Today is Tree Day here at String Central. A crew of treeguys?is outside even as I type, taking down several large hollow trees that are looming dangerously over?our house, the garage, and the neighbor's house. While I'm usually a tree-and-let-live person these did represent real risk, and had to go. I look forward to an airier, sunnier, safer yard. Also quieter, once the chainsaws, chipper/mulcher, and boom crane all depart. Before and after pix another day, once the leafy chaos has subsided a bit.

In knitting news, I have to 'fess up now that June posted her blog entry about the DNA cable. I read her initial complaint, and thought she deserved a wedding present, so I redrafted her cable for her. I wasn't going to say anything about it, but she was sweet enough to post a credit, and to leave me a Mysterious Present in my mailbox (it turns out we live quite near each other):

I'm thoroughly tickled by the mystery gift (in a favorite color combo, no less!). I'm now honor-bound to knit up this nifty June-dyed fingering weight so?I can report back to her?how effective her color placement strategy was in avoiding blobs. I think that it will be appropriate if I do up a pair of DNA cable socks with it.

It also turns out that I'm on the hook for a poncho. In this case, the fomer tween-ager Elder Daughter? has requested what appears to be the fashion accessory du jour. So I sigh, and like a good parental unit, will make one, no matter how boring. I'm still caught up in Dragon though, and I don't want to be sidetracked from it. Socks I can make my portable project. A poncho however is another story. Hope I can complete it before fashion obsolescence kicks in.

On Dragon - not enough progress to warrant posting a photo, but I'm getting happier and happier about the twist panel at the top. With a few more repeats done, the design is easier to pick out, and the denseness of the new panel frames the lighter areas nicely. I think I'll keep it.

Fits and starts, but back on track. Here's the beginning of the top strip:

I'm not quite sure where I got this pattern from. It's in one of my sketchbooks, but the accompanying notes only?say "Dover," so I may have gotten it from one of the Dover collections of graphed patterns, possibly their booklet of Celtic-inspired designs. I know it has no absolute historical citation in any one artifact or early book. In any case, it's four meshes narrower than my original choice. That's eight meshes for the whole piece (top and bottom strips both).Eight meshes would have been enough to make the thing too big to fit on the stretcher bars at the top and bottom of the door's window. The beaded looking bit between the solid edge and the knotwork strip is produced by leaving a double-wide mesh every five rows. Those double-wides are going to be the holes through which the stretcher bar style brass curtain rods?will be threaded.

On whether or not motif strip"goes" with the rest of the piece - I'm not quite decided yet. I picked this pattern because the knotwork was interesting, because the knotwork picked up the curves in the dragon piece and the floral border, and the interlaces echoed the knots in the side panel. Plus, I thought the solid-strip negative-space nature of this design might be a nice contrast with the rest of the piece, in which the filled meshes present the design rather than the empty ones. I do like the solid strip nature of this one as a framing device, but I'm not entirely sure that the negative-space interlace is easily discerned. I'll do a bit more to see if more repeats aid in visual interpretation. If not, it's rip out and start again. Again.

One thing of which I'm quite proud - look at the bottommost row of solid meshes that makes up the new top strip. That's the one that fastens the new work to the old. Not bad for an afterthought join.

Grrr. Apparently no effort of woman nor beast can nail down an exact reference to an item in the V&A database because linking is dynamic and is recalculated for each new session. Therefore if you really want to dig through and find the items I mentioned yesterday, you'll have to search on their accession numbers yourself. Open any V&A search page, and enter these numbers:

CT55633 - to see the crocheted purse
CT59053 - to see the knitted purses
CT57667 - to see the sampler

Apologies for all wild goose chases that ensued.

Filet of Dragon

Progress on Dragon is both positive and retrograde:

?The good news is that thanks to advice so graciously shared by Vaire and Kathryn, attaching the side strips as I work them looks much better and more even than I hoped. I'm not using the exact method I posited in my last post. Instead, I'm doing a scrumbly combo of techniques. If the joining mesh is empty, I'm doing Vaire's method of horizontal DC as bride. If the joining mesh is solid, I'm doing a combo of a technique Kathryn sent plus more advice from Vaire. I'm working that join mesh up to the point of the join (first leg, plus first "inside" dc), then on the second "inside" dc, I'm doing a slip stitch to mate it to the mesh leg of the existing work. After that I'm chaining up three, doing another slip stitch to mate the little chain to the old work, then working one "inside" dc plus another as the next mesh leg. The little chain up serves as the first dc of the "inside" pair. And there's more good news in that the double-height empty blocks I am leaving for the curtain rods fit well and work great.

But all news is not good. See that little strip sticking up in today's photo?? It's gone. I've ripped it completely back and started again. It turns out that the original pattern I had selected for the horizontal strips is too wide (again the gauge problem). I am going to use an entirely different strip pattern, plus finish the entire thing around with two rows of solid DC to ensure a stable edge.

So there you have it. Dramatic progress, and dramatic failure. All in one day.

Remember I said that

1. I had rescued my knitting things from the storage cubby;
2. I was bound and determined to turn a rather dingy basement room into a needlework retreat; and
3. I wanted to?outfit my haven?on a budget as close to zero as I could manage.

I can report progress on?all three?fronts. I'm sure you don't care about seeing six stacked Rubbermaid storage tubs, but this is slightly more interesting:

I've kept the large table shown in the before shot. The ceiling tile is replaced, the floor is scrubbed, and?all debris is gone. I moved the white wardrobe to the same wall shown in the new photo, above. The white drawer unit is now further down the wall, and the mesh cubes shown here?are betwen it and the gas pipe, which you can see sticking up between it and the other white cabinet in the before photo. My storage tubs of yarn are stacked in the corner of the room where the wardrobe used to sit. No progress on a comfy chair yet, but we're replacing my daughter's desk chair this week, so I'll probably snarf up the abused cast-off for my workroom.

As you can see, the el-cheapo Home Depot storage units we brought over?from the old house are not good candidates for relocation. The drawers are out of the unit you see because?during the move it?shifted from true, and the tracks are now too far apart to hold them. Some minor carpentry is in order before it's useable again. If you're thinking of buying this type of peg-together pressboard storage furniture at a home center or discount store, ?remember that it's build-once-and-leave-it stuff. Regardless of the low cost,?I don't recommend it for people who are still in the nomadic phase of life, especially?if re-using the piece in a new location is a consideration.

The wire mesh cubes however are a new acquisition, and bode to be both durable and capable of being taken apart and put back together many times. Last week?these?units?were on special at Target. One box of them makes a stand-alone six cube unit, and the cost (on sale) was just under ten dollars. I snapped up two boxes in white (they also come in black). They can be assembled in any of a number of ways. I've done my installation in 2, 4, 4 stacks to work around the?large gas pipe on that wall. Because of the geometry of the thing, I've got two mesh units left. Not enough to make another cube, but enough to jury-rig two half-height shelves or dividers in existing cubes by using?some nylon cable-tamers to do the attachments.

The stuff in?my cube unit isn't there for any particular reason. Mostly it was miscellaneous knitstff that got packed separately from my storage tubs. There's my swift and ball winder; my collection of single-malt Scotch containers housing needles and other tools (upright on the white dresser, and horizontal in a top cube); various UFO bags; a stack of some rustic-type wools that in violation of my own stash-management rule, has overflowed it's allowed tub. My small black box of sock yarns; and various coned oddiments. I believe that cone of raspberry is in fact Believe, a find from the Classic Elite mill ends outlet up in Lowell, MA. Books, mags,?and leaflets are elsewhere in the house, in their own bookcase; with mags and leaflets?sorted more or less haphazardly into several plastic magazine files.

Eventually I'll sort through the tubs and pull out Yarns of Immediate Inspiration to put on these shelves; stowing the ones I don't plan on using in the next fifteen minutes. My stash management rule??

If it doesn't fit in my existing containers, I can't buy it.?

That means I either have to knit up new acquisitions immediately, or make room in a tub by using up something that's already there. However, eyeing the tubs I see that they are increasingly filled with odd lots of leftovers rather than full-project amounts. Perhaps it's time to organize a yard/yarn sale/swap meet, and invite the world over so we can all redistribute our holdings to better effect. Hmmm....

Remember two days ago I said I'd be delighted to show off any projects that other people did either from or inspired by my designs?  I've started the blog category "Gallery" for just this purpose.  First off, here's a nifty example of a piece adapted from a stitching design in my book:

This hat is part of an Elizabethan costume made by a fellow participant in greater Boston, MA area SCA activiites.  The stitcher's SCA name is Lady Lakshmi Amman, and the recipient (and model) is Mistress Morwenna Westerne.  Click on the photo for more detail shots of Lakshmi's work, including graphs for her adaptations of my winged undine from Plate 75:1 of The New Carolingian Modelbook.  (Lakshmi's photo appears here by permission.)  Because the piece was made to celebrate the artistic accomplishments of Mistress Morwenna, Lakshmi's undines each carry something associated with Morwenna's favorite pursuits.  There's an embroidering mermaid, a cooking mermaid, a performing mermaid, and several others.  Very clever!

More on Crochet

I've gotten some more feedback and help on ways to attach edging and borders to pre-existing filet pieces; and advice on how to better keep 1:1 true square proportionality when forming meshes.

First, advice from Vaire, the Innocent Abroad on making my squares square.  She says that try as she might, she was never able to achieve true squareness using the base-4 style mesh I'm using.  Instead she switched to base-3.  That's one double crochet between the legs of the mesh to form a filled square, and one chain stitch between the legs of the mesh to form an open one (I do two of each right now).  She said that this reduced the width spread of her squares.  Vaire went on to suggest another method of increasing mesh size:  using 3 ch betwen trebles, instead of 2 ch between doubles.  This makes a larger, more airy mesh, and opens opportunities for partially as opposed to solidly filled squares (tr, ch, tr, ch, tr).   Thank you, Vaire!  Both are intriguing ideas, well worth experimentation.

My pal Kathryn also continues to ply me with great ideas too numerous to all list here.  Several have been for methods of joining filet sections.  There's been a step-style join that makes a mitered corner.  I need to try that one out before I can explain it better.  At first I was afraid that my not-square squares would throw the miter off, but used in combo with Vaire's base-3 idea, it sounds like it would work quite well.   She's also sent me quotations from pre-1920 books that discuss methods like overhand basting to hold sections together; and picking up and working an edging in another style of crochet.

Finally Vaire also suggests using double crochets as horizontal "brides" (reseau) to attach the new bit to the old.  This is also a nifty idea, and one I considered, but I was doomed by a poorly planned design choice.  I want a two-mesh strip of empty meshes all the way around the piece.  I've already made that.  To do the bride method, I'd have to have done only one, as the row of attachment would provide the second.  Since I want most of the joining row to be solidly worked, were I to do it with horizontal double crochets I'd run afoul of the proportionality problem again.  Again, thank you!  A good idea for a future project, but I've pretty much painted myself into a corner on this one. 

More progress. 

I'm only three rows from being done with this side panel, so I turned my attention to figuring out how to join the top and bottom strips.  I think I'll end up doing something like this:

I'll be working this strip the long-narrow direction, joining it to the side of the existing piece.  I think the joins will be visible if you know to look for them, but they shouldn't be too distracting because except for the first two and last two rows of the piece, the column of meshes that is being attached are all filled in, and any additional heaviness should be visually lost in that solid line.

In the mailbag I had a couple of questions on why I thought that filet crochet is clunky and heavy looking.  The people who wrote thought my piece was anything but.  However, to me filet is heavy by comparison to Lacis - the style it emulates. 

Lacis is worked by darning in the meshes on a hand-knotted net background.  You start with a netted ground, then with needle and thread, weave in the meshes that need to be worked solidly.  There's a wonderfully arcane logic to designing one's path of stitching so as to minimize ends.  If you like the mental excercise of working double-sided blackwork or cross stitch, you'd really enjoy Lacis.  For delicacy though, filet crochet just can't compare:

This photo is from a photo catalog of household and decorative arts held by the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.  The book is in Russian and French, published in 1974.  It identifies this piece as being Italian, 16th century, but says very little beyond that. 

To my amateur eyes, it looks like this piece of lace was cut down for re-use, because not only are motif roundels rudely interrupted, both the tape at the top and the applied needle lace lappet edge at the bottom are sewn on to roughly cut edges that in some places slash meshes in half.   Even so, look at the extreme contrast between the darned solid bits and the spiderlike open areas formed by ever-so-thin single thread mesh ground.  Now THAT'S delicate!  You can also see yet that the use of the borders and central panel area is yet another bit of inspiration that stewed around before the idea for my dragon curtain was birthed.

This designs in this particular piece are on my "to-do" list to graph up for Ensamplio Atlantaea.  My postulated but not yet realized sequel to The New Carolingian Modelbook.  Little things are holding up that production - like the lack of a good graphing platform, not having a publisher, that so many other people are now plowing the same turf and I don't want to repeat material others have issued.

How did I lay hands on the Russian decorative arts catalog?  It's amazing what you can find in the damaged goods deep-discount boxes at some Cambridge, Massachusetts used book stores.

It's hot and I'm melting.  I'm glad I'm working with cotton on my filet project, as the thought of even the lightest, smallest woolen project in 90-degree F humidity makes me twitch.  Work continues on several fronts.  I'll have more Dragon postings tomorrow or Tuesday.

Lightning Strikes

Right now though, I'm busy writing up the Summer Lightning lace scarf pattern for inclusion on wiseNeedle.  Here it is again:

If I miss an odd day or two here and there on the blog, it will be because my web-time quota is being used up drafting out this pattern.  I'll post again when it goes "prime time."  Once it's up, I'll enjoy hearing from people who try it.  

Since I'm (obviously) not in this for the massive bucks, reading about the fun people have with my stuff is my prime reward.  Seeing pix of it is even more nifty.  I was ultra tickled to see this hat adapted from Knot a Hat by Australia's ZenKnits, back in June.  There's a nifty armwarmer on I'd Rather be Knitting, also back in June that used the doodle cable I posted here on String.  I've also heard from a couple of people who have used the Mountain Laurel counterpane pattern and my various sock patterns.  In fact, if you've knit something from one of my designs I'd be delighted to show off your work.  Feel free to write to me so we can discuss file formats and the like.

Eye Candy

In the general eye candy department, I stumbled across this knitted pin ball.  It's an egg-shaped pincushion, knit in silk and dated 1801.  It's offered for sale by an antiques dealer specializing in samplers.  Given the excellent condition I'm not surprised at the high price, but it makes me wonder.  Did Elizabeth Searle ever envision her humble gift of friendship lasting out the years?  200 years from now will any of our works be offered up to avid collectors? 

Still plugging away on the dragon:

Thanks to my friend Kathryn Goodwyn (who many of you may know from historical needlework mailing lists as Kathryn Newell) I've got a couple of ideas on how to do a surrounding border in filet.  Unfortunately several of the methods can't be backwards engineered at this point, but the core concepts are very strong. 

One very promising method she sent to me involves working stepwise at the corners, forming a piece mitered more or less on the diagonal.  I played with it a bit last night, and found that my rather squished ratio of height to width for my meshes doesn't behave nicely with the concept.  Plus I'd need to rip back the end bits and start them again.   More tinkering is in order because this technique has real potential, but I think I'll settle for butted strips on the top and bottom. 

I have to admit, when I started this piece it seemed like a long slog was ahead.  While it has taken longer than I anticipated, I've enjoyed the process more than I thought I would (I was rather product-centered at the outcome).  I'm definately thinking of doing more with filet - perhaps combining it with knitting into garments. 

General Questions: 

I know there are knitting purists out there that recoil in horror at the thought of knitting patterns/mags including crochet, let alone combining the two crafts in the same piece.  I'm less parochial in my views.  Would you be interested in wearable pieces that combine both?  I'm talking delicate and fine gauge stuff, as opposed to some granny-square travesties I've seen lately. 

With all the blather about quick-to-knit and one weekend pieces, is there interest in finer gauge, greater effort projects?  Or is everyone interested in producing hats, scarves, or felted bags that can be finished before the credit card bill carrying the yarn charge arrives?  Is the cohort of new and returning knitters that started with those projects ready to "graduate" to larger efforts?