’
  2. Rosários4 ‘Bio Love’
  3. Lang Yarns ‘Baby Cotton’

So far, I’ve only used them to knit dishcloths. I’ve looked at similarities, differences, washability and how it feels to knit with them.

Basic facts

 

Material

Wt/M/Yds

Organic

Price

1. Anna & Clara

100% cotton

50 g/160 m/175 yds

Yes

€ 1.82

2. Bio Love

100% cotton

50 g/175 m/191 yds

Yes

€ 3.75

3. Baby Cotton

100% cotton

50 g/180 m/197 yds

Yes

€ 4.95

All 3 yarns are 100% organic cotton, and their metreage/yardage is very similar. The prices vary a lot, though, and there are other differences too.

Let’s take a look at the yarns from very close up:

Yarn 1 (Anna & Clara) consists of 4 plies
Yarn 2 (BioLove) consists of 5 plies
Yarn 3 (Baby Cotton) consists of no less than 7 plies, each consisting of 2 plies again.

Interesting! What does that mean for the knitting experience? I’ll describe the yarns one by one first, and then I’ll give my ‘verdict’.

Yarn 1: Anna & Clara ‘100% Cotton 8/4’

At € 1,82 per ball, this yarn proves that organic doesn’t have to be expensive. It has that nice, dry cottony feel and the thread is firmly plied.

To me it looks and feels like a good old-fashioned cotton yarn. Only it is not just available in white and ecru like in olden days, but in about fifty different shades, including several multi-coloured ones. Strangely enough, there are no dye-lot numbers on the ball band.

The yarn is sold in Søstrene Grene shops and isn’t available online. I don’t mind spending some time in their lovely Danish-style surroundings, with relaxing classical music in the background. But it is a disadvantage if there isn’t a shop in your part of the world or you are unable to leave the house.

Here are the dishcloths I knit with this yarn:

The ball band says: 60˚C, tumble dry on low temperature. When I first washed them by hand, the darker shades bled a little, but that was only on first washing. They shrank a little after machine washing and tumble drying, mainly in height. And the knitting became slightly harder to the touch, but still felt fine.

Yarn 2: Rosários4 ‘Bio Love’

Portuguese yarn producer Rosários4 has a substantial ‘Ecofriendly Collection’. On their website ‘BioLove’ isn’t part of that collection, however, but can be found under ‘Yarns for Kids’.

BioLove’s thread is smooth and well-plied. I knit 3 dishcloths with it and found it a really lovely and soft yarn to knit with.

The colours are matte and sort of ‘dusty’. There are 19 colours in all, in groups of 3 or 4 matching shades. A big plus for me is that there is a shade card.

The washing instructions say: 30˚C, do not use tumble dryer. I first washed my dishcloths by hand, and the colours didn’t bleed at all, not even the darkest shade.

Later I wanted to try out what would happen if I ignored the washing instructions, so I washed them at 60˚C in the washing machine and also put them in the tumble dryer. Not a great idea, because it made them shrink considerably – several centimetres in both directions. But they still stayed very soft.

Yarn 3: Lang Yarns ‘Baby Cotton’

Apart from the pale blue you see here, the shop where I bought the yarn only had a few bright and unattractive (to me) colours, so I only bought one ball. But looking on the producer’s website, I see that it is available in 52 fabulous shades.

At € 4,95 per ball, this makes for a rather expensive dishcloth. It is clearly the most luxurious of the three yarns. The thread is very smooth, the yarn is has a slight sheen and it is silky to the touch. It is loosely plied, and may be labelled slightly ‘splitty’ by some.

Baby Cotton has the longest metreage/yardage of the three. Knit on the same needles with the same number of stitches, the dishcloth became the same size as the others, with considerably more yarn left over. In other words: this yarn goes a long way.

Washing instructions on the ball band: wash at 60˚C, do not tumble dry. There were no issues with bleeding, but I didn’t try any darker shades. I washed my dishcloth at 60˚C and put it in the tumble dryer. It didn’t shrink at all widthwise and only a little lengthwise, and it stayed just as supple and shiny as when it just came off the knitting needles.

My verdict

As you probably already know, I’m not sponsored by shops or yarn producers. Everything I write here represents my own, subjective opinions and experiences. So, here is my verdict.

  1. Anna & Clara. An excellent yarn for knitters with a small budget. Perfect for dishcloths, soft toys and projects that eat up a lot of yarn, like summer blankets.
  2. BioLove.This would be my yarn of choice for baby clothing. It is soft and stays soft, has an enchanting colour palette, and, well, most of all it is just a feeling. This feels sooo agreeable and right for little ones. For me, this has the swoon factor.
  3. Baby Cotton. This is the yarn I would choose if I were to knit something for myself or another adult, a summer top or cardi, say. It has a more luxurious look and feel because of the super cotton quality – smooth, silky and drapey. That’s apparently what those 7 very fine double plies do. It would be great for baby clothing and dishcloths, too, but it comes with a price tag.

3 Tips

  1. Machine washing is no problem for any of these yarns, even at 60˚C, but if using BioLove for baby clothes, I’d stay on the safe side and wash it a lower temperatures. And be careful with the tumble dryer. In my experience it’s mainly that that causes shrinkage. That’s no problem for dishcloths, but for (baby) clothing I’d definitely avoid tumble drying.
  2. The knitting shrinks more in height than in width. So, if you want your dishcloths square, knit them a little higher (approx. 2 cm/¾”) than wide, and they’ll end up more or less square after washing and tumble drying.
  3. The Organic Consumers Association gives 9 Good Reasons for Choosing Organic Cotton.

If the Walls Could Talk

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Hello dear readers,

I had a plan. After taking you on blog tours of Giethoorn, Hattem and Vries, I was really going to focus on knitting again. On yarns, UFOs and knitting projects in progress, on techniques and traditions. I had it all mapped out, at least for the coming month or so. But…

… I decided to postpone my plans for a bit. Writing about De Potterij in Zutphen last week, I thought how I’d love to show you a little more of that beautiful walled city.

So, before starting on a yarn-filled autumn, here’s one last virtual summer outing.

Just like Hattem, Zutphen is a Hanseatic city on the river IJssel. Only it is far larger, with interesting museums, impressive churches and an amazing 16th Century reading room filled with chained books. It isn’t any of those I’m focusing on today, though. It’s the walls.

A poem on one of the walls set me thinking.

It isn’t easy to translate, but here is a try.

City in time

In old walls
from a time gone by and
a language no longer spoken
a lot still lingers on

ghosts of distant days
the scent of spent lives
stored by wind
in old walls

Henk Gombert

Yes, the old walls have seen a lot. If only they could talk.

Take the rusty red walls of a building called De Biervoerder, next door to last week’s pottery.

If these walls could talk, they would tell us about wealthy beer merchant Herman Sackers and his wife Fyken, who built the house in 1629, not just to live in, but also as a warehouse and an inn.

They would tell us how it was later used to store grain, converted into a bakery, became a grocery store, and still later an antiques and jewellery shop. They would also tell us that the current occupants still see grain kernels trickling down through cracks between the floor boards hundreds of years later.

Many walls in Zutphen are softened and partly hidden by greenery, often in the shape of narrow pavement gardens.

Shrubs, climbers and flowering plants planted straight into the soil, in pots…

… or in baskets.

In some places the greenery is more substantial. Just outside the old walls on the south side of the inner city, there’s an orchard.

And in the orchard is one of the best places to take a break. Here teas with wise mottoes are served, and the strangest cold brew coffees, stuffed with fruit and herbs.

If these walls could talk, what will they say about 2020? Will it be something like, ‘That was a strange spring. Unnaturally quiet, with people staying inside their homes. But from the summer onwards everything seemed more or less back to normal.’ Or something like, ‘Yes, 2020 was a strange year compared to the years before it, but not much different from 2021’?

There was a section of the wall that whispered, ‘Knit me, knit me!’

But I bet it whispers different things to different people. I imagine it whispering to others, ‘So, you love old walls, do you? Then you must go traveling. Visit Hadrian’s wall and the Great Wall of China!’

If the walls could talk, I wonder what those along this narrow alleyway would tell us.

There is a tiny little door halfway on the left at street level. What was it used for? Why would someone have lavished so much money and attention on it?

Some of Zutphen’s walls whisper, some keep their secrets, and some speak in poetry. To close off today’s post, here is another wall poem.

Translated, it says

Art

the here is the now
make room to rest and contemplate
the now is the here, breathe deep
(the later will wait)

Eke Mannink

The Beauty of Mundane Things

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About the word ‘mundane’, my well-thumbed Collins Essential English Dictionary says, ‘Something that is mundane is very ordinary, and not interesting or unusual.’ As an example it gives, ‘mundane tasks such as washing up.’

So, what can be more mundane than a dishcloth?

I knew that people knit dishcloths, but I didn’t feel the least inclined to do so for a long time. To speak with Collins, I thought them very ordinary and not interesting at all. Until my friend Marieke showed me hers.

Suddenly I saw their beauty and started knitting. And kept knitting, knitting and knitting more.

I now have a whole stack of them, and love them.

Not only do I think them beautiful, but practical too. They are highly absorbent, eminently washable and have a much nicer feel than shop-bought ones. And as fellow blogger Donna wrote, they have ‘extra scrubability’.

I knit all of my dishcloths in subtle shades of blue and green. And that brings me to some other mundane and beautiful things in the same sort of shades. To take a look at those, we’re zapping to Zutphen.

Zutphen is one of my favourite cities. It has a very friendly atmosphere, an interesting history, and many, many beautiful old buildings. (Note to self: idea for next week’s blog post?)

It also has lots of quirky shops. One of them is De Potterij. (You don’t need a degree in Dutch to infer that means The Pottery.)

When I was there, the shop was unfortunately closed, but I was able to get a good look at their wares through the windows.

There were lovely little bowls in pale, watery greens…

… and beautiful plates, too.

They had imprints of snowdrops, of other flowers and seedheads, and of grasses.

Exquisite!

Behind the pottery shop there is a workshop space. Here potter Jacobi, who trained as a psychologist, works her clay magic and also teaches the craft to anyone who wants to learn, especially to (young) adults who thrive in quiet, predictable surroundings. On her website she writes: ‘I don’t give therapy in my workshop, but I have noticed that working with clay can be very therapeutic.’

The same can be said about knitting those humble dishcloths – very therapeutic.

Mine are around 30 by 30 cm / 12 x 12 inches, although they are not all exactly the same size and some turned out slightly more rectangular than square. The patterns for all of them come from Easy Knit Dishcloths by Helle Neigaard.

I love the simplicity of broken rib and knit several of those. And I also knit several in slightly more complicated knit-and-purl stitch patterns, like lozenges, two types of basket weave, and one in a small cable. The one I like best of all is the one with the zigzags:

I used organic cotton yarns for all of them. While I was knitting I made notes about the yarns and I’ll share my experiences with you when I can find the time.

Take care and see you next week!

PS. After a deluge that temporarily turned our street into a river and several more normal rain-and-thunder-storms, the heat seems to be over. Phew! If you’re in the same climate zone, I hope some cooler air is coming your way too.

August Blues

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Hello!

I thought of skipping my blog this week. Sometimes I just don’t know what to say, and nattering about knitting feels totally irrelevant. Rising numbers of covid cases almost anywhere in the world. People losing their homes and children going hungry as a result. People shouting that it’s all a hoax. And then the devastating explosion in Beirut…

How to live in the face of disasters like these? Sometimes, I just don’t know.

It doesn’t help that we’re going through another record-breaking heatwave. I can’t see it as anything other than a sign of rapid climate change – another disaster in the making. I’ve always struggled with hot weather anyway. As temperatures rise, my mood plummets.

One of the best things for me to do when I feel a knot in my stomach, is to go cycling. On hot days first thing in the morning.

I often take my camera with me. It helps me get out of my head and focus on my surroundings instead. And I often follow the same route. Without camera it takes me 30 minutes, with a little longer.

First I cycle through ‘our’ woodland. There are already some early signs of autumn – mushrooms, acorns and blackberries.

As soon as I leave the wood, I come to a school for animal husbandry, hay for their horses stacked high.

On the other side of the road is a small farm with some sheep and cattle. There is a young calf suckling with its mother and another one having a snooze.

There are cornflowers in the field next to it.

Taking photographs as I cycle along also helps me to slow down, which is a good thing in this sweltering heat, too.

Many of the flowers along my route at this time of year are blue. Or is it just that my eye is drawn to them? Along a ditch I squat down to photograph what I think is tufted vetch.

One of the most beautiful flowers of this season, if you ask me, is the harebell. It grows in clusters along my route. There is quite a bit of wind, making the delicate flowers dance, and it takes a lot of patience and concentration to get a good, sharp picture.

The harebells have slender stems and small flowers, but not as small as the sheep’s-bit below. From close up it may seem like quite a big flower…

… but it is just 1 to 2 centimetres in diameter. There’s a clump of them at the top of this post that gives a better impression of their size, I think.

Getting home, an hour or so later, I feel better. I haven’t solved any world problems, but I don’t feel hopeless and powerless anymore. There is always something I can do to make things better. And I realize again that there is still a lot in the world that is beautiful and good, and that small and seemingly irrelevant things can make a big difference to a day.

It’s too hot for knitting – another thing that is making me edgy. But cycling along, I thought of a dear friend of mine. We exchange e-mails every Sunday. Recently, she wrote that all she feels like doing in her spare time when it’s so hot is spinning and reading.

That reminded me of some spinning fibres she gave me a while ago. Merino wool in a gradient of blues with some white Tencel mixed in. I know that spinning those lovely fibres will also help to lift my mood.

Well, those were my thoughts for this week. Thank you for reading. I hope that you are all safe and as well as can be. And for those of you in the grip of the same heatwave, I hope this weekend will bring some rain and relief.

Domino Knitting

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Hello!

After all the gadding about of the past few weeks, I think it’s time for some serious knitting again. I hope you’re up for it.

I first heard of domino knitting from a Danish woman I once met on a campsite in Rondane, Norway. She was sitting in front of her tent knitting back and forth on very short wooden needles. I was intrigued and asked her what she was making.

As is often the way with knitters, she was only too happy to talk about it. She told me that she was making a scarf for her sister-in-law from a pattern in the booklet Domino Strikk, by Danish designer Vivian Høxbro.

As soon as the booklet came out in English, in 2002, I bought it.

Høxbro didn’t invent the technique. In her foreword she tells us that it had been around for at least a century before she discovered it, only it wasn’t called domino knitting then. She was the one who made it popular, though.

The booklet clearly explains how domino knitting works with small modules, ‘knitted together while the work progresses, just as one “pieces” the tiles in dominoes’, and encourages us to try the techniques out by knitting potholders first.

I made a couple of potholders to give domino knitting a try. They turned out too big and floppy to be useful. I have never used them, but kept them as a kind of curiosity. Here they are:

I left it at that, went on to knit other things, and more or less forgot about domino knitting. Until I started knitting a cardigan called Panel Debate last month.

As the name suggests, it is made up of panels. After finishing the first three panels, I suddenly thought, Why does this feel so familiar? Wait, this is potholder number five!

Well, it’s more like a super extended version of potholder #5, but it follows the same principle.

Narrow panels (1-3 below) are knit back and forth in alternating knit and purl ridges. Then stitches are picked up along the long sides for the next panel (4), knit lengthwise. The panel next to that is a narrow strip again, attached by knitting it together with the stitches of the previous panel every other row, and so on and so forth.

Calling Panel Debate an extended potholder doesn’t do it justice at all, of course. What with the knitted-on sleeves and I-cord finishing it is much more than that. The designer has also added lovely short-row fans at the bottom of fronts and back.

It’s a lot of stitches on 2.75 mm needles, and after I’d knit the swatches I wondered if this cardigan really was a good idea and if I’d ever finish it. But because of the modular technique, Panel Debate stays interesting and makes me want to keep on knitting.

There are heaps more domino-knit type of garment patterns around. Many of them use variations on the mitred squares of my potholders.

It’s a technique particularly suitable for colour-shift yarns like Noro. I really love the way this sweater makes use of the colours.

As Høxbro warns us in her foreword, ‘Domino knitting is addictive.’ Why did it take me so long to get hooked?