A Cowl and a Pair of Socks

I haven't written for quite a while about what I've been knitting, but I have finished two things in January and February, so it's time to present them.

I haven't knitted many pairs of socks so far, but decided a while ago that maybe I should knit more of them, and I made a pair for my daughter for Christmas. I also decided that I ought to try wearing hand-knit socks myself, instead of knitting them just for other people. (Can't say yet how that's going to turn out.)

So I bought some sock yarn in November from Loop, in Camden Passage, for a pair of socks for me.  It's Lang Jawoll Sock Yarn, in Caramel.  The pattern is from Cat Bordhi's book, Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles (although actually I knitted my socks on one circular needle, using the magic loop method).  The pattern I chose has a design of Bavarian twisted stitches - I went to a workshop on Bavarian twisted stitches two years ago and have been looking for a suitable project to do more.

This was I think my 6th pair of socks (apart from a heelless spiral pair), and the previous pairs were knitted toe-up.  But this pair were knitted top-down.  That is the traditional way to knit socks, so I'm perhaps a bit backwards to start knitting top-down at this stage.  The heel shaping is also, I'm told, a traditional method, with a heel-flap, and a sort of triangular base to the heel.  I don't much like it, to be honest - the triangular piece doesn't seem very natural.  It's also the first time I have grafted the toes of socks.   They are very nice socks, but I think I'll go back to knitting socks toe-up in future. 

The other thing I have made since Christmas is a Moebius cowl.  I went to a workshop at the Guild Convention last July, led by Fiona Morris, and I've been intending to knit a Moebius cowl ever since.  I bought the yarn at the Knitting & Stitching Show last November - a discontinued Debbie Bliss super chunky yarn called Winter Garden, which is a surprising mix of llama, wool, silk and linen.  The colour is called Copper.

A Moebius strip is a surface with only one side and one edge.  You can make one from a strip of paper, and joining the two ends after putting a half-twist into the strip.  And you can knit a Moebius cowl in the same way - knit a rectangle, twist it and join the ends e.g. by grafting.  But it's much more satisfying to a knit a Moebius strip directly, with one side and one edge, and you can do that.  The cast on becomes embedded in the middle of the knitting, and isn't an edge - the only edge is created by the cast off.

  (I've posed it on an up-turned mixing bowl, in case you're wondering.)

Fiona suggested a diagonal rib as a possible stitch pattern that would work well.   It's a bit mind-boggling that if you keep knitting a diagonal rib, always going in the same direction, you get a cowl with a chevron pattern.

To repeat: the cast on is in the middle, between the ribs going in the opposite directions, and the cast-off edge is at the top and bottom, but is actually just one edge.  Best not to think about it too much.   

More Knitting Needles

As part of the Big Clear Up at Lee Mills last week, we did a lot of work sorting out knitting needles. They were left over from Hook and Needle Week in 2014, when we did a lot of sorting out of not just crochet hooks and knitting needles, but all kinds of tools and gadgets, such as yarn holders.

We must have had thousands of knitting needles at Lee Mills before Hook and Needle week, donated over the years.  Many weren't paired up, so a lot of the work in 2014 was putting pairs together and identifying the odd ones.  Quite a lot of different makes of knitting needles were extracted for he collection at that stage.   At the end of Hook and Needle Week, I think everyone was tired of sorting knitting needles, and so the rest got put aside.

Last week, we returned to them and sorted through a crate of mostly grey needles - mostly enamelled metal, some plastic.  A lot were the very common Aero and Milward needles, but occasionally there were other brands in the crate, so we were picking those out.  We are disposing of all the duplicates, but we found several dozen pairs that should go in the collection.

Some of them were branded with the names of spinners that I know from pattern leaflets - Copley, Vyella, Don Maid, Jester, Cronit.  They are mostly represented by just one pair of needles, but a couple are more common:  Robin (and Robinoid),  and Beehive Brand (Patons & Baldwins). 

Robin knitting needles

 
There are a lot more brands that I never heard of before - and to be honest, they are are pretty similar grey enamelled metal needles, with only the brand name to distinguish them: Bienna, Ibex, Fearnside, Poppy, Pixilite, Bouquet, ....

Poppy knitting needles 

One name I knew already is Stratnoid: in the 1920s, Stratnoid needles were made of duralumin, an aluminium/manganese alloy.  They are very nice to knit with - light and strong.  And shiny, a pleasant change from grey. But last week, I found needles of a much later Stratnoid design, which are the usual grey enamel, sadly.

Stratnoid knitting needles

But at least this design is different from most of the others because I can approximately date it, from an ad in 1968.

We have now worked through all the assorted metal needles.  A lot (the duplicates) will be re-homed, and we have expanded the knitting needle collection with the rest. 

All week, I was hoping to find a knitting needle brand not listed in Susan Webster's mammoth list of knitting needle brands, that you'll find here.  But whenever I looked in her list for some strange name I had never heard of, I found that Susan was there before me.  With just two possible exceptions: AKE and Vulcan. But I quite expect to find that they are just variations of brands that she already knows.... 

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Patons Lucelle

Whatever happened to January?  It doesn't feel like we've had 31 days since the New Year, and yet here we are, past the end of January and galloping through February. Anyhow....

Last week we were busy at Lee Mills having a big clear up (or Big Clear Up) - things that had been sorted once but not quite finished, things that had got into a bit of a mess,...  Mostly I spent the week sorting out knitting needles (more later).  And in a drawer that probably hasn't been opened for years, we found a long-forgotten cache of 1950s knitting wool.

It's Patons Lucelle Fine Ply, and as you can see I found some Lucelle pattern leaflets elsewhere in the Guild collection.

Each ball has a ticket buried in the middle:

It is very fine - we should probably call it lace weight now, I think.  The earliest leaflet I found (from 1954) is for a 'Shetland-pattern jumper' and is knitted on 16s and 17s.  I can't find a knitting needle conversion chart that goes below a 14 (2mm), but from a British wire gauge conversion chart, it seems that a 16 is 1.6mm, and a 17 is 1.4mm.  Or to put it another way, the tension specified in the pattern, for stocking stitch on size 16 needles is 54 stitches and 78 rows to 4 inches/10cm.  Here's the illustration, should you feel inspired to have a go.  (It only takes 4oz. (about 100 g.) of yarn, so at least it should be a thrifty knit.)

It has three vertical panels of a lacy pattern on the front, but unfortunately the leaflet illustration doesn't show the lace clearly - you would have to knit a swatch to see what it looks like.

As the ticket with each ball says, Lucelle was a blend of wool, angora and nylon.  It was intended as a luxury yarn, in imitation of cashmere.  It seems to have been introduced in the early 1950s: I found an ad from November 1952, for "PATONS LUCELLE WOOL -- The New Cashmere Wool".  It was priced at 2/6 per ball.  2/6  is directly equivalent to 12½p, so now that seems remarkably cheap, but the same ad gave the prices for 'Purple Heather Wool', 3-ply and 4-ply as 1/5 per ounce (7p) and  'Patons Super Fingering, 2-ply and 3-ply, as 2/- per ounce (10p).  Since Lucelle was sold in ½ ounce balls, it cost 2½ times as much as Super Fingering, weight for weight.

Later Lucelle patterns, like Patons 114, were knitted to a looser tension, on 13s and/or 14s.

And even men were allowed the luxury of Lucelle:  you could knit the pullover or long-sleeved  sweater in Patons 124 below either in 3-ply or in one strand of 2-ply and one strand of Lucelle.  The leaflet says "Lucelle and 2-ply knitted together make a fabric of the utmost affluence -- but there's also a down-to-earth version in 3-ply."  (Though a hand-knitted long-sleeved sweater in 3-ply seems very luxurious to me, and not at all 'down-to-earth'.) 

James Norbury, who was the chief designer for Patons throughout the 1950s, used Lucelle in The Penguin Knitting Book (published 1957) for two evening jumpers.  Here's the nicer one.

Lady's Evening Jumper in Lucelle, from The Penguin Knitting Book, by James Norbury

It has a chevron band around the low neckline, with a small cluster of pearls and sequins on each point - very elegant.  I am sure that James Norbury had a team of knitters at his disposal, so he would have had no qualms about designing a jumper that requires a tension of 42 stitches and 52 rows to 4inches/10cm. on size 13 needles.

The latest Lucelle leaflets I have found so far are from 1960.  Patons leaflet 1054 is for 'Two Lucelle Lovelies':

 I think that by 1960, there were fewer knitters with the patience to knit sweaters with very fine yarns - a new generation of knitters had not had the experience of clothes rationing, when you had to make a very little wool go a long way.  So even 3-ply knitting was beginning to seem like hard work, and I suspect that Lucelle disappeared not long after 1960.  Now we would knit lacy scarves and shawls with such a fine yarn, on much larger needles -- much less work per square inch.