So, I'm knitting lace! Psyche and Cupid, by Holiday Yarns.
I think we will have to count this vote!
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Concord town meeting
It's 11:18, pm. Concord Town Meeting I dragging on and on. We are all very tired, there are 2 more articles. At least all the articles I cared about tonight have passed....everything else I cared about, other than tonight and the school homophobic crazy article that got fixed, have failed. At least tonight is good! But I'm tired, and oops...I had to go and speak, pointing out that the proposed zoning change to allow a hotel on Baker Ave extension means more tourist traffic going the dangerous way through the most dangerous intersection in town. I won't mind a hotel in there, once Route 2 is rebuilt, once they fix the intersection, and once they fix the sewer limitations. But, as usual, the planning board isn't actually addressing the issues we've brought up.
So, I'm knitting lace! Psyche and Cupid, by Holiday Yarns.
I think we will have to count this vote!
So, I'm knitting lace! Psyche and Cupid, by Holiday Yarns.
I think we will have to count this vote!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
To the reenactors!
If you are an 18th C reenactor, please listen!
The very basics of 18th C knitting:
1) No Shawls.
2) No flat hand knitting. No straight needles with bobbles on one end. Knitting in the round presages flat by hundreds of years.
3) No Shawls.
4) No ribbing. None. Zilch. If you are wearing purchased machine knit gloves/stockings, if you can hide the ribs do so. If you can't, replace ASAP! There is No Excuse for any hand knit ribbing....that shows a lack of care and research (unless you have found an extant ribbed item, with a good provenance, in which case, TELL US!!!!!).
5) No shawls
6) frame knits are VERY fine, upwards of 20 sts/in, knitted flat and seamed. Should you choose to mimic this by hand, you have my admiration, but it's not demonstration appropriate! These are the only knits that should have sewn seams.
7) No shawls
8) DO NOT cuff a cap high like they do on Colonial House, unless you WANT to perpetuate farby reality TV (AKA crown or Jughead style, like the idiot in the old Archies cartoon). Caps should sit near the hair line (that you had as a child, should it be receding), and really should have a bit of space at the crown, for a simple one, or a lot, for stocking caps. I cannot find a period drawing with this style of cap....just can't find any! See these guys in their caps (Hogarth)? They are messy, caps ajar and falling off..but not tiny beanies, still. Soft, squashy caps....heavily fulled caps with brims sticking out...no Jughead beanies!
9) (repeat with me.....) No shawls
Caps typically have decreases all around, not two lines. (a common one is k2tog, k3 around, knit 3 rounds plain, then k2tog, k2 around, knit 2 rounds plain, etc) The Dutch Museum (Rijksmuseum) has many caps....use one of the following patterns for the shape, and get a stripe pattern idea from here! You can make any of these larger, to be felted, and stretch the bottom into a brim. The hat in George Neumann's Collector's Encyclopedia of the American Revolution is, basically, the same as a Monmouth cap, with the brim stretched out during the felting process....you can see the edging shape, which is quite clearly a 3 needle bind off, as I used in my Monmouth cap pattern.
The very basics of 18th C knitting:
1) No Shawls.
2) No flat hand knitting. No straight needles with bobbles on one end. Knitting in the round presages flat by hundreds of years.
3) No Shawls.
4) No ribbing. None. Zilch. If you are wearing purchased machine knit gloves/stockings, if you can hide the ribs do so. If you can't, replace ASAP! There is No Excuse for any hand knit ribbing....that shows a lack of care and research (unless you have found an extant ribbed item, with a good provenance, in which case, TELL US!!!!!).
5) No shawls
6) frame knits are VERY fine, upwards of 20 sts/in, knitted flat and seamed. Should you choose to mimic this by hand, you have my admiration, but it's not demonstration appropriate! These are the only knits that should have sewn seams.
7) No shawls
8) DO NOT cuff a cap high like they do on Colonial House, unless you WANT to perpetuate farby reality TV (AKA crown or Jughead style, like the idiot in the old Archies cartoon). Caps should sit near the hair line (that you had as a child, should it be receding), and really should have a bit of space at the crown, for a simple one, or a lot, for stocking caps. I cannot find a period drawing with this style of cap....just can't find any! See these guys in their caps (Hogarth)? They are messy, caps ajar and falling off..but not tiny beanies, still. Soft, squashy caps....heavily fulled caps with brims sticking out...no Jughead beanies!
9) (repeat with me.....) No shawls
10) no cables, almost no lace
So, what *can* an 18th C reenactor wear for hand knits?
Caps
Gloves
Mittens
Fingerless mittens/gloves (often called mitts or half mitts)
Stockings
all conforming to the numbered descriptions, above.
Caps typically have decreases all around, not two lines. (a common one is k2tog, k3 around, knit 3 rounds plain, then k2tog, k2 around, knit 2 rounds plain, etc) The Dutch Museum (Rijksmuseum) has many caps....use one of the following patterns for the shape, and get a stripe pattern idea from here! You can make any of these larger, to be felted, and stretch the bottom into a brim. The hat in George Neumann's Collector's Encyclopedia of the American Revolution is, basically, the same as a Monmouth cap, with the brim stretched out during the felting process....you can see the edging shape, which is quite clearly a 3 needle bind off, as I used in my Monmouth cap pattern.
Sally Pointer, Mara Riley, and I all have researched patterns available.....I haven't come across any others I'd recommend, so far. If the pattern doesn't have a bibliography and reasons for the choices made, be skeptical!
Sally's Voyageur Cap, a felted doubled cap, can be made to flop or to fit closely.
My Monmouth Cap, as close to stitch for stitch as I could get to the original, which is 1600s. (none of the original caps I can find have a purled turning row!) If you must make a Monnouth, this one has all the details....but a stocking style or doubled cap is likely more common for 18th C.
Sally's Voyageur Cap, a felted doubled cap, can be made to flop or to fit closely.
My Monmouth Cap, as close to stitch for stitch as I could get to the original, which is 1600s. (none of the original caps I can find have a purled turning row!) If you must make a Monnouth, this one has all the details....but a stocking style or doubled cap is likely more common for 18th C.
My 18th C plain old striped cap, a generic cap pattern, can be made long or shorter, of course. If enlarged, it can be felted. Its color pattern is copied from Zoffany, where the man's cap is falling off, but you can see the basic shape...it looks odd, I think that the artist was making it look like it was falling off, but didn't bother with getting it realistic, which it clearly is *not*.
Mara's fingerless mitts (I'd add a couple rows of garter to the finger edge of the hand).
For plain old mittens or gloves I'd suggest using this vintage (1950s) pattern, replacing the cuffs with a few rounds of garter, then plain knitting, and keeping the whole thing in plain knit (The period mittens I've seen have all had round tops, I expect to find more, with different shaping, but have not, yet...these are super easy and, without the ribbing, completely accurate).
Mara's fingerless mitts (I'd add a couple rows of garter to the finger edge of the hand).
For plain old mittens or gloves I'd suggest using this vintage (1950s) pattern, replacing the cuffs with a few rounds of garter, then plain knitting, and keeping the whole thing in plain knit (The period mittens I've seen have all had round tops, I expect to find more, with different shaping, but have not, yet...these are super easy and, without the ribbing, completely accurate).
The General Carleton of Whitby cap pattern is coming...several people are working on one. The only pattern currently available (in the book from the ship wreck), has been deemed to be not worth the book, by all I've discussed it with. But the color pattern is straightforward and standard shaping applies. It's the only cap I've seen, to date, with a rolled edge (with neither felting nor hemming)....but it has fringe/thrums.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
18th C Striped Cap
Here is another cap....photos to follow. But it's a copy of the striped cap in Zoffany's painting, with shaping copied, loosely, from the caps in the Dutch Museum.
It's an easy cap, worsted weight wool, knitted snugly, at 23-24 sts/4 inches, no felting required. It'll flop over, if made following the pattern, or you can start the decreases earlier and wear it with the point sticking up.
Photos to follow.
Ravelry link to the project sample cap I made, in progress.
download now
It's an easy cap, worsted weight wool, knitted snugly, at 23-24 sts/4 inches, no felting required. It'll flop over, if made following the pattern, or you can start the decreases earlier and wear it with the point sticking up.
Photos to follow.
Ravelry link to the project sample cap I made, in progress.
download now
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Testing, 1, 2, 3
I'm trying to get my Monmouth Cap up and running on Ravelry. The pattern is there, and is a free down load, you can get it here, Monmouth Cap, The Details Matter, if you are a Ravelry member. That is easy. But it's trickier for those who *aren't* Rav members! There are buttons I can put in, to link to the download, but I haven't quite figured that out, yet....
Download for non-Members (but, really, if you knit, why not join Rav???).
Now, we shall see if the links all work!
Monmouth Cap, The Details Matter (you can see the specs on the Rav page here)
download the pattern now
Yes, the above link does work! Clicking it grabs my download, over on Ravelry, and will download the pdf right now. Not exactly elegant, but effective. I've signed up for the beta-test feature that lets non-Ravelry members see your designs, but haven't gotten it, yet, so in the meantime, this is it.
Download for non-Members (but, really, if you knit, why not join Rav???).
Now, we shall see if the links all work!
Monmouth Cap, The Details Matter (you can see the specs on the Rav page here)
download the pattern now
Yes, the above link does work! Clicking it grabs my download, over on Ravelry, and will download the pdf right now. Not exactly elegant, but effective. I've signed up for the beta-test feature that lets non-Ravelry members see your designs, but haven't gotten it, yet, so in the meantime, this is it.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Racism in the 'burbs
To the ladies (and I use the term loosely) at the class in the public store this morning:
Your racism was showing, load and clear. It was extremely upsetting to listen to. "Missing clothing ends up on the Boston Bus"...why did you have to keep repeating that? Are you that proud of your racism?
If your little girl brought her American Girl doll to kindergarten and she couldn't find it, how do you know it was in the backpack of the CA Metco equivalent? Did the teacher let you look? Did the teacher tell you? Or did you just assume "it was in the little black girl's backpack", while the teacher figured out which child had the doll and got it back to your daughter? It might have been in any child's backpack, and the teacher is unlikely to have told you which child.
And to the woman whose son lost his brand new black Northface jacket. How do you know it "went on the Boston bus"? How do you know, really, that he was correct with the statement that the last time he had it was on the playground. Maybe it ended up in lost and found, and that afternoon Jacob's mom found it, thinking it was Jacob's brand new black Northface jacket, lost yesterday. Only Jacob's jacket is on the floor under Anthony's bed...where Anthony announced to his mom his missing blue jacket turned black! Only Anthony's missing jacket is at grandma's summer house, left there at Thanksgiving....not to be found until next summer. The statement "Our kids don't need clothes. The only ones who would need to steal clothes are on the Boston Bus"....just boggles the mind.
My daughter's green Lands' End windbreaker wasn't on the fence, with all the other kindergarten coats one warm afternoon, in the middle of pickup. But a very similar, same size and color, London Fog windbreaker was! After several days, that London Fog coat showed up in lost and found. I eventually gave up and took it and washed it, and let my daughter wear it, posting a notice offering to swap coats back. Never heard a thing.
When we were on a long distance train to Florida, I put my sons handknit sweater (with sheep on it! It was so cute!) with our coats. It went missing. I didn't know if I left it on the train, if it was stolen, or what. It was just gone. What would one think? Those ladies, I bet, would assume that one of the many other passengers on this crowded, diverse car had stolen it.
Years later, when packing for a plane trip, while carefully checking every pocket of the suitcase for sharps, guess what I found in an obscure, seldom used pocket? Yep...Harry's long outgrown sheepy sweater!
I hope the teacher suggests a little more tolerance to this group of women.
Your racism was showing, load and clear. It was extremely upsetting to listen to. "Missing clothing ends up on the Boston Bus"...why did you have to keep repeating that? Are you that proud of your racism?
If your little girl brought her American Girl doll to kindergarten and she couldn't find it, how do you know it was in the backpack of the CA Metco equivalent? Did the teacher let you look? Did the teacher tell you? Or did you just assume "it was in the little black girl's backpack", while the teacher figured out which child had the doll and got it back to your daughter? It might have been in any child's backpack, and the teacher is unlikely to have told you which child.
And to the woman whose son lost his brand new black Northface jacket. How do you know it "went on the Boston bus"? How do you know, really, that he was correct with the statement that the last time he had it was on the playground. Maybe it ended up in lost and found, and that afternoon Jacob's mom found it, thinking it was Jacob's brand new black Northface jacket, lost yesterday. Only Jacob's jacket is on the floor under Anthony's bed...where Anthony announced to his mom his missing blue jacket turned black! Only Anthony's missing jacket is at grandma's summer house, left there at Thanksgiving....not to be found until next summer. The statement "Our kids don't need clothes. The only ones who would need to steal clothes are on the Boston Bus"....just boggles the mind.
My daughter's green Lands' End windbreaker wasn't on the fence, with all the other kindergarten coats one warm afternoon, in the middle of pickup. But a very similar, same size and color, London Fog windbreaker was! After several days, that London Fog coat showed up in lost and found. I eventually gave up and took it and washed it, and let my daughter wear it, posting a notice offering to swap coats back. Never heard a thing.
When we were on a long distance train to Florida, I put my sons handknit sweater (with sheep on it! It was so cute!) with our coats. It went missing. I didn't know if I left it on the train, if it was stolen, or what. It was just gone. What would one think? Those ladies, I bet, would assume that one of the many other passengers on this crowded, diverse car had stolen it.
Years later, when packing for a plane trip, while carefully checking every pocket of the suitcase for sharps, guess what I found in an obscure, seldom used pocket? Yep...Harry's long outgrown sheepy sweater!
I hope the teacher suggests a little more tolerance to this group of women.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
End of the season
We had a great time at Hartwell, doing a foodways presentation of preparing and preserving food for the winter.
I got to hold Ginger the Chicken. She's a Buff Orpington, just like that silly lady kept in Busman's Honeymoon.
Sabra orchestrated a fabulous lunch...and as Sue said, we eat best in the Fall, because it's harvest!
We used the market stalls that Ken built...they are just so terrific, and they look so much like the drawings! I love having realistic tools and furniture.
Ginger had quite the fan club.
Rick built the cart kit that the park bought. We all used it to shlep our gear out. It worked great. Harry was able to pull it up all by himself. You have to balance it carefully, and tend it while loading and unloading, or else it tips over...not hard to keep it from tipping, but you do have to watch it!
I got to hold Ginger the Chicken. She's a Buff Orpington, just like that silly lady kept in Busman's Honeymoon.
Sabra orchestrated a fabulous lunch...and as Sue said, we eat best in the Fall, because it's harvest!
We used the market stalls that Ken built...they are just so terrific, and they look so much like the drawings! I love having realistic tools and furniture.
Ginger had quite the fan club.
Rick built the cart kit that the park bought. We all used it to shlep our gear out. It worked great. Harry was able to pull it up all by himself. You have to balance it carefully, and tend it while loading and unloading, or else it tips over...not hard to keep it from tipping, but you do have to watch it!
Kids make it all real!
NOTHING looks more real when reenacting that a properly dressed child! Usually kids' clothes get skimped on, but that is a mistake. Kids are camera bait, and if someone's photo is going to wind up splashed across a paper, it's a child's, so it's worth doing them properly.
I never did finish posting the little outfit I made Anna. I'm totally happy with how it came out. The only things that aren't just right are on purpose...it's a tad loose, because I want it to fit next summer!
I just love this photo!!!!
Construction details can be seen here...the gown has a string to fasten its skirt, and those go through the lacing holes, so that they stay up! There is a placket to cover the lacing holes, and it really does make a neat effect.
I don't have a photo of her in her cloak and black bonnet...I need to get those, the whole thing is just so sweet! Anna still needs another petticoat and stays, but these will do for right now, breeches are next on my list!
I never did finish posting the little outfit I made Anna. I'm totally happy with how it came out. The only things that aren't just right are on purpose...it's a tad loose, because I want it to fit next summer!
I just love this photo!!!!
Construction details can be seen here...the gown has a string to fasten its skirt, and those go through the lacing holes, so that they stay up! There is a placket to cover the lacing holes, and it really does make a neat effect.
I don't have a photo of her in her cloak and black bonnet...I need to get those, the whole thing is just so sweet! Anna still needs another petticoat and stays, but these will do for right now, breeches are next on my list!
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