Grace with Yarn

 I've been steadily working on my project for Kingdom A&S.  Not posting any pictures until after the competition at this point.  First time I'll be competing on this level and honestly, pretty nervous. At Yule yesterday, over the course of multiple conversations, I got some new directions to go for my documentation.  I got dinged on my documentation at my first St. Eligius competition, so I want to make sure I do it right for this level. I'm working off of an extant piece and recreating it.  Only problem is that I cannot find any other examples of the thing EXCEPT for the one I have.  Textile archeology (which is fascinating), took me to some different textile museums...who don't have pictures of their collections online.  Then I found my way to Archeological Textiles Review, which sounds great and could be so informative.  And then I keep banging my head against things that are woven but tagged as knit.  So, being smart and stepping away...

 One of my projects this fall was a change and a bit of a challenge. Mistress Alys asked me to create the Master of Defense glove for Master Yehuda.  I decided to move away from my preferred medium of yarn and chose to do black work embroidery instead. I went through my resources and located patterns that I felt would work best. I worked with 28 count Aida cloth and regular embroidery thread.  The glove is a purchased deerskin fencing glove. The pictures may not be the best, but I was happy with how it came out.  And I believe Yehuda liked it as well. I still have the second glove to embroider before I go back to my knitting.

 Sometimes the smallest things have unexpected consequences. At St. Eligius last November, a  A&S competitor took time away from her own display to talk to me about mine.  The spinning experiment did not come out the way I thought and she and I discussed possible reasons why.  We geeked out as fiber nerds do. Then, this lovely person showed me a new technique for spinning that I had never tried before and it blew my mind.  I still haven't quite gotten the hang of it, but I'm working on it. I couldn't tell you exactly how this interaction affected me, but it made a huge, lasting impact. When I heard that Morwenna was being elevated to the Laurel at Harper's Retreat, I knew I wanted to do something to show my appreciation. I proceed to scour through patterns until I found something I liked and then combined a couple for the look I was going for. A simple set of fingerless mitts with the Laurel leaves around the wrists, in wool. She didn't have to share her kno...

 I am fascinated. I downloaded a paper online titled "The knitting crafts in Europe from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century" and finally sat down to read it. OMG. The majority of the paper focused on the establishment of guilds for hand knitters across Europe and the hypothesized migration of such.  The author talked more about the western and northern parts of Europe instead of Italy and Spain (my focus) but it's giving me some side trails to explore. Apparently guilds didn't really come about until the sixteenth century as far as hand knitting is concerned.  However, the author states "The guild of knitters in Barcelona, established in 1496, was active."  So therefore I should be able to locate information about the hand knitting guilds in Barcelona and hopefully other Spanish cities. Documentation also shows that it was considered more of a "cottage industry" prior to that, before the increase in demand for knit items. There's mention ...

The holiday season got away from me and things have been hectic since November which is why I haven’t posted.  So sorry for that. So, to pick up where I left off, here’s what’s been happening in my fiber experiences: In January 2024 I was honored to be made a companion of the Order of the Maunche, which is the East Kingdom’s kingdom level award for arts and sciences.  I received an amazing scroll from Mistress Charis Accipiter who included a knit glove, drop spindle, spinning wheel, sheep and even yarn chicken.  (Yarn chicken is what it’s called when you’re at the end of the knitting/crochet project and you’re not sure you’ll have enough yarn.) One of the medallions I received which I will cherish is from Lady Mairi Crawford, my cadet.  She created a stunning piece that can be worn as a necklace or pin.  I’m in awe of her skills. The same day, I was able to gift a newly completed Laurel shawl for my dear friend Charitye Dale who received her Laurel in July 2023....

 This past Saturday I participated in my second A&S competition at St. Eligius in Dragonship Haven. My project was actually a science experiment instead of something created in an attempt to push my limits. When I created the funeral pillow panel last year, the extant piece was made out of 100% silk and was 26 stitches to the inch.  Using a 50/50 wool/silk blend of commercial yarn, I was able to achieve 20 stitches to the inch on size 0000 needles. I'm comfortable spinning fairly fine yarn, so my experiment was to see if I could spin fiber fine enough to knit a swatch which would meet the 26 stitches per inch parameter. Using two dropspindles that each weighed 19 grams, one wooden and one tahkli, I spun two samples each of 50/50 merino/silk and 100% mulberry silk.  Each sample was then plied (double strand) on a different dropspindle and knit into a swatch 30 stitches wide using size 0000 needles. I chose the two different types of spindles because the Tahkli would ha...