Grace with Yarn

 The third set of gloves is also documented to be approximately 1520 Spain.  It’s another pair of ivory/gilt knit gloves, but much more complicated in design than the first set.                       These gloves are 11 13/16 inches by 5 3/4 inches. There are 5 different patterns on the fingers and thumbs, perhaps to portray rings that would otherwise be displayed without the gloves on.  I’m curious to do research into what each of the individual patterns indicate.  Why is there a laurel pattern on the index fingers versus the offset diamonds on the second and fourth?   The same IHS symbol is knit into the back of both hands and this set has an almost Baroque pattern in the cuff, edged with metallic gimp threads. The director held the gloves up and was able to show that this set is fully lined in a pale green/blue silk; likely to protect the gilt threads as well as to protect the bishop’s hands. I’m seeing the construction of the fingertips coming to a much sharper point than the other

 The next set of gloves I examined is Italian, documented as early 17th century.  This set is 11 1/4 inches by 5 1/2 inches. This set is made with green silk and gilt thread.  I’m not sure what was used to dye the silk green, but it’s a striking change from the typical ivory/gilt gloves. On both gloves in this set, there’s a specific seam closing up the outside of the hand, hand sewn with linen thread instead of being knit in the round.   For construction, the fingertips ended with a small decrease in the last half inch of the finger.  It looks like the tips themselves were sewn closed with the same linen thread.  Or possibly the tips were reinforced with the linen thread to handle wear and tear. The thumb construction is fascinating to me.  Instead of typical (modern) glove construction which has a hole and stitches are picked up around the whole to create the thumb, this shows a distinct gusset for the base of the thumb, increasing in a wedge shape before picking up the inside stitch

 I know that I've only talked about one set of gloves so far.  More are coming, I promise! In the meantime, I've started my submission project for St. Eligius. My goal is to see if I can spin fine enough to get to the same gauge as the funeral pillow and ecclesicastical gloves- 26 stitches to the inch with size 0000 needles. To accomplish that, I'm working on the science side of Arts and Sciences. I've got two sets each of drop spindles, one each of wood and metal (tahkli)- and each drop spindle weighs either 15 or 19 grams. I have 3 sets of fiber: 100% merino, a 50/50 merino/silk blend, and 100% silk. There will be a total of 6 "sets"- showing the unspun fiber, spun fiber, two strand plied yarn and a small swatch knit on size 0000. I want to see if the type/weight of drop spindle is a factor for each type of fiber. I've started with the 50/50 and my 19 gram tahkli drop spindle.  This fiber is lovely and is spinning up great. There is some apprehension abo

 The first set of gloves I examined at the MFA is the pair from 16th century Spain.      They are a fairly large pair, measuring 11 inches by 5 1/inches. There is a large medallion design on the back of each hand with the letters IHS- a Jesuit symbol. The fingers and thumb are unadorned with a fairly simple offset striping pattern repeated on the cuff. One interesting design aspect of this set is that it is seamed up the outside edge and the seam is covered up with a twisted ribbon edging.  By looking at the inside of the glove, it appears that the edging and the seams are sewn together with a linen thread. The bottom edge of the gloves are finished with a metallic trim, folded in half and sewn down, again with the linen thread.  There are also large tassels that came with this set- one attached via silk ribbon and one detached. The gloves are fully lined in silk- originally white, I would surmise, but now age-faded to an ivory/taupe color. The body of the gloves are knit in the round

 This past Friday, I had an appointment at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Mass.  It was an amazing experience. The MFA has four sets of ecclesiastical gloves from the 15th-17th centuries from Spain and Italy.  I had the opportunity to examine them up close and take many pictures. I’m going to go through each set of gloves in separate posts, but wanted to put in some teasers. 16th century Spain Dimensions: 11 inches by 5 1/2 inches 17th century Spain Dimensions: 9 by 4 inches Early 17th century Italy Dimensions: 11 1/4 inches by 5 1/2 inches 15th-16th century Spain, approximately 1520 Dimensions: 11 13/16th inches by 5 3/4 inches Each of these sets were done in silk and gilt-silver threads, hand knit. I’ve got some fantastic pictures including close ups of the threads which show the number of threads per stitch- typically 3 strands of silk vs 2 strands of the gilt-silver. I can’t wait to do a deep dive into each of these sets, the meanings of the symbols and the various construction

Why do all the best ideas for projects happen when you're trying to fall asleep at night?  You know what I mean, when you're right on the verge of drifting off to sleep and your mind decides, "Hey, would this be a great project/fascinating idea to explore?" I did actually get up out of bed to write down some quick thoughts so I wouldn't forget them. In relation to the Bishop's gloves I want to make- it seems like there's a couple of different aspects I can explore with various projects. 1. Recreating the gloves using one specific example and doing a match or taking different designs from different gloves and combining them, with as close to the correct gauge as I can. 2. Working out the most common pattern of construction and doing a plain set of gloves first to show the construction steps instead of the decorations. 3. (Most crazy idea) Work on my spinning technique using a tahkli cotton spindle to see if I can spin merino fiber thin enough for a double p