Hello!
Today, I thought I’d treat you to some knitted gables as well as some real ones. From three skeins of fingering-weight merino non-superwash yarn I’ve knit another Thús 2. Casting on 119 stitches, I made it wider than in the pattern. Then I knit, knit, knit, and knit, row after row of houses, making it longer than the original too, ending up with a 51cm/20” by 2.14m/84¼” wrap. Here you can see how big it is:
I like wearing it like this, with the ends criss-crossed:
Or wrapped around my neck once and knotted:
The gables in my wrap are very simple, rather like the gable of our own home only with an extra pair of windows.
Far simpler than the many beautiful and interesting gables we saw during a visit to the Frisian city of Bolsward in August. There were stepped gables, like this one with its decorative anchor plates and a man’s and a woman’s head above the first-floor windows:
The stepped gable from 1741 below, with a pair of scissors in the centre, must have belonged to a tailor once.
There were simple bell gables:
And ornate ones, with swags and frills everywhere:
As well as interesting and fancy gables that seem more modern to me (but I am not knowledgeable enough to tell you from what period or style this one is) :
It was fun walking along the canals wearing how-many-different-gables-can-I-find glasses.
Well, back to my own simple, hand knit gables. If you’d like to copy them, my Ravelry notes can be found here.
There are other knits on my needles now – a simple navy blue cardigan for everyday wear, a jacket for our grandson, swatches for a new design of my own and a pair of mittens for a gift. More about those when I’m a little further along. I hope you have enough to occupy your hands, too. Because, what can be nicer than spending the darkening evenings knitting?
Marjike – I love your gable scarf – it’s beautiful. It also tells me that you are really tall. My guess would be about 5’10” or 5’11”. I can make a guess because I made a scarf 88″ in length for my friend for my friend who is 5’10”, and your 84″ scarf looks shorter on you than the 88″ scarf looked on my friend.
That’s also for the education on gables. It is a term that I have heard and know that it belongs to architecture but I really didn’t know how until just now seeing your pictures.
Your guess was pretty close: I’m around 5’8″. We Dutch seem to be the tallest people on earth, and compared to other women here, I’m about average. Thank you for your lovely comment!
Marjike – What a beautiful gable scarf! I love that blue. I really enjoyed all your photos of the many types of gables.
Colours are sometimes hard to capture, but this time the blue in the pictures comes fairly close to the blue IRL (at least on my screen). I’m glad you enjoyed the photos – I enjoyed compiling this post, too.
Thank you for the beautiful photos of towns and countryside in your area. And I enjoy seeing your knitting projects and tips. Thanks to you, I now make swatches of yarns and projects before I jump in and find myself not satisfied with the yarn or the pattern. Your email is always somehow very soothing in this troubled world. Thank you.
That’s so good to hear. Yes, it certainly is a troubled world, and I often struggle with how to live in it. At least one of the things I can do is provide a peaceful place in this tiny corner of the world wide web. Swatches have become absolutely essential to me, too, and I never start a project without swatching anymore. Well, except for socks…