Spider Silk - Not Likely To Be Found In Your LYS

Those interested in the fibre arts are finding it easier to source ever more exotic fibres to run through their fingers and weave around needles and hooks, especially with the advent of the internet and the spread of knowledge about the beautiful yarns available to crafty folks. There are some real luxury yarns on the market, perhaps the zenith being the almost mythical Qiviut/Qiviuk – the downy undercoat of the musk ox. As light as air, as warm as a 1,000 tog duvet and with a softness you cannot imagine (or so I am told, at least… I am unlikely to ever get my pauper’s hands on any), this prized fibre seems to be the height of luxury, but is that about to be surpassed?

Simon Peers, British art historian, may have eclipsed the combers of must-ox bellies in seeking out the most unlikely and labour-intensive fibre-source. The beautiful golden brocade-like fabric above is in fact spun from spider-silk. Spider silk, in fact, that has been collected from a team of no less than one million Golden Orb spiders. Quite a feat, especially as the silk was collected from living spiders, harnessed together in groups of 24 whilst the end of their silk was gathered together and slowly extracted, being hand-spun and wound delicately onto a spool. Four strands of this 24-ply thread were then plied together to give a 96-strand yarn to use in the weaving of this magnificent cloth. It has been said that at no point in the weaving of the cloth did the spider yarn break, so no spit-splicing and no extra ends to weave in, at least.

There are plants to make a second cloth come next spider-season in Madagascar, where the Golden Orb spiders were harvested. It’s all but impossible to imagine that such a yarn would ever find its way onto the knitter’s market, but it is sometimes good for those who knit and crochet to stop and remember the sources of the yarns that we enjoy working with, and to remember what wonderful jobs the creatures that produce some of those yarns actually do in manufacturing their own thread creations.

Ladies Of Low Moral Fibre Crafts

A play for two people, taken from an actual conversation I had with a friend yesterday.

[Two people, a man and a woman, are sitting on a sofa in a cafe, a hand-wound ball of wool between them. The woman gets up to shift her bum into a more comfortable position, and the ball of wool rolls off across the floor]

Man Did you wind that up yourself?

Woman Yes.

Man I have been reading about how you start to hand-wind a ball of wool. You have to hold your fingers like this [makes random and gesture] and loop it round in a figure eight.

Woman Oh?

Man Yes, I was reading in that book. It was here, somewhere… [looks around] … you know, you had it here… ‘Knit like a prostitute‘, something like that.

Woman Er…? [looks confused and searches around seat before reaching into her bag and finding the book in question]

fin

Book: 100 Flowers To Knit And Crochet By Lesley Stansfield

There are times when the lily just begs to be gilded. I’m all for the elegance of simplicity, but there are times when you just want something a little bit extra, and flowers are a feminine and timeless way to embellish garments and accessories.

100 flowers to knit and crochet by Lesley Stanfield - RRP: £10.99 Lesley Stanfield’s beautifully produced book promises 100 flowers for knitters and crocheters to make and use in their own work, but the title is a slight misnomer. The book actually features patterns for 70 flowers, rather than 100, the remaining patterns being for a mixture of vegetables, various bugs, acorns, fruit and leaves. This does not detract from the book, however – these additions compliment the flower designs very well and can be combined with the actual flowers to make larger motifs. Apart from the asparagus – that’s just weird… and wonderful.

As a knitter who is only vaguely familiar with the wonderful voodoo that is crochet, I was slightly disappointed to find that the designs are rather weighted towards those that wield hooks. Only 40 of the designs are knitted motifs, and of those there appear to be quite a few that only vary slightly in their design – the patterns for ‘large leaf’, ’small leaf’ and ‘citrus leaf’ do not present enough variety in their design to make them particularly distinct; the dahlia and chrysanthemum are also very similar in finished appearance. There are a couple of beautiful knitted flowers – the sunflower and arum lily are wonderfully constructed, but in this book many of the more interesting designs are designed for the crocheter. This may turn some people off, but for others it might just act as that extra push to pick up the hook and try twirling some yarn.

Knitting instructions are in written form, crocheted patterns are both written and charted. Patterns are divided into beginner, intermediate and advanced sections. So, is it worth spending your money on? Well, there’s the pinch, really. It was only after buying the book that I was made aware that many of the designs included in the book were available online, for free, from the Lion Brand website in the stitch finder section. If you only intended to use the book to occasionally find a little embellishment for a hat or purse, then you might well be satisfied with the selection available to you on the Lion Brand website without cost. If you then find that you enjoy these patterns and would like more of the same, then it is certainly a charming little personal knitting library filler and be one of those books that you turn to when you want to make a standard garment that little bit special.

Monkeyangelo's Giantmonk with Crocheted Fig Leaf

Contain your excitement…

The embodiment of monkey physical perfection - Giantmonk So… several people (ok, two – the beautiful and intelligent Getknitics and Mooncalf) guessed that yesterday’s blob was a leaf! It was a fig leaf, to be precise – a pattern taken from Lesley Stanfield’s ‘100 flowers to knit and crochet’ which arrived in the post on Saturday. This was a book that I’d wanted pretty much since I started knitting, but wasn’t sure if I could justify spending £10 on a book about ‘frivolous embellishments’, because it was hard to see how they might have any practical value, until I realised the obvious and pressing need for crocheted, felted fig leaves:

It's Monkeyangelo's Giantmonk. For those astute viewers that might rightly note that the original, slightly less magnificent statue by Michelangelo does not actually figure a fig leaf, this is quite true. However, in reserved British style, one was made for the cast of the statue at the V&A museum after Queen Victoria expressed shock at the sight of the statue. Nowadays, however, David usually likes to be a bit more free and easy, much like Giantmonk when he’s not trying to help me justify buying a book of crocheted and knitted flower patterns.

Pattern: Fig Leaf by Lesley Stansfield
Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool DK

It Felt So Wrong...

Felting is an inexact science at the best of times. Add to that the fact that I cannot really crochet (I have tried to teach myself a few times, but I always forget how to do it as soon as I put the crochet hook down) and what emerged from my washing machine today was a little green mangled lump of inevitability and the result that science crochet finally solved the age old question - 'what would a gecko look like if you dropped a house on top of it from a great height?'

Made from Rowan Pure Wool DK, it resembles a comedy lump of slime. I’m not even sure you can make out quite what it was supposed to be. I’ve pinned it out to block as I think it has a certain charm to it anyway, and I don’t have the heart to throw it away. What did surprise me is how much lighter the felted item looks from the original yarn:

As I have used this same ball of yarn for a few different projects now I have seen that it does lose quite a lot of colour in a cold wash even, but I wasn’t expecting the colour change to be quite so drastic. I am not sure if this change in colour is due to the washing process or if the fluffiness of the now fulled/felted fibres alters the appearance of the yarn and the way it behaves in the light, but I haven’t noticed this drastic colour change in any other yarn I have so far used in my stumbling journeys through the alchemical processes of felting.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a use for my new lumpy creation, but I’ll have a think about how it might be put to use. If anyone has any suggestions, please list them in the comments and I’ll see if I can act on them!

FO: A Dress For A Little Lady

I thought I’d try and get a bit more Christmas knitting done and decided on a dress for Annaleese, my niece.

I’m not sure what my sister will think of the colour choices – I know that brown is not a traditional choice for babies, but I do so love the combination of the brown, pink and cream with the little pearl buttons. It’s a colour combination that I’d like to wear myself, and I think the shape lends itself to enjoying trying a few different colours. This dress reminds me of something vintage that one might wear with a string of pearls, which is why I chose the buttons that I did.

Kjole til lillesøster (Little sister's dress) by Tora Frøseth Design
Yarn: Stylecraft Special 4 Ply

Knitters' Gift Tags With Care Instructions

Here are some handy gift tags to help ensure that your hand-knits have a happy future when you give them as gifts. These small gift tags can be printed onto normal A4 white card and folded down the centre line. The front features a short message and a bright ball of yarn and knitting needles (each sheet has four different colours, so there’s on to suit any recipient) and the reverse has a number of fields for you to fill in that will help the recipient of your gift to care for it for years to come. The inside can be left blank for your own message or additional information, and there’s room for you to stitch a spare button to the inside of the card if you have used any on your knitted item, so that spare button and care instructions can always be found together.

 

NOTE ABOUT DOWNLOAD: This file is free to print and view full-size direct from this page. However, if you would like to download a higher resolution/better quality copy to your computer you will need to be signed in to ‘Scribd’. It’s a free service, and a pretty handy source of craft downloads, so worth checking out either way.

Make your own sock blockers

Sock blockers are one of those items in a knitter’s arsenal that are totally unnecessary, yet still for many of us, quite desirable.  For me, it was not the item itself that had held an attraction, but their function.  I was not particularly bothered about owning some sock-shaped pieces of wood, no matter how beautifully wrought – like many people I am trying to put my money towards more essential things at the moment, but I did wish to be able to present my knitted socks both in photographs and to their eventual recipients in an attractive and uniform manner.  In the end I decided hone my DIY skills to make my own.

These are made from nothing more than a cardboard box and some sellotape.  You need a sturdy brown cardboard box or two (the one I used happened to have a fancy design printed on the inside, but it is just a brown box).  You’ll need enough cardboard to make four of the sock-blocker shapes.

Stage one involves grabbing a piece of paper and a pen/pencil, and drawing around your foot.  It is probably easier to get someone to draw carefully around your foot for you if you have a willing helper nearby.  Try and keep the pen as close to your foot as possible in this process.

Now, take two measurements from your foot-trace; across the width of the foot (a) and the length of the foot (b) and make a note of these two measurements. Now you need to convert these two figures to the measurements that you are going to use to create your sock blockers. Take one tenth off of the figure you have for measurement (a) (if you are using a calculator to do this, multiply (a) by .90.  Make a note of this number and call it measurement (c).  Now, do the same calculation with the figure you  got for (b) (the length of the foot) and make a note of the resulting figure as measurement (d).

Figures (c) and (d) are less than those of the actual measurements of the foot so as to allow the sock to remain snug and close-fitting after blocking, providing some ‘negative ease’.  Now is the time to grab yourself a pen and get scribbling.  Use a large sheet of scrap paper (or several taped together) and, using a ruler, draw a line the length of (d) on your paper.  Using the diagram on the right, use your ruler to draw another line the length of (c).  Using these two measurements as a guide, draw the shape of your sock-blocker onto the scrap paper, making a note of the angle at which the foot and leg meet – it is not a 90° angle (which is what I drew on my first attempt).

Once you are happy with your template, cut it out. Now, find your cardboard box, flatten it out, and place the template over  an area where there are no ’seams’ or folds.  Take notice of which way the corrugation or faint lines of the cardboard box are running (from top to bottom or side to side – this is very important)  You need to cut out four identical sock-blocking templates – two with the corrugation running vertically, two with it running horizontally.

Once you have cut out all four of these templates take one of those with the vertical corrugation, and one with the horizontal corrugation and place them together, lining them up.  Use a little bit of tape to hold them together.  Do the same with the other pair.  Now, use strips of tape to completely cover both sock-blockers, entirely covering the cardboard.  The two differing directions of the corrugation in the cardboard will make them very strong and should stop them from collapsing when you fit your socks over them. The sellotape should keep them relatively waterproof. Mine have been called into action 20 or so times now (as I have been blocking my socks when I was them so as to help them dry faster), and they are still as good as the day I cobbled them together.

There is one extra modification you can make.  If you look at the picture at the top of this blog entry you can see how I made these sock blockers to work with the measurements of two different sets of foot measurements.  The size 5 UK measurements are those of my own feet, whilst the size 7 UK measurements are those of my other half.  The foot of one person becomes the leg portion of the other which is great if you are short on either cardboard or space.

These measurements should work with whatever medium you choose to make your ‘do it yourself’ sock blockers out of. Some people have used plastic table-setting mats to make theirs, which is a great idea. I searched high and low in the stores for some and couldn’t find any, unfortunately, though I don’t mind as the cardboard ones work just as well and are all but free to make.

A Matter Of Wear and Tear

Not long after learning to knit I decided that I fancied making a pair of socks. They seemed to symbolise something old fashioned and intimate by way of affection. Nothing showy that I’d hope that others would and remark on, but rather just something that I would enjoy the idea and comfort of. Two things delayed me in turning this idea into an actual pair of socks:

1. I am a wuss, and the shape of them and the words ’short rows’ and ‘turning the heel’ all sounded terribly complicated, and 
2. I kept on reading terribly sad posts on the Ravelry boards where people came to sob in public over their beautiful new socks returning from the debut trip to the shops with big holes or the heels worn right through to mere threads.

The idea of spending the money on a skein of yarn (or two) to make a pair of socks at a price that would buy about 15 pairs of socks at a supermarket just to enjoy them for a single day before they started to disintegrate made me wince.

When I finally cast these fears aside and decided that there must be a reason why so many people enjoyed making socks and so I should give it a go anyway I knew that I would have to revisit the socks after a number of wears and washes to asses if they were worth the money and the bother. The fit is pretty much as they were when they were first completed. They have been machine washed a few times on a 40°c normal wash, and do not seem any worse for wear because of it. To my immense relief there appear to be no holes and no ends working loose as far as I can see after a close inspection. There is a bit of pilling at the back of the heel, which I suppose is to be expected as these socks have now had at least 14-18 outings in various boots, shoes and trainers.

When I decided to inspect them properly today I was nervous of the state they’d be in, but I was pleasantly surprised. Apart from some minor surface bobbling, and a slight halo to the yarn, they were pretty much unharmed.

A Secondary Obsession

When I was a young child one of my favourite activities was to search through my grandmother’s button stash. Stored in a 4 litre ice-cream tub, busting to the brim with buttons of all shapes and sizes, I loved to admire the variety in their sizes, shapes and amazing colours. My nan would wander off, shaking her head that I was siting astride on the carpet with thousands of buttons cascading over the living room floor as she muttered about the mess I was making. I’d enjoy finding multiples of a particular style of button and looking for elaborately carved and coloured little disks of wood, glass, shell, plastic, and probably many other base materials.

I always knew that I would eventually have a button collection of my own, if only so that future generations could sift through them at their leisure. My collection is less elegant than my grandmother’s. In fact, my button collection is a bit silly. I seem to have amassed hundreds of novelty buttons, spread across 7 boxes. Here are the contents of just one of those boxes:

My buttons are more comedy than elegance, much like myself.

Each box has a theme or two (or three), this happens to be the box that contains insects (ladybugs of various sizes, and bees), flowers (large and small daisies), fruit (bananas, cherries, watermelons, strawberries, apples) and bats. That’s only for my own organisational purposes. When I die and bequeath this collection (which I hope by them will be many times larger) I intend for them to all be jumbled together in one large tub, which must be tipped onto the carpet to be searched through, where the best view is lying on your tummy with your face up close to each and every little plastic form.

Mod Mug Hugger (pattern)

Have you ever been given a random ball of yarn, of unknown origin, that you know you’ll never be able to find another of and which you don’t know what to do with?

When I once took part in a magazine swap, the issue that I received from my swap partner came unopened with two (different) balls of random yarn. One, in shades of pink, green, cream and brown I still have in a sweet jar on my desk, the other, black and white, became this mug cosy.

With about 30g of unknown weight, fibre or length, it needed to be something small, and my chilly hands soon dreamed up this simple pattern. Taking only about ½ and hour to knit and just as little yarn, it’s a quick and easy pattern for when your fingers are bored.

Download the PDF for the Mod Mug Hugger

Garden Bird Intarsia Chart To Download

A few months ago the UK knitting magazine Yarn Forward published a series of patterns for mystery blankets squares, 6 each month, which were shown only as charts or written instructions, with no pictures of how the finished squares would look. I thought this would be a good project for me as the mixture of lace, cables, colourwork, beading and textured squares would mean a lot of variety within the project, allowing the knitter to end up with relatively large finished object without too much boredom. As each square was to be 8×8″ in size, it was quite easy to see that there was a large scope for making your own additional squares. I picked my colour palette (various browns and creams, and a pale turquoise) and cast on for my first squares toward making a large project.

I always like to have a blanket for comfort, so I decided to make this as a treat for myself, but soon my knitting had to be put aside for a while after the death of my beloved grandfather at the age of 97. I could not knit for a while, because my time knitting is a time when I can afford myself time to think, and to contemplate, and I could not bare to have that quiet reflective time when I was grieving.

When the occasion of the funeral had passed I slowly picked up my needles for time to time and dabbled in a square. Knitting became a comfort, as I hoped my blanket would be, but the thing I needed comforting from most was the loss my family had recently suffered.

I started to think of how I would like to knit a square in memory of my grandad, and how I would like it to symbolise what I loved about him. He was my father figure, mentor, teacher and greatest supporter. When I was young he’d take me anywhere I wanted to go – to the park, to the museum, to ride my bike. He’d fix the punctures in my tyres as well as the graze on my knee. One of the thing he’d love to do most was to go out and watch wild birds. He bought a heavy old pair of binoculars and we’d walk through fields, parks, woodlands – wherever we could find them. He’d explain about their songs, their migration paths, and we’d sketch them as he whistled their tunes back to them.

One of his favourite British wild birds was the bluetit, and I thought that this would make a fitting tribute to my beautiful grandfather. I’d already picked out my colour palette for the blanket, so some artistic license had to be taken with the colours, but as my box of crayons was always missing a few colours and we used what we could to make our sketches, I didn’t think he’d mind.

I think he’d have loved this design if he was still alive, but I also think he’d like me to have shared it, because he’d always want more of his feathered friends in the world.

A larger version of the chart can be viewed here. Extra plain rows can be added to the top or bottom of the chart if you wish to knit it into a square.

Charles James Henry Stiff, 1912-2009

Finding The Right Design - Christmas Pine Tree Knitting Chart

I’ve been trying to find the right pattern for my brother-in-laws Christmas present, which is to be a pair of socks. I wanted something simple, un-fussy and yet a little something ‘more’ than a plain stockinette sock. My brother in law will not wear bright, outlandish colours, busy designs or complex twisting cables, but as these are a Christmas gift I wanted to include something that was a little ‘fun’. I believe these will be the first hand-knit socks my brother-in-law will have ever received – the hat I made him last year seemed to be his first hand-knit gift of any sort, so I thought I’d try and incorporate a little christmas tree in the design for these. I made a rough graphical sketch of my idea for the simple pine tree shape which I thought I might be able to replicate in some fashion with the use of single cable stitches and raised knit stitches on a reverse stockinette stitch background. once the ‘trunk’ of the tree is about 1½” long I am going to knit six or eight rows of garter stitch for something for the tree to ’stand’ on, and then do the foot of the sock in stockinette. I keep switching between loving these socks and then finding them horrid, but it is happening every few minutes, and I can’t actually tell what it is that I am finding disagreeable about them. I suppose I am nervous that they will not fit, but as my brother-in-law resides at the other end of the country, and these are meant for a surprise, there is little chance of my furtively sneaking in to try them on his feet without him noticing.

Below is a picture of the chart of the stylised Christmas tree I designed to knit into Edward’s socks. There are four sections to the chart; the set up round, the ‘branches’, the ‘tree trunk’ and the ‘ground’ The chart is worked across 12 stitches and can be adapted in height by altering the number of repeats you knit for the branches, trunk and ground.

• Start by knitting round 1 of the chart just once (this is the set-up round). 
• Knit rounds 2-7 as many times as you wish to have layers of branches (I have chosen to do six rounds of branches for the tall trees of Edward’s Socks). 
• Knit round eight as many times as you wish until the ‘trunk’ of the tree is the length you desire. 
• Knit rows 9-11 three or four times to give an indication of the ground.

It is worth baring in mind that this chart was designed in the round for the pair of top-down socks that I am knitting, so if you are knitting socks from the toe up, or something else that is knitted from the base upwards, this tree will be upside down. I believe that you may be able to simply turn the chart upside-down and successfully knit it that way, but I haven’t actually tested this so don’t hold me to account if I am mistaken. I’d give it a quick swatch but I only have my needles with the socks on at the moment and no spares, but if anyone gives it a go before I am able to do so myself please drop me a line and I’ll post the results.

New Favourite Sock Cuff

I spent the entirety of yesterday and the evening before that casting on and re-casting on the same pair of socks, unable to find a cuff that looked and felt as good as I was hoping to find, whilst still being as stretchy as an elastic band. I thought I may have found such a cuff yesterday but wanted to knit on for a few more inches to make sure it kept its qualities with a healthy amount of sock attached to it. About 4″ of sock is now complete.

The sock cuff is wonderful and stretchy – there is no tight line of cast-on stitches and it feels wonderful on the leg (I just gave it a little ‘test’ around my ankle). It is essentially a hemmed cuff where a row of stitches are worked together with a row of stitches from a provisional cast-on, but by spending ages (too long) playing around with different needle sizes, etc I think I have it just about perfect.

This sock cuff is very elastic, and the stitches do not distort or ‘pull tight’ in any area. The cuff actually stretches quite a bit more than this, but I couldn’t find a wider piece of strong cardboard to stick in the sock leg to show the stretch. Still, I think it is quite an impressive degree of elasticity. I am happy with the look and feel of the cuff when it is both stretched and relaxed, so I definitely think I will be using it often.

The cuff is worked flat and joined when it is complete. The second picture (showing the cuff stretched) has the join directly in the centre of the cuff, so it is invisible if you seam the sides carefully. You could work it in the round, but at one point you’d have nine DPNs involved, and life is too short.

So, it takes two sets of needles – one in the size you’ll be knitting the sock and one a size larger. Let me now consult my notes…

• Using smaller needles and scrap yarn, cast on the number of stitches required by your sock using a provisional cast-on.

• Change to working yarn and knit six rows of stockinette, beginning with a knit row

• Switch to larger needles, knit 6 rows of K2, P1 rib (or whatever other stitch/ribbing sequence you favour – K2, P1 just happens to be my favourite of the moment)

• Removing the scrap yarn from the provisional cast on, place the live stitches onto the smaller sizes needle(s)

• Fold cuff over so that the right side of ribbing is facing you.  Using one of the larger needles, knit one stitch from the front needle together with one stitch of the back needle in pattern.For a knit stitch you will insert the right needle first through the stitch on the front needle, then through the stitch on the back needle, knit those stitches and drop both stitches of their respective needles.  When working the purl stitches in your ribbing sequence, insert the right needle purlwise first into the first stitch on the back needle and then through the first stitch on the front needle, purling them together.  Be careful not to knit these stitches too tightly – these stitches will not be ‘baggy’ due to the large needle size as the will be stretched backward slightly to accommodate the extra yarn from the stitches at the rear.

• Switch to the smaller needle size, which you will be using for the rest of your sock pattern – you may now either continue your ribbing sequence as established until your cuff is the desired length, or  go straight into your pattern if you desire a narrow cuff.