Welcome and the beginning

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 Welcome to my new blog.  I’m Engracia de Madrigal, known commonly as Gracie, in the East Kingdom of the Society for Creative Anachronisms.

I’m using this blog to document my assorted projects pertaining to knitting, dying and spinning.

I am an avid knitter and have been since I was young.  I’ve picked up spinning on both a drop spindle and wheel along the way and want to expand my knowledge to dying fibers and yarns.

My first big project was the entry for the St. Eligius competition in November 2022.  I’ve chosen to build off of my persona and focus on 15th century knit objects.

http://this.is/harpa/saga_prjons/spaensku_pudarnir.html


I am working on recreating a knit panel of a pillow found in a Spanish tomb from Prince Fernando de la Cerda from 1275.  The pillow was used as a burial pillow, but there is also a lot of evidence of heraldic pillows being used in everyday life.  It was located in a stone tomb in the convent of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas, in the north of Spain.  It has the Castille castle and the French lily, from the Castille family Heraldry and Prince Fernando’s mother Queen Blanche of France.

I used 50% wool and 50% silk blended yarn, lace weight size, with metal circular knitting needles, size 0000.  I chose to use circular needles instead of straight needles because I was afraid of dropping stitches while I worked on it.  The metal needles were because I have a tendency to knit tightly and was concerned that I would break wooden/bamboo needles.  The choice of the 50/50 mix for yarn was due to the cost of 100% silk yarn.  I chose to put this on a frame as it is still a work in progress, and I wanted to display both sides of the panel.




The original pillow showed 268 stitches per row, at 26 stitches to the inch.  My own gauge, on the size 0000 needles, managed 20 stitches to the inch.  Each row took approximately an hour to knit and it is still currently a work in progress, but the feedback I received from this competition was truly helpful.

HRM Mohammad and Corotica called me into court at the end of the day.  I hadn’t anticipated winning the novice portion of the competition because there were so many great entrants.  However, they did see fit to include me in the Order of the Golden Lyre.  This is an award given by the Sovereign or Consort (individually or together) to acknowledge an individual or group whose single work or performance, either displayed publically or in an Arts & Sciences display at a Royal Progress, manifests and represents the fire and passion of the East Kingdom arts.  I was honored to be recognized this way.

The next couple of projects I have in mind are recreating some of the ecclesiastical gloves that are currently stored at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA and dipping my hand into the dying process.



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St. Eligius Recap 2023

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