Knitting History

     Over the past few weeks a couple of the podcasts I listen to have featured stories about how the pod-caster's started knitting.  Honestly, most of them are fairly new to knitting, and really new to spinning.  On the other hand, I have been knitting for many, many years, probably at least 55 years, maybe longer.  I don't quite remember ever not knitting.  I came from a family of knitters.  My mother was an exquisite knitter, knitting beautiful, all-over cabled sweaters, lovely socks and really nice earflap hats.  Obviously she knit during the decades that knitting was not particularly fashionable, the 40s and 50s.  There were yarn shops around, and a few magazines and books, but several of her patterns were hand written, and others, I believe improvised.
      I am not sure where my mother  learned to knit.  I don't believe that her mother knit, but possibly another relative taught her as both her grandmother and great grandmother lived in her house when she grew up. Every summer my grandmother and my mother and her siblings traveled back to Brantford, Ontario to visit my Grandfather's family.  It is also possible that she learned to knit during the years she lived in remote parts of Canada with her first husband, or when she lived in Gotenburg, Sweden during the Second World War.  I am pretty sure that knitting was a bit more prevalent in both Canada and Sweden than in Lynn, Massachusetts, where she spent her first 13 years, and as the wife of a Royal Canadian Air Force Officer she may have belonged to a knitting group in some of the places that she lived.
     But, my mother did not teach me to knit.  She was an absolute perfectionist, and would have never tolerated the inadequacies of a small child learning to knit.  My Aunt Irene, one of my father's sisters, taught me to knit when I was about 5.  I clearly remember sitting on the couch in our living room , with Irene beside me, and knitting first a garter stitch strip, then a little hat, and eventually small sweaters for dolls.  They were all knit in the same grey yarn, which as I recall was a Shetland type wool, probably sport or fingering weight.  I remember knitting mittens with Fair Isle-ish snowflakes, but I think Aunt I knit the thumbs for me.  I continued to knit, and believe me, knitting was totally NOT cool in the 60s, but I think it may have become a bit cool in the Hippie days, when I was in college during the late 60s and early 70's.  As a cross-country skier in college I had plenty of opportunity to knit and wear Scandinavian type hats and gloves for myself and for friends.
    When my children were born I started knitting pretty obsessively, in fact I have two big plastic bins of small knitted items that I made for them, and I can think of a number of items that I made as gifts or items that I knit for my own kids and gave away.  In the early 70s I started quilting as well, but quilting is not as portable as knitting, so I usually had a hat or mittens for travel somewhere handy.
     I got my first drop spindle in 1974 as a gift from an old boyfriend.  We had a small yarn shop in Canton NY that had some spinning items, and had really lovely yarn as well.  I never learned to spin very well, though I would get the spindle out every so often and give it a try.  When we moved to Vermont in 2002, I met a few spinners, signed up for a class at Fletcher Farm Craft School in Ludlow, VT and bought my first and second wheels, possibly the same week.  Wheel One is a tiny upright "cottage" wheel, probably locally made, that I got in a little, kinda junky Antique mall.  It was certainly not a good beginner wheel, though I enjoy spinning on it now.  Later the same week I saw an ad in the paper for a spinning wheel in a yard sale not too far away.  I went up to check it out, but it was a very large, ornate Kromsky Saxony wheel.  Not something I could sneak in the house easily. It was obvious by the amount of yarn and looms, etc in the yard sale that the woman was an obsessive knitter and spinner, so I asked if he had, perhaps, a smaller wheel for sale.  She took me downstairs into her cellar bathroom, which held three very large, very furry, and very energetic Australian Shepherds, and one Majacraft Rose Spinning wheel.  She quoted a price that I though was exorbitant until I went home to look up Majacraft wheels on the internet.  I called her right back and drove back up to her house and bought the wheel.  The Rose is still my workhorse wheel, the wheel that I use every single day.  Of course I now have more wheels, and enough drop spindles of every sort to sink a ship, but honestly, I am not a drug addict or and alcoholic, so what harm is there in having too many wheels?

Patience can pay off

   I tend not to be a very patient person.  I hate to stand in line, wait in traffic, be put on hold or to be told to call back tomorrow.  I especially hate when the Maytag guy can't come for two weeks or when I can only get one month of a prescription because  that is all my insurance allows ( maybe that's not patience, just frustration)  But in other areas I am almost infinitely patient.  I love to spin, have two wheels going at all times so I can vary what I am spinning and I usually have at least three knitting projects at a time.  Last week I mentioned four working projects and showed you the two that I finished.  Still no buttons for the basket weave scarf,  but it is blocked.  The endless socks aren't done, but I have decided they are my last pair of cotton socks on size 0 needles.  Too hard on my hands.  So I am working on the lovely Herbivore scarf, which is a joy to work on, even though it is getting to be about a zillion stitches in every row, and I need to finish that damn sweater for the Kid.  It is easy, really a snap to finish, and I like knitting on Alpaca Light.  It is the color that I don't like; Maroon.  I have never liked that color, even though this is a really lovely grey/maroon blend.  There is a lot of sweater  to hold on my lap, but if I just finish it I can start something else.  Maybe reward myself somehow?

   So what else is finished?  Lovely spinning.  The Wildflower honey BFL from the painted sheep is done and I have about 450 yards of lovely sport weight yarn.  I am not sure that it photographs very well, but it is a lustrous, creamy color, and exactly what I wanted.  I am now thinking that I will make gloves and another cowl to wear with my grown up lady coat. The spinning experience on my Louet S90 was 100% positive, but perhaps a bit less so for the plying.  I tried the first skein from the built in Kate, but that didn't work too well, so I used my Katie-a-go-go, or whatever it is called, and that worked better.  I am thinking about a Woolee Winder for the Louet.   Just thinking at this point.  I have 3.5 oz of the blue merino-silk  to finish spinning.  The first 8 oz have produced about 800 yards of lace-weight .  It is just gorgeous yarn.  I am not used to spinning quite this fine, but I love it.  This has been an absolute joy to spin, and I hope to spin some more  merino silk, maybe in a deep purple .
   And what about corgi cuteness?  Last week Eliot had his teeth cleaned, and  had to lay on the couch all day Saturday with his head on a pillow. He is as bad as the kids were when they had their braces adjusted.  At least he didn't make me go to the bowling alley to get him a milk shake. And Kitty cuteness, Soot has discovered a new bed that I bought for Riva.  I decided it is too small for her corgi rotundity so left it on the table til I could return it to the pet store.  Not happening, Soot is in love with this bed!

Less Stress

   NO disasters today.  I retrieved the lawn mower from the back 40 and tucked it behind the Kubota in the cellar of the barn.  It no longer actually mows.  I believe the belt  that drove the mower blade melted and became one with the metal housing.  Looks like someone needs a new lawn mower. Oh, dear.  Didn't do laundry, but chances are that someone will also need a new washing machine in the near future.  Though I was observant enough to have learned how to get the top and front off the washer, and perhaps remove the pump and shake out the quarters.  Maybe not.
   I took some pictures and uploaded them to Flickr.  That presented a major learning curve, though I have done it before, it was in the presence of a teenager, and now that he is in Ohio I am on my own.  Here we go:
Most recent knitting, a yellow lacy cowl, Poinsettia, by Anne Hanson, Knit in  a pale yellow silk/merino:

Basketweave scarf knitted in Manos Silk Blend, pattern from And the Beadz go on... in Wickford Rhode Island.  This is a short scarf that needs buttons.  It is not blocked yet.

   And some recent spinning,  BFL, the blue was  was dyed by Lynne Vogel, and spun in her class last August and I believe that I dyed the  pastel yarn in Lynne's class in the summer of  2008. Lots more spinning to show you another day.

I've been kind of a spinning fool lately, I have rediscovered my Woolee Winder on my Majacraft Rose and it has made my spinning a bit less tedious.  Also, some wheel changes are in the air.  Little Gem is on a vacation at the moment in New Hampshire and a lovely package is heading my way from Alaska.  More on that next week.  I am not sure I will blog again before I head off to Rhinebeck on Saturday.  I haven't been for about 6 years and I am looking forward to it.  I had planned to look at wheels, but that ain't happening, so I think I will check out more silk, and cashmere roving and see if I can find a 15 dent reed for my Harrisville Loom. Oh, and meet up with the Harrisville crew, of course.  See you there?