This weekend I came across some interesting 19th century publications called “Farm and Fireside” at our wonderful used bookstore here - Prairie Archives. It was a publication out of Springfield, Ohio, and the issues I found were from 1884 and 1885. One of the sections of the publication, called “Our Household,” is full of editorial comment, recipes, patterns, household hints, etc.
I haven’t read through all the issues (I found 5) but I did read the following and had to laugh. I guess I tend to think we get way more obsessed about “fancy work” in our day than our ancestors but evidently that’s not true! Somehow I find that really comforting as I think of the laundry stacked up and the dishwasher waiting to run.
“I read, not long since, a bitter tirade against all kinds of fancy work, and while there was a great deal of truth in it in regard to the time wasted by many women over this kind of work, yet it seems to me that all work of this kind ought not to be condemned. It is nice to have a bit of lace or embroidery to pick up at odd moments, and it rests one sometimes to do something of this kind more than it would to do nothing. I confess there is a fascination about nearly all kinds of so-called fancy work which tends to lead one into too great a devotion to it, and time is used which ought to be given to reading or outdoor exercise. We must watch ourselves against this.”
from “Farm and Fireside,” Springfield, OH, September 15, 1884
I’d been wanting to take a weekend away for a while and finally got the chance last weekend, going on a little jaunt through Galesburg, IL, where I visited a lovely antique shop, to Davenport, IA, where I found a yarn shop (as you do) and my find of the weekend (a whole stack of vintage crafting magazine from the 30’s, 50’s and 70’s for just $5) and finally on to Muscatine, IA, home of the famous shell button factories and home to a Crazy Girl Yarn Shop. Here's a photo of the outside of the shop and one of the inside of the old button factory that's now been refurbished and houses a variety of very cool shops and restaurants.
I stayed at the cutest little bed and breakfast called Strawberry Farm B&B. It was, oddly enough, at one time a strawberry farm. The owners were so kind and did they ever do a great breakfast! Handmade quilts and antiques everywhere, a screened porch and lovely back yard. Charming. Definitely charming.
Muscatine is right on the Mississippi. Here are some shots of the area. As always, you can click a picture for a larger view.
In my treasure trove of vintage pattern books I found the most interesting pattern for a knitted slipper. It’s a most ingenious construction. Here’s the picture from the magazine showing the layout and the finished product.
And here’s after the seams were sewn and on my own personal foot.
I tried to pretend it didn't matter. I tried to pretend it was okay. But I knew it did matter and that it wasn't okay. I love the shawl and the design and the fact that it's 64" x 64". Just what I wanted and what I saw when I started planning it. You can see the thistles in the border but I also used a climbing vine pattern for the corner sections and am very pleased with how that came out. So there's no way that I could leave it. I'm doing the edging over, knitting it on its own and then I'll attach it later. I think it will go much faster that way. At least I'm telling myself it will.
Anyway, here are some pictures of the finished project:
(blocked on a red cover)
(in daylight and foled in half)
Woohoo! I’m done! I’m really done. I’m really actually done. But I have a few comments.
How is it that I weighed out my 8 ounces of fiber as I split it into 2 4-oz bunches but when I spun them up, one bobbin was finished and the other wasn't. Like this:
I solved the problem, by the way, by using the Andean-ply method but believe me, it was a significant difference.
It’s been really hard to get a picture that shows the colors but you get a little of the idea here.
It’s not really lace weight but it’s definitely a light fingering weight so I don’t think that went too badly. The yardage was not quite up to the 1,000 yards I was hoping for but it was about 975 yards so I’m definitely happy about that. 975 yards.
Now, of course, the question is, what to do with it. You know what I’m thinking? I’m kind of thinking of a lacy poncho. I’ve got triangular shawls and rectangular shawls but how about a circular(ish) shawl? I’m thinking really open pattern on size 6 needles or so. The only issue will be that there will definitely not be any running to the store to buy an extra skein of yarn, although I think I could probably find a solid roving that would go with this but I’ll need something that I can work until I run out and then be happy.
There is a point in some projects that you hit a wall. It’s kind of like waiting for the punch line in Uncle Ed’s joke or like standing in line at the grocery store or like watching the kettle waiting for it to boil. No matter how much you knit, no matter how much you spin, there’s no progress. You can knit for 2 hours and the silly thing only measures about ½ inch from where you started. I spun for 2 ½ hours the other night and still had exactly the same length of roving I started out with. I swear. Exactly the same length.
I’ve actually got 2 projects going right now that fall into this category. One is the edging of a shawl I started before I went to Scotland a year and a half ago. The other is spinning some wool roving into some lace weight (I hope) yarn.
The shawl has something like 1,200 stitches to knit off and I’m basically halfway around. But each stitch to knit off requires doing 2 rows of the edging and every time I hold it up to see how much progress I’m making, I feel like there’s a little knitting gremlin adding stitches to the back of my needle. I don’t know how that’s accomplished but I know it’s happening.
The spinning project entails some Ashland Bay Colonial Wool Top in the Northern Lights colorway that I got from Karen Poulakos. I have another package of this in the old stash but I’ve never gotten to spinning it. The colors on this one are so subtle (as you can see from the picture on the link above) that I’m still not sure how it’s going to look. I think some of the colors will show up better once it’s plied and off the bobbin but it’s hard to know. I’ve been trying to spin as finely as I can and, for the most part, I’ve been pleased with the effort. I’m hoping to get at least 800 yards out of the 8 oz but we’ll have to see.
Which brings me to the space/time fiber work continuum mentioned above. Before I started out I weighed it out so I knew I had 4 oz in each section so I’d be able to 2-ply it when I was finished with the singles. The first 4 ounces went well enough but I got a little bit into the second batch when it hit. I spun and spun and spun and spun but it wasn’t going anywhere. For a while I thought it was because I was spinning so finely but after a while that excuse wouldn’t fly anymore. It was multiplying. I know it was.
But I’m finally there. I spun at night, I got up early in the morning and spun for a hour before work, I spun at lunchtime and finally, today I finished – the singles, that is. Now I have to start the plying! I have a feeling I’m going to have to either sit outside or bring in an extra light to do the plying because it’s so dark, I can’t see the twists. I already have a problem with not getting enough twist into the ply so I’m not taking any chances with this stuff. Last thing I want is to have to ply it a second time!!
Edited: I've now got most of the Colonial top plied. The first skein is about 480 yards and the second one, though not finished, looks like it will be almost the same so I should definitely have my 800 yards. Now I have to figure out what to make with it...
The little dress was very blousy at the bottom so I used about 80% of the stitches I cast on for the dress to cast in the round for the bloomers. I'd decided I wanted to use elastic for the waist so I knit 4 rows in stockinette, did K2together/yo for the next row (for a picot edge), then knitted 6 more rows in stockinette before I started my little eyelet pattern.
