The pillow project is still underway. No actual knitting has occured beyond the initial swatch though. My first impression was that I just didn't feel like I could do the whole project from the three wee charts in Rutt's book, so I've been taking them and putting them in Excel. This is looking like a good choice. Mucking around with how it's supposed to look and counting of every block means I'm that much more familiar with the pattern before I even take up needles, and I can make lots of mistakes first where they're incredibly easy to fix en masse. Like, for example, noticing that the border pattern is set up so the "pointy side" always points in, so I need to think about three other orientations for it.
I've almost finished the eagles/fleurs side, though I should go back and adjust head directions, and I've started the chrysanthemum/castles side, which is already proving to be a pain since it seems like some of the sections are biggest than others in ways that somehow don't impact the pieces below it. I doubt this is actually the case, but I haven't figured out what's causing it, so I will presumably continue to bang my head against it for a while. Woo.
About the time I was reaching maximum frustration with clicking on little boxes, I took a break and made a few steps in the color department. I could buy what looks like the right colored yarn and be done with it, but I have white silk in the proper gauge on hand (20/2 weaving yarn), and I have a good variety of dyestuffs that ought to get used. So on Sunday afternoon, I grabbed as many onion skins as I could fit into our biggest regular pot, soaked and heated them for 45 minutes, strained off the liquid and then soaked about 100 yds of silk in it for 15-20 minutes. According to the books it should give a clear yellow, but the liquid was quite orange and previous results have also been orange, so I wasn't surprised to get a lovely reddish yellow brown.
The funny thing is that according to the Piecework picture, it's actually a pretty good match for the background color, so now I need to make another attempt at a clear yellow. Weirdly, I don't know that I have any yellow dyes on hand except for the Jacquard acid dyes we used for the copes. I haven't decided what I'm doing about that.
Semi-related is that I finally read the saffron section in the Scottish dye book, and they say it was unlikely at best that the Scots actually used saffron to dye their "saffron shirts", at least not exclusively, with the possible exception of a short period in the 1500s. Not sure what this is going to do for my WW plans. It may just encourage me to go with a pale linen and not mess around with yellows that neither flatter my complexion nor showcase my group's heraldry.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
New project - silk cushion
The current Piecework magazine has an article which includes a picture of a knit Spanish cushion from around 1275 which has an alternating pattern of eagles and fleur-de-lys. It's about 36 cm/14 in square. I haven't been able to find any mention of what it's made of, but since it was found in a prince's tomb, silk seems reasonable. Mistress Leyla was kind enough to point out that it's charted in Rutt's History of Hand Knitting. So I pulled the book off my shelf, and indeed it was, and it includes not just the picture I was originally considering charting, but also the reverse side, which has a completely different and to my mind more interesting pattern of castles and flowers. (And also swastikas, which meant something rather different before the Third Reich.)
Rutt says that the cushion is currently dark brown and straw yellow, but speculates that it was originally crimson and golden-yellow. I happen to have cones of bright red and burgundy 20/2 silk on hand. I also have 60/2 in bright red.
Unfortunately, the yellow I have is tencel. But I have 20/2 white silk. Ilya points out that if I dyed the white with onion skins I would a) use onion skins, which he has been saving for me for ages and b) have yellow silk in the right size and not have to order it. Heh. So I'm considering that, possibly as a plan for tomorrow. And when I think about it, I think the bright red is a better cochineal red, so I'm inclined to go with that rather than the duller red.
I did a small sample in the burgundy/yellow combination and I'm pretty pleased with it.
In the meantime, I swatched the 60/2 silk and have determined that knitting with it makes me cross eyed, the needles are too big and it's so small I make errors in just straight stockinette, in the round, no less. Besides all of which, the original knitting is reportedly "dense", and this very much isn't. (That's probably one of the causes of the errors anyway.) So unless I get an Ott light with magnifier, that is Not Happening.
The plan that's taking shape in my head is that I'm going to do a smaller trial version that has all the motifs - border, front and back in the red silk/yellow tencel to get a feel for the project, and then decide if I'm going to do a replica with the understanding that it will be scaled up or if I'm going to do one that's the specified size, but with fewer repeats. I'm of course leaning towards the former. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm going to replace the swastikas with something less controversial. I have difficulty believing that any A&S judge wouldn't respect my reason for doing something else, especially if I replaced it with something with some logical connection to the time/place/work. Crosses are obvious, and since it was found in a monastery, may be the best approach. In my head, the goal is to have this ready for the A&S competition at Gulf Wars next year.
That's the plan, so we'll see how it works out in practice...
Rutt says that the cushion is currently dark brown and straw yellow, but speculates that it was originally crimson and golden-yellow. I happen to have cones of bright red and burgundy 20/2 silk on hand. I also have 60/2 in bright red.
Unfortunately, the yellow I have is tencel. But I have 20/2 white silk. Ilya points out that if I dyed the white with onion skins I would a) use onion skins, which he has been saving for me for ages and b) have yellow silk in the right size and not have to order it. Heh. So I'm considering that, possibly as a plan for tomorrow. And when I think about it, I think the bright red is a better cochineal red, so I'm inclined to go with that rather than the duller red.
I did a small sample in the burgundy/yellow combination and I'm pretty pleased with it.
In the meantime, I swatched the 60/2 silk and have determined that knitting with it makes me cross eyed, the needles are too big and it's so small I make errors in just straight stockinette, in the round, no less. Besides all of which, the original knitting is reportedly "dense", and this very much isn't. (That's probably one of the causes of the errors anyway.) So unless I get an Ott light with magnifier, that is Not Happening.
The plan that's taking shape in my head is that I'm going to do a smaller trial version that has all the motifs - border, front and back in the red silk/yellow tencel to get a feel for the project, and then decide if I'm going to do a replica with the understanding that it will be scaled up or if I'm going to do one that's the specified size, but with fewer repeats. I'm of course leaning towards the former. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm going to replace the swastikas with something less controversial. I have difficulty believing that any A&S judge wouldn't respect my reason for doing something else, especially if I replaced it with something with some logical connection to the time/place/work. Crosses are obvious, and since it was found in a monastery, may be the best approach. In my head, the goal is to have this ready for the A&S competition at Gulf Wars next year.
That's the plan, so we'll see how it works out in practice...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)