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...