Washing Socks

Back in February, I went to an exhibition, An English Lady's Wardrobe, at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.  It showed the clothes collected by a local woman, Mrs Tinne, between about 1910 and the 1930s.  It was an astonishing collection - she bought a vast number of outfits which she never wore, sometimes the same dress in different colourways, for instance. She had six children (as well as one who died as a baby) and some of their clothes were on display too.

Sadly (from my point of view), Mrs Tinne doesn't seem to have been much interested in buying knitwear, but I found it a fascinating exhibition even so.  And one exhibit did have a knitting connection: a pair of china feet, described as 'child's sock-dryers'.  They are of glazed earthenware, made by Wedgwood, with a factory mark that dates them to some time between 1907 and 1924. 

The catalogue description says 'Damp socks were drawn over them to dry out', so they were a laundry aid. Perhaps they would balance the other way up, to allow the soles of the socks to dry?  They were a bit baffling, and I had never heard of anything like them for drying socks. 

But then recently I found a reference to china feet for drying socks in an 1895 article in the magazine The Young Woman.  The article, by Mrs Elliott Scrivenor, gives instructions for washing knitted wool garments

"I want to give you a few hints with regard to washing any knitted garments or stockings. First, NEVER let woollen stockings or socks be boiled.  Many persist in this, and it shrinks the wool and thickens it.  They must not be worn sufficiently soiled to require such treatment. ..... Stockings must have soap, but the soap must be made into a lather with warm water, not hot; then wash them gently in the lather, after that wash in two or three waters, the chill just taken off the water, and block them to dry.  A block should be used for everything knitted.  You can now procure china feet for small-sized socks and stockings; other blocks are cut out of box or sycamore wood to the shape and size; they are about half an inch thick, with bevelled edges; the stockings are drawn over them, and left upon them to dry, and in the open air if possible."

So there is confirmation that china feet were used for drying children's socks.  I was interested too in the mention of blocks of wood for drying larger socks and stockings.  Mrs Scrivenor goes on to talk about washing other knitted garments, and says "If you have no block, cover a board with several folds of clean linen, and pin the work out upon it, taking care not to stretch it beyond its right size."  We still talk about 'blocking' a newly-knitted garment as part of finishing it, by wetting or dampening it and laying it on flat surface, adjusting it to the right size and shape.   But if the origin of the term 'blocking' is that blocks of wood were once used, that has been forgotten, as far as I am aware.  You can now buy 'sock-blockers', which are flat sock shapes of plastic or thin plywood, but they are called sock-blockers because they are used for blocking, not because they are blocks of wood.

Mrs Scrivenor also wrote a 'Collection of Knitting & Crochet Receipts' for Patons, then John Paton, Son & Co. Ltd. of Alloa (Scotland), already one of the largest knitting wool spinners in the country.  It was a comprehensive collection of patterns in a book of more than 280 pages, about 9½ by 7¼ inches (24.5cm by 18cm).  The 4th edition, which is in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, is dated 1909.  It is well illustrated with photographs, and looking at some of the children's sock patterns, I suspect that Mrs Scrivenor might have used Wedgwood china feet to pose them on, judging by the squared-off toes. 

Bootikin

But I wonder how practical they were for laundry. How many pairs would you need for each child?  Perhaps not many, even in a wealthy household - Mrs Scrivenor's advice that you shouldn't wear socks until they need boiling suggests that most people didn't change their socks very often. (Poor children probably didn't wear socks at all, and the poorest would have gone barefoot, but Mrs Scrivenor's readers would certainly have been able to provide their children with dainty socks and bootikins like the one illustrated.)  The china feet would take up quite a lot of room, especially in use when they would have had to be in an airy place to allow the socks to dry.  And they are breakable. A full list of the items in Mrs Tinne's Collection is given in the exhibition catalogue, and there is only one pair of china feet.  Perhaps the rest broke, or a single pair was tried as an experiment and not judged worthwhile?  I am not really surprised that they don't seem to have been in common use.

Made in Abyss Socks

Time seems to be behaving very strangely under lock-down.  It seems to be passing very slowly - nothing much is happening, the days blur into one another.  And then I find that it's seven weeks since I last wrote a blog post.

I said in that post that I had nearly finished a pair of socks, and that I would write about them when they were finished.  Well, I finished them a few weeks ago.  (I can't remember when. It was in April.)  Here's the post I said I would write.

To go back to the beginning. When the weather turned cold at the end of last year, I got interested in knitting socks again, purely to keep my feet warm.  And I saw on Ravelry the 'Made in Abyss' sock pattern by the Finnish designer Tiina Kuu.  I liked the look of them - they have a band of little trees (?) in stranded knitting just above the ankle.  (The design is named for a Japanese manga series about a girl and a robot exploring a fearsome Abyss, though I don't know whether the trees have anything to do with the manga.)  I hadn't knitted socks with stranded knitting before, and I though I'd like to try it,  and the heel construction looked really interesting.  (You have to be a really serious knitter to choose a sock pattern for its fascinating heel construction, I think.)

I finished my first pair of Made in Abyss socks in February.  They are in Lang Jawoll sock yarn, in Toffee and Light Grey.  (Tiina Kuu suggests using five gradient-dyed miniskeins, but I think they look equally good in two solid colours.) 

And here's a view of the heel:

The pattern has two options for the heel, one with a gusset at each side of the ankle, and the other with a single gusset at the back. I enjoyed knitting the socks,a nd I liked the end result, so I decided to knit another pair, to try the other heel option.

I made a few other tweaks for the second pair, too.  I did the cuff in double rib, because it's stretchier and I prefer that. I changed the rib section below the band of stranded knitting, so that every round is knit 4, purl 1. In the pattern, alternate rounds are all knit, but I wanted to make that part of the socks slightly more stretchy, too.  I changed the foot part, so that the rib pattern is continued all the way to the toe, because I preferred the look of that.  And finally, I did a spiral toe instead of a conventional toe with a grafted end because I hate grafting.  I did graft the toes on the first pair of socks, but I didn't make a very good job of it.  Really, I much prefer knitting socks toe-up, and it's partly to avoid grafting.   

So here's my second pair of Made in Abyss socks.

The colours are the same Light Grey as before, with Charcoal. I do prefer these to the first pair, just because of the changes I made to suit me, but I like both pairs a lot.

The Lang Jawoll is very nice wool - good to knit with, and it comes in a huge range of colours.  However, each ball has a spool of matching reinforcing thread in the middle.  The idea is that you can knit the heel and toe of your socks using the wool and the reinforcing thread together, so that the socks will last longer. This is supposed to be a bonus. I have tried using the reinforcing thread in an earlier pair of socks, though I decided that it's unnecessary and fiddly.  But even if you want to use it, I don't think you need as much as one spool for a pair of socks, and you get two. (A pair of socks takes two balls of Jawoll, and so you get two spools of reinforcing thread.)   It's wasteful, and the thread is wound onto a plastic bobbin - even if you have a use for all the thread, you're left with waste plastic. Regretfully, I shan't be buying Jawoll again, for that reason.

Vandyke Check Socks

I have been knitting a pair of socks for my sister - just finished them.  My New Year's knitting resolution was to knit both socks of a pair at the same time (to avoid mismatches, not to mention second sock syndrome), starting with this pair.  I tried knitting with two circular needles, but found it too awkward - too much cable to contend with - and so used magic loop with a single circular needle instead. 

The yarn is Regia Graphics Color sock wool.  My sister wanted a pair of socks to wear with her Joules printed rubber ankle boots - I haven't seen them, but here is the matching handbag.

I think the yarn is a pretty good match to the colours in the handbag, especially as I didn't go looking for it, but found it more or less by accident - after my knitting friend Cath Harris died, her family had a coffee morning in aid of the charity Myeloma UK to find homes for some of her extensive stash of wool and other craft materials, and I found it there.

I knitted the socks toe-up, using the same basic construction (German short-row heel, with a gusset) that I have been using recently, because I know it fits me very well. It turns out that my socks fit my sister very well too.

I didn't want to use a complicated design with this variegated yarn, so I chose the Vandyke Check stitch pattern from Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns.  I have used it before - for the first pair of toe-up socks I ever knitted, made for my daughter in 2011.

The pattern really doesn't show up very well, but I do like the texture given by the blocks of knit and purl stitches, so I'm happy with the choice.

I hope you enjoy wearing your socks, Margaret.  I have enough yarn left to knit a pair of socks for me, too, but I think I'll have a break from socks for a while.

Grey

I don't often write about what I'm knitting, until it's finished (in case it all turns out badly).  But I thought I would show you two things I am working on just now. 

At the top is a nearly finished sock for me. The yarn is a sock yarn (blue-faced Leicester and nylon) from Countess Ablaze in Manchester, colour Grey Skies in Manchester.  The pattern is a modified version of the Rosedale socks, from Cable Knits by Ann Kingstone.  The main change to her pattern is at the top - I have not done the complex rose-like cable that Ann designed, and I prefer a ribbed top to a picot edge.  Another change  you can't see in this photo: I have used the heel from Ann's On the Other Foot socks because they have a gusset and fit me very well.  And finally, I (unintentionally) worked some of the cables in the opposite direction to what the pattern specified, but I've decided not to worry about that. 

I have stopped work on the socks, temporarily, to start on a Christmas present for my sister.  (She knows all about it, so I don't need to be secretive.)  It is a scarf in a really luscious brushed alpaca and silk yarn.  The photo above looks completely out of  focus, but it isn't - the yarn is just very very fluffy.  It was dyed by my friend Steph (stephscraftybits on Etsy) in a beautiful mottled grey colourway that she calls Smoke.  The yarn came with a free pattern for a lacy scarf.   It's growing fast (on 6.5mm. needles) and is amazingly soft.

I'll show both socks and scarf again when they are finished. 

Matching Socks

I finished another pair of socks (for me) a couple of weeks ago.   They are like the last two pairs I knitted - the structure is based on the On the Other Foot socks I made in Ann Kingstone and Sarah Alderson's knit-along, but these are quite plain, double rib.  I had some variegated sock yarn I wanted to use, so a fancy pattern wouldn't have shown up well.

The yarn was dyed for me by my friend Steph of Millhouse Designs (stephscraftybits on Etsy).  The special thing about the yarn is that she dyed two strands together, so that the colour changes happen in the same places.  So knitting a sock from each strand means that they match. 

I wanted colours that aren't too exciting (I'm not into wearing brightly coloured socks yet), so they are grey at the toe, turning into indigo blue at the cuff.  With winter in mind, I made the leg part longer than the last pair I made.  They are proving very cosy.  I'll knit some more.  I have two skeins of variegated sock yarn that are basically grey - I should be safe colourwise with those (not too exciting) and I think that they might suit a fancy pattern too.

Chambers' Bell Gauge

A friend has been collecting knitting needle gauges recently.  She found that she had two examples of Chambers' Bell Gauge, so has generously given one to the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.  Here it is:

The gauge has the Royal arms, "G. CHAMBERS & C^O", "BELL GAUGE" and "PATENTED 17 SEP^R 1847".  Sheila Williams, in her book The History of Knitting Pin Gauges, illustrates this gauge and a version that gives the address of George Chambers' business:  Priory Needle Mills, Studley, Warwickshire.

George Chambers was the first to make needle gauges in a bell shape, which became almost the standard for needle gauges for a very long time.  We have around twenty, of different makes, in the Guild collection, including these:

The bright green Emu gauge in the centre is from the late 1940s, so that bell gauges were produced for 100 years, following the 1847 patent.

The main difference between the Chambers gauge and later bell gauges is that it measured much finer needles - the smallest size is a 28.  On the old British scale, the larger the number, the finer the needle.  I can't find a needle size conversion chart that goes below a 14 (2 mm.), but the needle sizes were the same as the old British Standard Wire Gauge, and conversion tables for wire give size 28 as 0.3759mm.   (At the opposite end of the scale, the largest size on the Chambers gauge is size 1, roughly equivalent to 7.5mm, so quite chunky.)

I cannot imagine knitting with anything finer than 1mm. - less than 0.5mm. seems impossible.  What thread could you knit with such a fine needle?  We do have very fine crochet hooks in the Guild collection, where the hook part at the end is barely visible, but I don't know whether the Chambers' Bell Gauge could have been used to measure crochet hooks.  (The sizing of crochet hooks in the 19th century is in any case very mysterious, as far as I'm concerned.)

Sheila Williams says in her book that George Chambers died in 1865 - his company was in financial difficulties before that, and seems to have disappeared shortly after his death.  Well before the end of the 19th century, other companies were making bell-shaped needle gauges. One that became very common was Walker's Bell Gauge, with sizes from 1 to 24 (0.56mm.) - there are still many surviving, and knitting patterns around the end of the 19th century often specified this gauge to measure needle size.   

But evidently for some people, Chambers' Bell Gauge remained the standard long after George Chambers' death.  'Muriel', who wrote a column called 'Feminine Fancies, Foibles and Fashions' in the Sheffield Weekly Telegraph in the 1890s and 1900s, sometimes gave a short knitting or crochet pattern and specified that the size of knitting needles or crochet hooks should be measured using Chambers' gauge.  Here is one of her offerings, from December 1895, appropriate for the approaching cold weather:

COMFORTS FOR YOUNG AND OLD ALIKE. 

A most useful gift at this time of year is a pair of night socks, and the directions that follow are so simple that any child, boy or girl, can carry them out, and produce a most acceptable offering to those they love, for without distinction of age, or sex, night socks add much to the comfort of all who suffer from cold feet. Tiny children's comfort can be provided by diminishing the number of the stitches. The size quoted is a medium size, and the colours named can be substituted by any others that may be preferred. Take steel pins No. 13, Chambers' bell gauge. Two needles only required. 1 oz. red, single Berlin wool, and 2 oz. black ditto, or any good contrasting colours. Cast on 72 stitches; knit 2 plain and 2 purl alternately for about two inches, then commence with red wool, and knit about an inch and three-quarters; then go on with the black wool for three inches. After that knit with red for another inch and three-quarters; then use black wool, knit two inches. Cast off, fold the knitting together, and join the ends.  Run a narrow piece of elastic inside, about an inch from the top of the sock: finally ornament with a bow of ribbon. When the foot is put in it the sock shapes itself.  Among the sick and aged poor gifts of these inexpensive sleeping socks would find ready and grateful acceptance. 

[Muriel evidently didn't have a great repertoire of knitting patterns, for she repeated this one exactly in 1902, and again in 1912, when she called them American overshoes - "a great comfort to travellers by road or rail, and they serve as sleeping socks also."  At the end of the pattern, she says " When finished, this sock looks exactly like a small bag, and as unlike a foot covering as possible, but on inserting that member the bag resolves itself as if by magic into a handsome and shapable shoe; it will keep the feet warm in bed and on the carpet, and drawn over the shoes in car or tram will be found most comfortable.  I have made many pairs of shoes in different colours for friends and for bazaars, where they sell very well.  The shoes contract or expand according to the size of the feet they cover."  She's not convincing me, I'm afraid.]

 

Perfectly Plain Socks

Last month,  I knitted myself a pair of socks, though I have only just today sewn in the ends.  It hasn't  been sock-wearing weather, but I got around to finishing them today so that I could take a photo.

They are perfectly plain stocking stitch.  I wanted to knit again the spiral toe and German short-row heel from the On the Other Foot pattern.  The spiral toe suits the shape of my foot (though I find the cast-on very tricky - I think  I should try the one I used for knitting pence jugs, except that I can't remember what it was called. I'll fill it in here when it's come back to me. [I looked it up - it's Emily Ocker's circular cast on.  You'll find tutorials on YouTube.])  And the heel is well-fitting and easy to do and altogether satisfying.  But I also needed some straightforward knitting, suitable for doing while listening to talks, not the cable and lace pattern of my original On the Other Foot socks.

Putting the toe and heel into a plain sock was just what I needed: I knitted the first sock at the Guild convention at the beginning of July, and the second sock at the In the Loop conference later in the month.  The yarn is Opal sock wool, in the colourway Geburtstagstorte (though it doesn't remind me of a birthday cake in any way).  I got both socks out of one ball, with quite a bit left over.  I didn't do anything to make sure that the paler stripes are in the same place on both socks - that just happened.  I'm really pleased that it did - I was prepared for mismatched socks, but wouldn't have been happy about it. 

They aren't very exciting, and I don't think that putting them on will fill my heart with joy.  But they fit well and will be warm and comfortable, so that's OK. 

On the other foot (3)

Since I last  wrote, we have been on holiday in Spain -  visiting Seville, Cordoba and Granada, and several other smaller places too.   We had a very good holiday, saw lots of historic sites (Roman and Moorish, mainly), ate lots of delicious food,...  But I had a few days of not feeling very well after we got back, so stayed in mostly, not eating much.  The weather was awful, so staying in wasn't much of a problem, and I did get quite a lot of knitting done.  The final part of the On the Other Foot socks Mystery Knit Along was published just before we went away, so I had the first sock to finish, and hadn't started the second sock.  And now they are finished.

I am very pleased with them - they fit very well and are the most luxurious socks I have ever worn (wool and silk!). Though I should maybe take a better photo on a lighter background.

 I did make a couple of modifications to the pattern.  The cables and lace option I chose for the ankle part had a few bobbles in it, but I have a strong aversion to knitting bobbles, and didn't like the idea of bobbles on my socks, so I left them off.  (Sorry, Ann and Sarah, but they are my socks.)   And the options for the cuff sounded interesting, but were quite narrow. I like a deeper stretchy cuff, so I knitted mine in a twisted rib instead. (My socks.)

I guessed that the lace and cables options I had chosen were those designed by Sarah, mainly because the socks I knitted for Susie for Christmas (described here) to Sarah's pattern The Chain featured one of the stitch patterns used in On the Other Foot.  But I saw Ann at the Huddersfield Knitting & Crochet Guild meeting last week, and she told me that I had actually chosen the options that she designed - the colour work options were those designed by Sarah.  You can see two pairs of socks, one using Ann's options and the other using Sarah's, on Ann's blog here.  The colour work socks look very good, too - and several of the projects on Ravelry have mixed the cables & lace options with the colour work options, and that also works well.

And just to prove that we have been to Spain, here's a photo of me looking in the window of a yarn shop in Seville.  (I didn't go in, though.)

 

On the Other Foot (2)

It's now week 3 of the On The Other Foot Mystery Knit ALong run by Ann Kingstone & Sarah Alderson.  I'm up to date (though only with the first sock) so I've finished the toe, foot and heel stages.  Here's the sock so far.

I chose the option that has a cable and lace pattern on the instep, to go with the cable and lace pattern I had already knitted for the foot.  (Though in theory you can choose either option at any stage.  Some people made the other choice following a cable and lace foot, and it looks fine. So does the colourwork foot with a cable and lace instep.)

Part of the point of Ann and Sarah's MKALs is that you learn new techniques, and they provide tutorials to help.  The heel with the option I chose is very neat, and completely unlike any heel I have knitted before (in my limited experience of knitting socks).

I'm really pleased with the result, and it was very straightforward to knit - just following the instructions.   It uses German short rows, which I've never tried before - I've only done wrap-and-turn short rows before.  There was an easy-to-follow  tutorial with clear diagrams with the pattern, which I found quite sufficient, though I think that Ann or Sarah may have done a video tutorial as well.

Finally, here's a photo of the instep pattern, which doesn't show up well in the first photo because my ankle was bent.  (Taking photos of your own foot in mid-air to show the detail of your socks is not easy.) 

I'm looking forward to seeing what part 4 brings.  I'm still undecided about introducing another colour, though on reflection it might have been nice to do the toe and heel in a contrast colour.  But I couldn't tell until I had done it, and it wasn't clear at the outset whether you could do just the heel in a different colour with this option.  Another time, another pair, maybe.

On The Other Foot

Two years ago, I knitted a pair of fingerless mittens in a Mystery Knit Along, run by my friends Sarah Alderson and Ann Kingstone.  You can see my (almost) finished mittens here.  (I did finish them, and posted some photos here, but the colours in that post look a bit murky - they are in fact much nicer than that.)   Now, Sarah and Ann are running another MKAL (Mystery Knit ALong) - this time a pair of socks.   I signed up for it, and looked for some suitable sock yarn.  I haven't found an actual bricks-and-mortar shop near here that sells sock yarn, except the stall in Huddersfield Market Hall, which has some in very basic, utilitarian colours like dark grey.   And a lot of sock yarn is self-striping, which won't do for this project.   But I have now got some very lovely yarn online from Eden Cottage Yarns. 

It's their Titus yarn, in a mottled brown called Compost.  (I'm new to hand-knitted socks, and almost all my everyday, shop-bought socks are black.  Occasionally black with stripes of another colour on the toes and ankles.  A few thick pairs in grey or fawn.   So I can't suddenly start knitting brightly-coloured socks and expect to feel comfortable wearing them.  Baby steps.)

The MKAL has several stages (five?) and two options at each stage.  (One designed by Sarah, the other by Ann, but we don't know which is which.)   The first stage (last week) was the toe, with a choice of two unusual construction methods.  I chose the spiral toe, which has four evenly-spaced sets of increases spiralling out from the starting point. 

We were told at the outset that there would be colour-work options, but that it would be possible to knit the socks all in one colour.  I do have another colour available, but I haven't decided yet whether to use it.  We are currently on stage 2 (the foot part), and yes, one of the options uses stranded knitting with two or three colours, but I've chosen the other option, which is a lace and cables pattern.  I think there will still be a possibility of using two colours for the ankle, but I'll wait and see what the options are before deciding. 

  
There's still quite a bit more of the foot to do, but it should be finished by next Friday when the instructions for stage 3 will be published. 

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.   

Christmas Presents

I don't usually knit Christmas presents - I know from past experience that it's just creating an extra source of stress in getting them finished in time.  And I have not been much of a sock knitter, either, though for Christmas 2011 I did knit 3 pairs (of which 2 and a half were finished in time).   But this year, I needed a small portable project and decided to try sock knitting again, and to knit a pair for my daughter for Christmas - knitting one pair of socks seemed perfectly manageable.   I bought a skein of lovely Lichen and Lace sock yarn from my friend Sarah Alderson, and her sock pattern, The Chain.   (Sarah designed the thrummed slippers pattern that featured in my previous post.) 

The socks were finished well before Christmas.  They have turned out very well, and the yarn is beautifully soft. 

But meanwhile, my daughter said that what she really needed was a replacement for a scarf that she had lost i.e. she wanted me to knit a plum-coloured infinity scarf, as soon as possible. So I decided that the scarf would have to be for Christmas, too.

It took a while to find some wool of the right colour - King Cole Merino Blend 4-ply in Damson. By this time it was well into December, and we decided that the scarf had to be about 46 in. (117 cm.) in circumference, and quite deep.   I did get it done - I finished it at 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve (knitted, ends sewn in, and pressed).  Cutting it a bit fine, I know, but on Christmas Day it was all wrapped up, under the Christmas tree. 

It's designed to loop around the neck twice.   I don't have a photo of my daughter wearing it, but here it is on our newel post. 

I knitted it in the round, with a chevron pattern of eyelets and decreases in the middle and garter stitch borders top and bottom. Basically, a very wide, short tube.

It turned out that she hadn't lost the original scarf after all, but as it's cotton jersey, a hand-knitted wool scarf is much nicer, and much warmer for the winter.  She's very pleased with both the socks and the scarf.  And I'm going to knit more socks - this time for me.  And maybe a Moebius scarf too.

A Sock Purse

It's been a busy two weeks: apart from other things, we went to Suffolk for a few days holiday with friends.  As usual, I was on the lookout for knitting-related things, but the only thing I spotted was a Victorian purse.  It was in the little museum in Framlingham Castle, a nice collection about life in the surrounding town.

 
In a case of 19th century bits and pieces was a little purse made from a tiny sock.  I thought at first it was knitted, but on looking closer, I don't think so - I think it's crocheted.  And I'm not sure how it's meant to be used.  Although it was displayed with the chain stretched out, in fact the bar at top left has bits of frayed thread attached, so presumably originally the two bars were parallel at the top edge of the sock - I don't know whether there was any way to fasten the two bars together, though, and whether the chain was just used as a hanging loop.        

It's very neatly made, and I like the fancy clock especially.  

 It reminds me of the little socks I have seen made as Christmas decorations.  It doesn't look as though it would be very practical as a purse - I imagine that Victorian pennies would get into the toe and be hard to extract.  But on the other hand, it's evidently been used a lot, for the top to fray so much.  Maybe you would just hold on to the toe and tip the coins out into your hand?  A pretty little thing, anyway.  If anyone has seen anything like it, I'd love to know.

Holiday in the Peloponnese

The lighthouse at Cape Tainaron

The lack of blog posts for a couple of weeks is due to the fact that we have been on holiday in Greece (and then it's taken me a week to catch up with things).   We went with 13 friends from our walking group, and had a wonderful time.  It was planned to be a mixture of walks, history and nature - all organised by Gareth Trewartha of Naturally Greece.   There were spring flowers everywhere, and we saw birds on their migration north from Africa.  The weather was mostly lovely - sunny and warm, but not too hot.  (The exception was a hailstorm while we were visiting the temple of Apollo at Vassae - altogether a rather disappointing experience as the temple is now under a vast tent to protect it from the weather.)   We ate vast quantities of delicious food.   And Gareth taught us a bit of Greek on the coach journeys, so I can now say please, thank you, hello, good morning, and count to 20.  (Knowing some geometry helps with the counting - e.g. dodecahedron and icosahedron.)  I took lots of photos - here's a small selection with an extremely brief summary of what we did.

We visited Olympia first - walking to the ancient site from our hotel in the countryside a couple of miles away, through olive groves and orange orchards, and fording the River Kladeos (with the help of a pick-up truck from the hotel).  

The museum at Olympia is excellent, and full of amazing treasures.

Olympia Museum: from the Temple of Zeus

From there we moved on to Pylos (mentioned by Homer), where our hotel overlooked the bay (site of the battle of Navarino, 1827) and the island enclosing the bay (where the Athenians defeated the Spartans in 425 B.C.)

Sunset at Pylos

After Pylos, we went further south and stayed on the coast near Itilo, to visit the Mani, which is the finger of the Peloponnese projecting into the Mediterranean and culminating in the southernmost point of mainland Greece at Cape Tainaron.

A church in Areopolis.

We visited Areopolis nearby, which was once almost deserted, like many other places in the Mani, but now seems thriving.  And on another day we went south to Vathia, still almost uninhabited, and full of the defensive tower houses that are common in the Mani.  (Built by the Maniots to defend themselves from each other.)

A tower house in Vathia

From Vathia, we went even further south, and finally walked to the Cape and its lighthouse from the nearest habitation (a taverna, handily, where we had lunch).

After the Mani, we headed back towards Athens for our flight home, visiting Mistra, an amazing deserted mediaeval city, on the way.

All the week, we were seeing interesting birds, though I didn't manage to take many good photos.  Birds tend to move too fast - the little owl was easy because it was having a rest.

And some birds were actually chimney cowls (also easy to photograph).

We saw many lizards, but often just glimpses of them disappearing.  I found one that was enjoying the sun, and stayed put, before diving back into its hole in the wall.

A lizard on a wall at Mistra

And there were flowers everywhere.  Lots of orchids - I was told the names at the time, but I've mostly forgotten.  I will identify them again in time.

An orchid

Another orchid

Star of Bethlehem growing in steps at Mistra

  

There was very little knitting on the holiday, except for some interesting socks in the folk museum at Andritsaina  (not a good photo, because the light levels were low to protect the textiles, but good enough to show the colour-work).

A really wonderful holiday - we'd like to go back to Greece another year in spring.   

Spiral Socks

Last weekend, I went to London for the Knitting History Forum meeting at the London College of Fashion, on Saturday.  I was talking about Aran sweaters and how they became popular for hand-knitters in this country from the 1930s on (a re-run of my talk at the Knitting & Crochet Guild AGM in July, though without the suitcase full of Aran sweaters).  There were some fascinating talks in the programme, here.   There was plenty of time to knit on the train there and back, and in the meeting itself, and I finished the spiral heelless socks I have been knitting. Since then it has been a busy week, but I have just today found time to sew in the ends and get some photos of me wearing them. 

Trying to match the pattern illustration, but I got my feet the wrong way round.

 
(Apologies for my chubby knees - I don't usually flaunt them.) 

Knitting them was part of a sort of historical experiment, because the pattern  is from World War 2.   I used a Copley's pattern, but there were several others published around the same time.  (You can tell the wartime Copley's patterns, because the cartoon figure is wearing a tin helmet - before and after the war he is wearing a pill-box hat.  I think he is supposed to be a bell-boy.)

Copley's 1304

The claimed advantages are that they spread the wear on the heels so that they last longer before you have to darn them, and that they fit anyone, as well as being easy to knit.    So Angharad and I both decided to knit a pair - hers (in progress) were part of the WW2 display at Baa Ram Ewe in October. 

I chose grey for mine, partly with a feeling that that would be an authentic colour for WW2 (though the yarn is not authentic - it is Wendy Roam sock yarn, which has some nylon in it.)   But I usually wear black socks in the winter, so grey is already a bit exciting.  And I made them knee-length for warmth, though that made them boring to knit - until you get to the toe, you are just knitting a long tube that seems endless, with no heel to add a bit of variety.  They are very easy to knit, though.  

 
So now I am wearing them, and they are very warm.  But they aren't staying up very well, which is disappointing.   I may have to elasticate the tops.  Maybe Angharad's (which I think are planned to be ankle socks) will behave better.   I'll give an update later.

Knitting in World War 2

Last week Angharad and I went to Harrogate to talk to the Wednesday evening knit-and-natter group at  Baa Ram Ewe in Harrogate, as part of Yorkshire Wool Week, which was organised by Baa Ram Ewe.  The original Baa Ram Ewe yarn shop in Headingley (Leeds) has been established for some years, but the Harrogate branch is new and I hadn't been there before.   The shop is spacious and light (well, it would be during the day when it isn't pouring with rain) and sells some very tempting yarns.  

We had lent some things from the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection for Yorkshire Wool Week, and the very talented Katherine, who is based in the Harrogate shop,  constructed four splendid window displays in successive weeks during October, on doilies, tea cosies, World War 2 knitting & crochet, and Kaffe Fassett's knitwear designs.  (For this purpose, Yorkshire Wool Week lasted 4 weeks.)  My favourite was the display of doilies - Angharad had selected a range of colours that went well together, and they looked splendid hanging up in the window.  Much better, I think, than laid flat on a table or plate in the traditional way. 

 

When we were in Harrogate, the window display was on World War 2, and featured a small crocheted blanket made out of small oddments of leftover wool, a knitted balaclava helmet, and several socks, including a spiral heelless one knitted by Angharad to a wartime pattern.  Katherine also used enlargements of several wartime knitting patterns from the collection.

 On the Wednesday evening at Baa Ram Ewe, I gave a talk about wartime knitting, covering knitting for the services (including all the many women's services),  the Home Front (air raid shelters and gas masks), and coping with shortages and rationing. 

Lister 802

Sirdar 887

  

Cronit 301

 After my talk, Angharad showed the spiral socks that she is making, and demonstrated knitting in the round with two circular needles.  Knitting heelless socks in a spiral rib was one way of trying to make socks last longer in wartime.   The idea was that whenever you put them on, your heel would go in a different place, and so the sock would wear evenly, rather than going into a hole at the heel.   That's the claim.  Angharad and I aren't sure how well they will work in practice, so we are both knitting a pair to try them for ourselves.  I'll write more about mine later - we are both onto the second sock of our pair.  Here is the extremely worn, torn and creased pattern that Angharad is knitting from - the one I'm using is a slight variation on the same idea, from a different spinner. 

The leaflet claims "The HEEL forms itself when the Sock is pulled on.  MUCH QUICKER TO KNIT THAN ORDINARY SOCKS AND WEARS THREE TIMES LONGER BECAUSE THE HEEL WEAR SELDOM OCCURS IN THE SAME PLACE TWICE. The photograph shows how snugly the Heel forms itself and the close, comfortable fitting round the legs and ankles."   So we'll test whether this is all true when we have finished our respective pairs.