One of my 2012 goals: Learn how to make more holes in my knitting!
I love mountain and leaf patterns and hope to graduate to bigger things (well, scarves anyway), after I’ve made a lot of washcloths like the one above.
What’s Great Today, June 8
- Fatburger (lunch!!! woo!)
- Attrape Coeur perfume
- my Kindle – I finally bought one
Grr. A Pattern with Multiple Errors.
All I wanted to do was crochet another hat this weekend – you know, an easy project that would yield a nice finished item within a day or so. Unfortunately, I picked a pattern that just didn’t work. I tried and tried and tried working with it, and – sigh.
To add insult to injury, stupid me wanted to use up some Kidsilk Haze on this untried pattern. Yes, that pretty, fuzzy, expensive laceweight yarn that floats in the air because it is so fine – and sticks to itself because of the mohair content.
So not only did I rip back the project three times this weekend, I ripped back mohair three times. And not just one round. But four and five rounds at a time, as I would realize that the pattern writer made a mistake and that this beret was getting too gigantic or unwieldly or just plain weird looking. And I’d rip back to before where I thought the problem was, cursing the entire time.
The pattern specified a 4.5 mm (G7) hook. I’m thinking, after all this, that the designer probably meant a regular G hook (4mm or 4.25 mm). For Americans at least, a G7 hook is relatively rarely used. I only have one G7 hook and about 4 regular G hooks (both the Boye 4.25 mm G hook and the Bates/Lion Brand 4 mm Gs). So that is probably yet another error in the written pattern.
And the final ribbing on the beret was done in an odd fashion that I’ve never seen before and which didn’t look good. So after I ripped back a few rows of that, I decided to wing it with some alternating front post and back post double crochets to get something that actually looked like ribbing.
The beret is done. It’s a beautiful color in a yarn that I really like. It was a frustrating experience, though, and ended up taking three times as long as it should have. I’m not going to frog this beret, even though it’s too big and sits a little oddly on the head. Eventually I will forget how much teeth grinding I did over this silly hat and may even wear it.
(No, it’s not in my Ravelry projects list, btw.)
Threading Time
Reading notes:
Threading Time: A Cultural History of Threadwork by Dolores Bausum.
“More than thirty thousand years ago, notes [E. J. W.] Barber, the principle of producing thread by strengthening fibers through the twist was known, and remarkably little improvement in the making of thread occurred during the following fifteen to twenty thousand years.” p. 15
“Barber concludes that one of the most interesting points to come out of her prolonged study of prehistoric textiles is ‘the implication that heirloom tapestries recording the earlier mythic history of the Greeks may have survived from Mycenean times through the Dark Age [when writing disappeared] into the Archaic Greek period when Homer lived.’” p. 24.
“By working at the loom, [Penelope] explains, her thoughts as well as her hands have been occupied.” p. 34.
“The oldest known pieces of embroidery in England are a stole and maniple made in the tenth century for the tomb of Saint Cuthbert, who died in 687 C.E. Preserved in the library of Durham Cathedral, the threads on the fragments of these silk relics are ‘extraordinarily fine; sixteen of then couched closedly side by side cover about an eighth of an inch.’” p. 56.
“‘The far-flung integration of skills and resources that went into Europe’s fourteenth-century textile trade was the single most important achievement of the Italian city state economy,’ concludes [William H.] McNeill.” p.67.
“The art and Florentine architectural monuments that have for centuries delighted visitors ‘were built by the profits accumulated from sale of Florentine cloth and from the transactions of Florentine merchants and bankers.’” p. 67.
Enclosure in England was landowners needing more space to raise sheep for the textile trade. pp. 87-88.
