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Up the old style knitting learning curve.
This morning I oiled the olive wood knitting stick that I whittled on
Monday. Total time to make this knitting stick was about 3/4 hour - the advantage of working green woodis that it works very fast. It is quite crude, but whittled olive wood has a wonderful feel. A hole bored in the end accepts a US#1 needle. So, then using the new knitting stick, I knitted some swatches from a 2-ply wool yarn with a weight of about 1080 yards per pound using home made US #1 steel needles. (The yarn manufacturer (Cottage Craft) recommends # 6 needles for "fisherman's" sweaters knit from this yarn.) This was the first time that I knit fabric that looked and felt like an a real, traditional fisherman's gansey. The guage is between 7 and 8 stitches per inch, the fabric is firm and tight, yet sitll soft enough to be comfortable. The stitches are clearly, even boldly, defined; and yet because of the small size of the stitches, the patterns have a real delicacy and elegance. It is a fine quality, that I have not often seen in modern textiles. It is the first time that I knit something that looked like the pictures in Gladys Thompson. This morning's swatches are far and away the most attractive knitting that I have ever done - and they are just practice swatches. Knitting 7.5 stitches per inch with such a heavy yarn requires more tension in the feed yarn than I can sustain using the continental style of knitting. I am pointing out that using the continental method with US #1 needles requires a thinner yarn and thus, produces much less stitch definition. Attempting to do similar knitting using the continental method resulted in hand cramps within minutes. The knitting stick allowed much greater speed than I could achive with the English method, and I found patterns easier using the knittng stick than when I was holding both yarn and needle in my right hand. The exact shape of the knitting stick does not seem to be really critical. For example, the position of the knitting stick in the belt or apron strings can be adjusted to compensate for the (mis)alignment of the hole bored to hold the needle. I do not think that wooden, plastic, or even aluminum knitting needles will work or endure when working at this high tension. Experiment! Try it, you will like it! Aaron |
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