English Notebook: Three

Last Bits and Bobs

True to my promise, these photographs from the England trip have no relationship to one another except that what I saw, I liked. And what I liked, I tried to photograph.

This was especially challenging in a setting like King's College Chapel in Cambridge, where the lighting was extremely subdued. It was tough to get a decent shot of anything without recourse to a tripod, so the haul was very small. I suppose I could have tried lying flat on my back in the aisle, as one misguided tourist did; but as he was politely but firmly escorted to the door I'm glad I didn't.

I'm more for details than sweeping views in a space like that. Sure, the vaults and the stained glass are spectacular. They've also been photographed thousands of times. I spent a lot of time admiring them, but the camera turned on for smaller things.





The book above was on a chorister's desk. I had to shoot it "blind" by craning my short, peasanty arm over the top of the desk, therefore the odd angle and framing. The note at the bottom of the cover says NOT TO BE TAKEN AWAY. I've been listening to the annual "Festival of Lessons and Carols" live broadcast from the chapel for years, so it was more than a little thrilling to stand where the music is made.

Even walking past London's Greatest Hits (like the statue of Eros at the center of Piccadilly Circus) I tend to be more attracted to obscurities. These are carved into the entrance of a theater spitting distance from the Piccadilly tube station, half-hidden by posters.



One of the things I notice, in looking them over, is how much of what I love in the London cityscape boils down to color and pattern.



Near Portobello Road. (Click it.)



Somewhere in Kensington. (Click it.)

No visit to London is complete without my friend Jane, who is (surprise) a knitter. Jane arranged for us to have dinner at Brown's Hotel. (I had grouse, of which there is no picture. It was delicious.)

Jane introduced us to her splendid fellow, Nick, who is not only charming but the perfect size to model the Fair Isle sweater Jane had just finished. She took endless pains selecting the colors, none of which shows properly in the photograph because the aggressively trendy hotel bar we were in was lit primarily (and dimly, of course) with purple lights. (Because nothing flatters the human complexion like purple light.)

Still, here is Nick and the sweater.



The sweater isn't even for him. He just agreed to model it. Jane knit it for somebody else. Is that a cooperative boyfriend, or what?

That's not even the most of it. The rank and file of knitters have to carry our work in bags. Not so Jane. Not since she met Nick, who's in a band, and who gave her a yarn road case. A yarn road case. So she can tour.



Love you, Jane. You'll want to hang on to Nick with both hands, dear. And he to you.

There will be one more England entry. About...shopping.

Bridal Suite

Talk to any professional artist or designer you can find (seedy bars and discount grocery stores are good places to look) and chances are they will agree that inspiration is probably the most misunderstood ingredient in the murky chowder of creativity.

In movies, inspiration looks much like the manic half of manic depression. The artist runs amok in montage, flinging paint around in a large, white studio while loud bits of Mahler (or possibly the Pointer Sisters singing "I'm So Excited") flood the soundtrack. He is hyperkinetic, unfettered, unstoppable. He is not the person you want living in the apartment upstairs. But he can't help himself...he is inspired.

I admit that occasionally, out of nowhere, the Inspiration Fairy socks you in the gut with a full-grown idea so damned good it almost lifts you right off the barstool. But if you intend to make a living from your ideas, and you only sit down to work when that happens, you'd better have a rich uncle or a back-up plan in something nice and stable like accounting or dog grooming.

Inspiration (for me, anyhow) is less like a lightning bolt than like being constantly pecked by a flock of unfocused chickens. Here a peck, there a peck, until the combined pecking reaches critical mass and you can't take it any more and you scream, "Stop, chickens! Stop! Stop!"* and you sit down and draw the cartoon.

This can be every bit as unpleasant as it sounds.

The only way to avoid going mad, which usually happens to artists in movies shortly after the Pointer Sisters stop singing, is to learn to love your chickens. Think of the pecking as their way of alerting you to little details that will move you along, by slow inches, towards something good and whole and new.

And now I want to show you some drawings of old wedding dresses.

That sounds like a non sequitur, I know, but the old wedding dresses were inspiring. Everything you've just read was intended to lead up to them. But then I introduced the chicken motif, and it hasn't come out where I thought it would, and it's almost dinner time so I'm not going back and rewriting it. Sorry.

Inspiration at the Chicago History Museum

This is my second year as a member of the Chicago History Museum, which not so long ago was the Chicago Historical Society. In the old incarnation, it was just as clubby and dusty as it sounds–mostly of interest to the people around here who have major streets named after them.

After a grand renovation and expansion, however, it has become one of my favorite places in the city. Along with a first-class permanent exhibit about the Great Fire of 1871 and several rooms of Lincolniana unmatched by anything at the Smithsonian, they have frequent and splendid shows of items from the textiles collection.

The latest is called "I Do! Chicago Ties the Knot," and it's a doozy. Wedding gear from the mid-19th century (when Chicago sprang, almost overnight, from the mud) to the present day, including bridal gowns, corsetry, going-away attire, and men's costumes–including a pair of matching tuxedos worn by a gay couple, thankyouverymuch.

Oh, and there's a perfectly preserved 120-year-old top tier from a wedding cake, just for good measure.

They don't allow photography in the exhibit, but I spent a fun afternoon there, sketchbook in hand, drawing interesting details under the puzzled eye of the guard.

Here are a few. I plan to go back soon and collect more.

I would write something about the chickens here if I could think of a good tie-in, but it's Thai delivery night and I want my panang curry.

*If it's near Christmas and so they happen to be French hens, I suppose you could scream "Arretez-vous, poulardes, s'il vous plaît!" If they're German chickens, I got nothing, but that almost never happens.

An Interlude with Evelyn Clark

Last Christmas, I chose Evelyn Clark's Flower Basket Shawl as a present for my mother. It was a success on all fronts. Mom liked it, and I liked knitting it. I liked it so much, in fact, that I made a very public offer to feed Evelyn bonbons and tweak her dear little nose.

Now Evelyn's famed Swallowtail Shawl has been chosen by the readers of Interweave Knits as one of five designers to be featured in their new, free eBook, The Best of Interweave Knits Readers' Choice Awards. And in spite of my earlier statements, she was not too creeped out to answer a few questions about her work and her inspirations.

Q. You're best known for your lace designs, particularly your lace triangles. What was your first encounter with lace? Was it love at first sight, or an acquired taste?

A. I was really inspired by Robert Powell's lace shawls, and it was while knitting them that I fell in love with lace. The fabulous Icelandic Three-Cornered and Long Shawls book (Prihyrnur og Langsjol) by Sigridur Halldorsdottir* has many top-down shawls, and while studying the shawls in that book I realized I could use a top-down construction for a shawl I wanted to do as a result of the listing of the salmon. That became the Pacific Northwest Shawl, thanks to Bev Galeskas of Fiber Trends who was willing to publish my results.

Q. Tell me a bit about your design process. For example, do you like to start with sketches? By picking up needles and playing with yarn? Some other way?

A. I love to graph, and I do that with a pencil and a very large eraser. Then I start the piece, and start over if it does not work. Sometimes I have to knit the whole piece to see if it works and sometimes more than once. The beauty of being able to design for my own amusement is that I can take all the time I want.

Q. So many of your designs are based on natural motifs and indicate a very close, loving observation of the natural world. What's your favorite way to get back to nature?

A. I do like to garden and hike or walk. This year I also am able to travel more, and I am looking forward to finding new inspiration on those adventures.

Q. When you spin, what's your preferred equipment?

My favorites are the Bosworth mini spindles, and I have knit four shawls from yarn I spindle spun and plies. I love that spindles are so portable and highly recommend Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' book Spinning in the Old Way for anyone interested in spindling.

As a prize from the Wild Fibers Magazine/Buffalo Gold contest for the Heartland Lace Shawl, I got a Lendrum single treadle wheel. Having the wheel makes me acceptable at spinning retreats, but at home, I keep returning to the spindles.

Q. If you could be any fiber-producing animal, what kind of fiber-producing animal would you be, and why?

A. Some of the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest had a little wooly dog whose fur they used for fiber. Since I am not fond of standing outside in all sorts of weather, I think I would be better at being a dog that could creep close to a fire occasionally.

* * * * *

The Best of Interweave Knits Readers' Choice Awards will be available for free download from the Knitting Daily Web site until 5 pm MST on May 15, 2008.

To view and purchase more of Evelyn Clark's designs, visit her Web site.

This is the final stop of the week-long blog tour celebrating the release of The Best of Interweave Knits Readers' Choice Awards. For previous stops, visit:

Monday, April 14: Sandi Wiseheart on Smoking Hot Needles

Tuesday, April 15: Norah Gaughan on Lolly Knitting Around

Wednesday, April 16: Kate Gilbert on Moth Heaven

Thursday, April 17: Stefanie Japel on Chez Aristote

*Now available as a reprint from dear, old Schoolhouse Press.

Her Best Friend Is a Fairy

Gather 'round, children, because do I have a book to share with you.

It's called The Mary Frances Knitting and Crocheting Book, or Adventures Among the Knitting People, and it was originally published in 1918. My copy is a handsome, hardcover facsimile reprint from the wonderful folks at Lacis and I will be forever grateful to them for making it available.



This was the last of long series* of how-to books starring Mary Frances, a little girl who had previously encountered the Kitchen People, the Thimble People, the Doll People and the Garden People. Apparently wherever she went, inanimate objects around her came to life and spoke to her. Nowadays we have medicines for that sort of thing; but Mary Frances just put up with it and learned to sew, knit, keep house, and cultivate begonias.

As The Mary Frances Knitting and Crocheting Book opens, our heroine is preparing for knitting and crochet lessons under the austere gaze of Great-Aunt Maria.

We don't learn much of Aunt Maria's backstory. She's either an old maid or a widow; but in any case she lives by herself with only her shawl and her bitterness to keep her warm. Her tongue drips the purest hydrochloric acid; a bracing counterpoint to the other characters, who wrap up every speech with a little pink bow.

Aunt Maria may well be my favorite person in the entire book. She's always ready to put the lid on Mary Frances when she swings manic and starts to bubble over. For example:

"Oh won't that be splendid, Aunt Maria?" cried the little girl. "I do want to learn so much!"

"It seems to me very strange that you do not know anything about such work," said her aunt. "Why, I made your father learn to knit when he was only six years old."

Mary Frances did not tell her Aunt Maria that her father had told her about those lessons, and how he had hated the work because, every time he made a mistake, his aunt would whack his chubby, clumsy fingers with a ruler...

"Mother would like to teach me," said Mary Frances, "but–"

"Your mother was not brought up right," snapped her aunt.

Mary Frances timidly reminds the old dragon that her mother was unable to learn to crochet because she had one lame arm, but auntie dearest accepts this excuse with evident reluctance.

"Oh yes," said Aunt Maria. "I remember now. But your arm doesn't hurt..."

Clearly, this is the sort of woman who believes that making a toddler pull a plow through a cotton field builds character. I just love her.

But we don't get as much of Aunt Maria as I'd like. In the best post-Edwardian fashion, Mary Frances's father is involved in a train wreck while traveling on business and her mother leaves the kids in Maria's care while she (also in the best post-Edwardian fashion) rushes off to nurse him. However, Aunt Maria's busy schedule of baking bread and reading temperance literature doesn't allow her sit around smacking Mary Frances with a ruler all day.

Enter the Knitting People.



They are wacky little band that includes Knit and Knack, the Knitting Needles; Wooley Ball, the ball of yarn; Crow Shay, a (did you see this coming?) mischievous crochet hook; and Yarn Baby, a pushy little yarn doll with flyaway hair who disagrees violently with everything everybody else says at all times. I know this is a knitting book, but I think she should have been a rag doll.

Presiding over all is a good fairy named Fairly Flew. She is so-called because when she helps you with your knitting, people will say your stitches fairly flew off the needles. Also, she is a fairy who flies. Flying fairy Fairly Flew. Say that ten times fast.

Anyhow, while Aunt Maria's down in the parlor playing "The Lost Chord" on the harmonium and crying into her medicinal glass of brandy, the Knitting People jump out of Mary Frances's knitting bag and start ordering her around. Mary Frances, who at this point in her twelve years on earth has already dealt with talking thimbles, brooms and garden implements is not remotely surprised and goes along with it.

The lessons themselves, which are copiously illustrated with drawings and photographs (all superbly reproduced by Lacis) are actually pretty darn good. I'm tiptoeing around the edges of crochet, myself, and have found them to be clear and helpful–no mean feat for a work almost a century old.

And much of the other content is a refreshing change from modern children's pap, as well. Mary Frances learns real skills using real tools and is taught the basics in order to make things on her own using her own ingenuity to benefit herself and others.** And then the housekeeper makes her go outside and play tennis in the fresh air. Really, I can't fault any of it. It's certainly the sort of life I'd try to provide (aside from the hallucinations) for little Euphemia Gladys, my hypothetical daughter.

Mary Frances certainly benefits and within days she's turning out finished objects. Good thing, too. She has this lisping brat of a baby doll, Mary Marie, who unfortunately keeps coming to life to say things like "Mama, foots told," and then Mary Frances has to drop whatever she's doing and crochet a damn pair of slippers. Every five minutes, Mary Marie wants something to cover her cold feet or her cold ears or her cold butt or whatever. And just when Mary Frances gets her warmly dressed, she starts whining for a book bag, a toy ball...it never ends.

I wouldn't be surprised Mary Frances often secretly suspected that Aunt Maria's lonely spinsterhood might be a pleasant alternative to having children.

I need hardly tell you that The Mary Frances Knitting and Crocheting Book, or Adventures Among the Knitting People has, in short order, become one of the treasured gems in my collection. In fact, Lacis has reprinted the sewing book as well and I plan to put it on my wish list. I'm hoping it'll give me a little more dirt on Aunt Maria.

*I first encountered Mary Frances when I pulled a copy of the sewing book out of a pile of garbage (where the weight of the stuff on top was canting the spine) in the rare books room at The Strand in New York City. I asked one of the dim-bulb twentysomethings who worked there to give me a price, which (after a forty-minute wait) he did–rudely. It was standard, marked up by 60%. Too rich for my blood. Frankly, I liked the rare books room at The Strand better when it was staffed by people who loved books instead of young dolts who would better spend their time organizing the goddamned stock instead of surfing the Internet.

**The end of the book even includes patterns for wartime Red Cross knitting.

Knit a Little Lamb: Exciting Conclusion

The Hollywood writers are still on strike, so I figure I got a decent shot at you tuning in to see how the little lamb turns out. You could choose to walk away and watch old episodes of "Bosom Buddies" on DVD, but it would make him cry.



Knitter's choice.

At the end of part two we finished the main shapes and only needed to add small details to finish up. Frankly, I could have covered this all in two installments but I forgot to knit a background swatch to stick the thing on.



Plus it was lunch time and I'd developed an unaccountable craving for souvlaki.

Okay. Pretend the green square (note the garter edges; I love you so much I made the swatch neat and pretty) is the pocket of Abigail's sweater. Whipstitch the lamb body onto it.



It still doesn't look much like a lamb, though. We have to give it a face. And just as we reduced the body to its simplest elements in order to knit it, so we must pick out only the essential details in the face. Happily, there's not a whole lot going on in a lamb's face.



That's all, sister.

Easy enough to render with a bit of doubled sewing thread–chosen in lieu of yarn or embroidery floss because the former is too thick, and the latter is unlikely to stand up to much washing.

Using our simplified sketch as a guide, we add the nose, mouth and beady little eyes.



Now, ears.

You could drive yourself cuckoo knitting two itty-bitty little ear flaps, then painstakingly sew them onto the lamb only to find out they make it look more like an albino bat. But since I've already done that, you don't have to.

Instead, simply embroider a single petal from a lazy daisy on either side, and fill 'em both in with a couple stitches each.



And behold, the lamb.



Awwwwww.

It's not just for babies, either. You can do so much with it! L@@K!



Trendy wine coaster.



Cozy antimacassar.



Avant-garde toupée.



Polishing cloth.



Bookmark.



Smurf hideout.



Ironic disguise.



Cat bed.

* Finis *

Knit a Little Lamb: Part Two

When last we left our little lamb, it looked like this.



As this lamb is going to wind up half inside a sweater pocket, we don't need to think about the legs, just the head and body. In the interest of further simplification, we're going to shift the basic shapes slightly to bring them into alignment, thus.



And that's what we've got to knit first.

This is where you have to draw on your own knowledge, experience, and preferences as a knitter. There are probably as many ways to realize those shapes in knitting as there are knitters. You could, for example, simply knit up two stockinette shapes in the appropriate sizes.

On the other hand, as this lamb will be placed against a stockinette ground, why not try out a textured stitch to give it a little more visual oomph? Maybe the render the fluffy body in moss stitch?

Let's try it. Cast on as many stitches as you think you need, and go.



Not bad. Good enough to continue. In fact, rather than knit two pieces, what if we used texture to suggest the separation between head and body? Maybe render the face in stockinette? And we could throw in a pair of decreases at the "shoulder" line for shaping.



Promising. Enough to go on. I find that when you're improvising like this, it's extremely important to make frequent stops for assessment–something I learned from Maggie Righetti in Knitting in Plain English. When I started knitting I felt guilty about constantly pausing to look at my work, until I read Maggie's sound advice that you should do so to decide if you like it–and rip it back if you don't. That has saved me a lot of time and trouble.

So, here's the finished body and head in one piece.



It's okay. The top corners are a bit sharp, but maybe they can be fudged in the sewing. But the face looks sunken when it should project forward, as a glance at the model shows.



(Awwwwwwww.)

We could undo the head. Or, before we go that far, we could try knitting the lamb a little oval snoot, since that's the bit that really sticks out in the original, and apply it over the stockinette face. Maybe that'd counteract the sunken effect. It'll only take a few minutes.



Hmm. Not bad. Let's sew it down, and tuck a bunch of yarn ends underneath to give it a little extra volume.



And there we are–the basic shapes are in place. It's not quite ready to baaaaaaaa, but it's gettin' there.

Next time, we'll finish up by adding the details to the face and head.

New in the Shop

I was procrastinating feeling inspired a couple of days ago and made up a new design for the shop, which for the moment is on bags and shirts. If there's interest in having it on magnets or journals or cards or whatever, do speak up and I'll see what I can do.



(Yeah, I played Dungeons and Dragons as a kid. You wanna make something of it?)

Knit a Little Lamb: Part One

I remember the first time I read a knitting blog in which the writer described how she often started projects not only without patterns, but without any fixed idea of what she was going to make. She said something akin to, "I just pick up the needles and watch what happens."

That gave me chills.

Back then, I was newly emerged from long, dark years of knitting the same scarf and mittens over and over in solitude, using whatever yarn I happened to find. My proudest technical achievement was figuring out on my own how to work the thumb gore in the mitten pattern. It was incomprehensible to me that person could use yarn and needles as a sketchbook. I'd been "making up" stuff for years on paper; but what sort of freaky genius would you need to be to doodle with wool?

As it turns out, you don't really need to be genius, and I'm proof. When I put up the pictures of Abigail's Sheep in the Meadow sweater, this question came to mind because several of you were kind enough to ask how I'd made the sheep for the pocket. I realized I had no handy answer, because I improvised as I went along. I'd doodled with wool, or in this case a wool/cotton blend. Fancy that.

I've decided it boils down to having these things at your command:

1. enough curiosity to want to deviate from written patterns, or make up your own;
2. a willingness to pause and examine what's in front of you;
3. a willingness to try different approaches until you create what pleases you;
   
4. a working knowledge of basic moves in knitting, including increases, decreases, and the basic effects on the fabric created by knit, purl, and y/o;
5. patience; and
   
6. the understanding that it's just knitting, it's done one stitch at a time at your own pace, and you can undo it if you don't like it.

Since you asked, I 'm going to press my mental rewind button and see if I can reconstruct how I did it.

Mind you, this may prove incredibly boring. But as you asked for it, you have only yourself to blame.

The task before us is:

Knit a lamb to be attached, as appliqué, to the pocket of a baby sweater.

Step One: Take a Good Look at Your Subject

I'm a firm believer in a dictum often expressed by Charles M. Schulz, creator of Peanuts and a personal household god: if you can't draw it realistically, you can't cartoon it convincingly.

Not that you must be able to sketch a photorealistic lamb in order to knit one. No.

But if you're trying to simplify an object in order to render it in stitches, you should have the level of familiarity that comes of from closely examining the original. You can't show everything, so you'll have to determine what the absolutely essential details are. What makes a lamb look like a lamb?

So, in case you don't have a flock in the backyard, here's a photograph of a lamb. (You may pause to say, "Awwwwwwwwww.")



Wait–who said, "Pass the mint sauce?"

That's not my own sheep; I found it online. When you need reference material in a hurry, Google's image search function is your friend. Just be forewarned: seemingly innocent queries like "sheep" or "cupcake" can yield shocking results. Turn on the "safe search" filter if you have a low tolerance for surprises.

Usually, when I'm drawing an object I haven't worked with a whole lot, I don't just look at one picture. If possible, I seek out the real thing and make sketches or photographs on the spot. If that's impossible, I look over photographs of as many as I can in order to synthesize in my head what the essential characteristics are.

In the case of the lamb, you might decide after some concentrated looking that these characteristics communicate "lamb" visually:



Or you might find yourself focused on other aspects. There are no correct answers. This is your lamb, seen through your eyes. You will find your own path to lambishness.

Step Two: Establish a Simple Silhouette

Usually it's the shape or outline of the object, also called the silhouette, that most efficiently communicates at a glance what one is looking at. I find this to be especially true of animals.

Smaller details, like noses, are often suprisingly similar even across species. Here are two noses from that perennially opposed pair, the lion and the lamb.



Simplify them, as in a cartoon, and the similarity is even greater.



Silhouettes are another story. Pull back to reveal the full outline of the head, and you're never going to mistake these two for cousins, even with all other details removed.



Since in this case we're knitting a small, flat item at a relatively large gauge (about five stitches to the inch), our silhouette is extremely important–there won't be much room for smaller details. Furthermore, the silhouette must be reduced to its absolute basics–the simplest and fewest geometric forms.

So, as the final step for today's entry, here's how you might see the major outlines of the sheep you intend to knit.

You need a head.



And you need a body.



Together, they look like this.



Next time, we pick up the needles.

I hope you can bear the suspense.