Barbara Walker: In Memoriam

Having been deeply involved in the knitting renaissance since about 2008, I have come to know about the Knitterati who were there all along, through the bad ol’ acrylic 70s, still knitting with wool, still curiously curating the craft that their grandmothers had known, knitting socks in WWI. Elizabeth Zimmermann was one of these. Barbara Walker was another. I have three of her books, stitch dictionaries that involved massive amounts of research in the pre-internet days. But she was much, much more than this. Her son has made a modest website outlining her various far-flung achievements, some of which were not known to me (for example, her humanism; I did know a bit about her feminism and tarot work, though not so much.)

He has also written a diary of her last few weeks and days. Having been through something like this recently myself, my heart aches for him, especially since his mother was in considerable pain from her cancer and was on painkillers sufficient to dull it but that also made communication difficult.

Sleep soundly, dear Barbara. You were so generous with your knowledge, your mind, your self. May your cable always twist in the direction you want, may your mosaics be rich and always a surprise, and may your ssk’s lie flat and even. We’ll miss you.

A Jacket, Almost Finished

I finished knitting this jacket today. I want to line it, one of the armhole seams needs grafting, and the pattern is calling for an i-cord edging on the sleeves, which I’m very close to ignoring. But I probably won’t ignore it, because this is a magnificently written pattern and I want to give the designer, Kate Harvie, as much credit as I possibly can. The garter stitch saddle shoulders are brilliant.

The problem is this: two strands of aran weight yarn held double make for an especially dense fabric, and with this atmospheric river we’re in, it has basically zero chance of drying for four or five days. I want to block it before I line it and before I sew the buttons on, but jeez.

Was hoping to wear this on Saturday, but it might be a while.

I remember stressful Christmas knitting in the dim and distant past and am glad I don’t have any deadline more pressing than wanting to wear this on Saturday…

Sweetie Jar

I’m knitting a very heavy cardigan-jacket which is a lot of fun. The pattern is Sweetie Jar from Knitty magazine. I’m using two strands of aran weight yarn held together.

Yesterday I joined the sleeves to the body which always looks a bit weird at first.

Selfish Knitting

I’m knitting a jacket with two strands of aran-weight yarn held together to make a chunky, a weight I almost never use (laceweight or fingering is more my style). I picked up some habutai silk to line it with from Stonemountain & Daughter.

This is a time of year when a lot of people are doing stressful knitting, intended to be given as gifts. I’m glad not to be doing that at the moment… This will be a nice warm cropped jacket for me.

When Things Go Awry...

… sometimes it’s just easier to rip the knitting back down to the lifeline, which I eventually did, but not before attempting complex string surgery…

A Complex Lace Knitting Project

I know I’m supposed to be spinning: it’s the Tour de France/Fleece, after all. But I’ve been sitting on my hands for a long time, itching to get back into a complicated lace project. I have some beautiful laceweight silk I’ve had for longer than I can remember where I bought it, and since the Diamas shawl calls for exactly this kind of yarn, I stopped fighting the urge.

All knitting is basically looping successive rows of string together. When you mirror the stitches on the back you get the familiar smooth front and bubbly back most people are familiar with. You can cross these stitches (cables) or you can insert pairs of yarnovers with decreases to make openwork lace. This particular pattern also features nupps, an Estonian-style bobble in which seven knit stitches are inserted into a single stitch in the row below and then gathered together at the top, making for a textured highlight.

I have some travel coming up and a good lace project to get my teeth stuck into will be great. But I’ll insert a second lifeline when I get to the end of the current chart (there are three), in case I mess up. I finally broke down and paid for a subscription to KnitCompanion because this is a complex enough pattern that I can use the extra help keeping my place. Ripping back to where you made a dumb mistake is never fun….

Knitting Socks for Summer

My knitworthy sister is the happy recipient of handknit winter socks for her birthday which falls in November: she lives in a cold place and nothing is better for keeping your feet cosy than wool socks. Our feet look very different than they did when we were in our 20s, and I’ve been able to modify her socks to fit perfectly without constricting the toes but also without bagging.

On a recent trip she informed me that she had plenty of wool socks, but was wondering if I could knit some cotton lace ones for summer like we used to buy in Spain? I found a bamboo/cotton blend yarn and have been working on a prototype for her. I’m going to send this single sock to her. If it fits I’l just match the second one; if it doesn’t, more work’s required.

I’ve never published a pattern before but if this is successful I might offer it to others.

Details: picot turned cuff, openwork lace, slip stitch short-row heel, slip stitch instep, roomy toe.

Hwaet!

I’ve been really good about keeping the number of knitting works-in-progress (WIPS) down to a manageable level. I finished a shawl this weekend that had been on the needles for a while.

I cast on another shawl (need my lace fix) almost immediately and then, last night, I cast on my Beowulf socks (the first lines of the poem are carried through one sock then pick up on the next where you left off. The yellow yarn I bought is a little lurid compared to the recommended yarn, whose name is “South Side Chicago.” Since this was (still is?) a notorious slaughterhouse district, I can only assume the inspiration for the colorway was soiled straw. I can probably mimic this effect if I throw the socks in some walnut ink when I’ve finished.

I can think of at least eight people I’d make very happy with some socks like these, but full stranding all the way down is slow. It’s very fun, though, but it’s a high-concentration activity. Hwaet!

A Wooly Weekend

On Saturday I left Numenius at the Let’s Draw Davis event so I could go to the Meridian Jacobs Open House. Lots of lambs — over 60 — and spinning, felting, a festival atmosphere. One group from Elk Grove brought their picnic and their Chardonnay and had a rare old time.

I’ve been spinning some Wensleydale and took my wheel along so I could spin with a small group. It’s a lovely fiber to spin and I was able to get this one much finer than my first couple of attempts. The luster is astonishing and knitting with it is reminiscent of mohair (don’t make mistakes because ripping it out is a pain).

On Sunday, after a trip up to Cold Canyon, I attended the memorial service for a friend and fellow knitter, “Nancy Seyden.” She was an amazing person and a fantastic advocate for disability rights in our region. She was a kickass knitter. She was also a docent at the Yolo Wildlife Area and I have donated my Delta socks (framed by my sister and with a generous donation from 100 Acre Wood in Norway, Maine) to the Foundation in her honor.

Baseball’s back. It’s fabulous. Spinning and baseball on the radio, how can you go wrong?

Lace and Pirates

I must be out of my mind, because I’ve taken on a lace scarf designed by a knitter in Germany. It’s knit in 24 sections, each one divulged on a new day — an advent calendar; the last section will be released on December 24. Like I had nothing else to do in December…

Nupps are not a traditional German knitting technique, having been perfected in Estonia — but with YouTube and Ravelry, everyone’s tradition is now up for grabs. So this sampler scarf has as one of its sections a version of the Estonian lily of the valley pattern. No doubt we’ll get Brazilian frog patterns at some point next week.

I was working on this (I find nupps fiddly but not impossible as many of my co-knitalongers seem to have found) on Friday when I heard giggling in the other room. Numenius had found a pirate radio station which was playing big band swing music, and whose frequency he tracked down to a pirate known as Wolverine. The music changed to songs from across the 20th century with a moon theme.

We have rain, and more rain, yet Cold Creek was still not running on Sunday when we went up there for a short hike. Hoping this changes soon. I’m thinking about newts and where they are going to be able to spawn.