The myths and meaning woven into Norwegian sweaters

Here is a fascinating article about the Sweater Detective, a lady who knows practically all there is to know about the myths and meaning woven into Norwegian sweaters.

The history of knitting

This post gives an excellent summary of the history of hand knitting.

As you would expect from the V&A. One of my favourite London haunts.

Knitting a plant

Recently I’ve been sorting through some experiments from my City and Guilds course. We had to find pictures, use them to inspire our knitting, and produce a sample to go in our A4 files. I knitted a mangrove swamp. Unfortunately, it is now too squashed to take a decent photo. Perhaps one day I will restore it.

Then I also remembered the way my Mum used to do Jacobean embroidery. She would make a basic tree outline from chain or stem stitch in a variety of colours. Then the leaves and flowers would then be added, using a range of shapes that were filled in with various crewel work stitches.

So I thought I would try to combine the two ideas and knit a plant with knitted stems and leaves, and then embroider flowers. I reckoned that starting at the top would allow for not knowing how the tension worked out for width and length. I started leaves etc in random places, and after knitting down for a while I decided that I had a basic design, so I started moving the stems toward the centre of the piece.

Once the knitting was done, I embroidered flowers in french knots, bullion knots, lazy daisy stitch, and straight stitches. Here is the result:

Woolly Spires

Woolly Spires is an exhibition at of knitted churches at the National Centre for Craft and Design in Sleaford, Lincolnshire. Several of Lincolnshire’s beautiful gothic churches in wool, mainly knitting, with some crochet, for example on the roof of Stow Minster, a little felt, and details in chain stitch and back stitch. The exhibition runs until the 22nd April 2019.

Most knitters know that with a bit of planning you can go a long way with squares and rectangles, especially if you are prepared to use a needle and thread to get some form in there. And stuffing helps make an illusion too. Any knitter who has tried to branch out into toys and sculpture will have found that sometimes that is not enough.

Knitting by its nature is floppy and stretchy, which normally is a good thing, because it is just what we need when we make clothes. Once stuffing comes into the equation, the stretch can get out of hand, and the shape can start to distort the fabric. The way round this is some sort of framework to give support. Sometimes a stuffed fabric shape does the trick. Just a basic easy to sew fabric base can give a really good anchor for needle sculpting.

In some of these models, this has been well understood. Unfortunately, in others, it has not, resulting in sloping walls and bulging windows. And some of the architectural details lurch at alarming angles that would never have been tolerated in the originals. Some key features have not been sewn on straight, and the porch of Sleaford looks as though it has been made from melting ice cream.

One of the best is Louth, which is nicely balanced, nicely stretched on its frame, and quite rightly occupies a prominent position in the gift shop and tea room. The pinnacles are beautifully done, and as upright and parallel as you can expect without a ridiculously heavy framework. And the west doorway shows just what you can achieve with ribbing and a cable needle. But even on this one, there is a loose end dangling.

Some of the models would benefit from a firmer fabric, knitted on smaller needles, so the support doesn’t show through. alternatively, the framework of … should have been made from a less intrusive colour.

Architectural knitting is harder than it looks, as I found when I knitted a castle for my City and Guilds knitting course. There is some lovely stuff in this exhibition, but I kept hearing the voice of my junior school head “Yes dear, it is good work, spoilt by carelessness. Slow down!”

Here is my favourite, Louth:

Grantham has some clever embroidered windows, showing what can be done with a few simple stitches:

Spalding has been given some stained glass and gargoyles:

Stow Minster is a plainer, earlier construction in Anglo-Saxon times:

In this collage, you can get an idea of the accuracy of the model, as it includes a picture of the real Sleaford church taken out of the window of the Centre.

Boston’s distinctive tower has been well captured:

Knitting faces in the crowd

It is surprising how inspiration comes.

I was rummaging in a basket of odd balls of yarn, as you do, and I found this “flesh” coloured smooth cotton.

Which reminded me of my long standing doll project, where I have some knitted dolls, and use them as models for unusual garments. This is a wonderful game, as it allows me to:

Play at being a doll designer.
Experiment to see how patterns and shapes work. It is amazing how many designs look fab in the pictures, but a mock up reveals that it only looks nice if you are careful how you stand and move about. It is also surprising how many patterns for really chunky yarn knit up nicely for a doll if you use 4 ply and the smallest needles you can manage,
Play with novelty yarns that need buying, but I’m not going to wear in a full size garment.

Anyway, I wasn’t convinced there was enough of this cotton to make a whole doll, so I put it down again. And then I thought of making pictures.

I have seen some interesting paintings of crowd scenes, with a variety of faces looking out of the frame. And I loved the Antony Gormley check installation Field for the British Isles when it came to Scunthorpe. Although ideas have been lurking for a while, I haven’t actually got round to doing anything.

So I experimented.

The first idea was to knit some bobbles on a reverse stocking stitch ground. Bigger ones were too round, and smaller ones didn’t give enough space for embroidery to make a face.

So then I tried increasing for a bobble in one stitch, and then working a few rows all across the piece before decreasing. I decided not to plan a design, because that would lead to some annoying endless dithering, so I just went for it and made it up as I went along. After blocking it out, I embroidered faces, hair and hats. One end of the head was a bit too open, so I made that the top of the head, stitched it up a bit, and covered it with hair and hats. I decided not to go for faces on this one. That is on the list for future experiments.