Fair and balanced

I have been babbling happy sounds over Shetland knitting belts. And, yes, if you are knitting delicate fabrics with light weight and/or wooden needles, then Shetland knitting belts have great virtues.

On the other hand, by simply making a longer needle adapter, knitting sheaths will work very well for pointy needles, and allow additional knitting techniques. The longer needle adapters will also work very well with blunt needles.

My rule of thumb is that if the fabric is firm enough to  support my steel needles, I use the steel needles and a knitting sheath, If the fabric requires lighter needles, then I use my Shetland knitting belt.

The steel needles for fine socks are so light, and the fabric so firm, that it really does not matter if one uses a knitting sheath or a knitting belt.

Knitting sheaths with short needle adapters for blunt needles, long needle adapters for pointy needles, and the knitting belt with the lighter, but more fragile tubular needles that sometimes collapse under the greater stress that can very easily be applied with a knitting sheath.

Fair and balanced says that different fabrics are made with different tool kits.

As for circular needles, I used them for years and years. Any fabric that anyone can knit with any combination of circular needles can be knit faster, and with less stress using "DPN" and either a knitting belt or a knitting sheath.  The class of objects that are more difficult to  knit with a knitting sheath or knitting belt are mobius objects that may require as many as 9 straight needles.  On the other hand, knitting belts/knitting sheath allow knitting a wide variety of fabrics that cannot be practically knit with circular needles.  The poster child for that truth is the lovely, soft fabric known as Eastern Crossed Stitch Knitting.

If you disagree, then post a link to a pair of socks in ECS that you have knit in a time period of less than a month using some combination of circular needles. 

Shetland Knitting Belts

My first major knitting project was his and hers Icelandic socks as gifts for my parents on their 50th wedding anniversary. Thus, as a knitter, I have always been something of a sock guy.

I make a point of knitting different features into my hiking socks and my ski socks and my gardening socks. I played with different sock constructions, and the one thing that I always liked but could not reasonably produce was socks in Eastern Crossed Stitch. I could do little samples and swatches to test, but I could knot produce the fabric at a practical speed.

Knit Eastern Crossed Stitch was a highly regarded fabric for socks from our earliest knit sock fragments until hand knit socks went out of production -- call it some 1,500 years.  Anything that people like for 15 centuries, must be good. I wanted it, but I could not figure out to make it at a reasonable pace.  It had be possible, or it would not have been so widely available.  It can be knit with hand held needles, but that is slow, and nice sock fabric is hard on the wrists. It is faster and easier on the hands with DPN and a knitting sheath, but that was never quite right. Swaving the fabric is not quire right either.  The right tool kit seems to be a knitting belt and  DPN.

A sock for my gardening sandals knit from MacAusland 2-ply and

knit in Eastern Cross Stitch. The fabric is discolored
because of the polishing compound used as the
needle design evolves. It will wash out,
and they will get worn in the mud anyway.

You cannot tell form the picture, but it really is a soft, thick fabric with great cushion.  It is NOT as weatherproof as uncrossed knitting, but it is thicker, and has more cushion, and it feels softer. I think the fact that it is not as weatherproof as plain knitting is one of the reasons that I never put the energy into working out a production technique.

I am a bit chagrined to realize that for the first time, I am actually making (pointy) needles for my Shetland knitting belt - previously, I just used what ever needles were available. Now, I am starting to understand the wonderful nuances of  the  Shetland tool kit. Like all good tool kits, it is not as simple as it looks.

There are hints that before knitters on the Shetland Islands made lace for England, they (illicitly) knit socks for the Dutch. Not Dutch farmers, but fine socks for Dutch traders to sell to the rich and powerful of Europe.  It may not be true, but it would help explain their traditions of professional knitting craftsmanship when the market for lace in England opened up.  I think, the Shetland knitters were already familiar with high-end knitting for the rich and powerful, when they moved into the lace market.  Moving from fine socks to fine lace could be done without changing the tool kit.   I read about the Shetland- Dutch sock trade years ago, but had never thought through the implications - e.g., that a knitting belt and making pins are the right tools for very fine socks.  That is, socks that is the socks were knit in Eastern Crossed Stitch. I suggest right here and now that knitting the best socks and the best lace take the same level of knitting skill. (I am not talking about socks for farmers and gardeners!)

To misquote a Diva that we all know:  Respect the Shetland Knitting belt.

Gauge

Many knitters do not believe the gauges that I knit. That is because they are lazy.  they did not do their homework.


For example, look at The Sweater Workshop by Jacqueline Fee. She shows gauge swatches done on 11 different sizes on needles including US#0 and US#1.  Anyone andeveryone that has knit such gauge swatches, has knit at the gauges that I knit.  Every serious knitting book from Mary Thomas's Knitting Book on has similar passages.


I took those passages to heart and knit gauge swatches.  It was my homework.  I did my homework.  Any knitter that did not do this, was not doing their homework.


I liked the tighter fabrics, in fact, I wore out 2 sets of Addi  size US#1 turbo circs knitting such fabrics. However, knitting such fabrics on circs was hard on my wrists.


So I looked for a better way to knit such fabrics. There it was, right there in Mary Thomas's Knitting Book.  Knitting sheaths!  Such tools in the form of Shetland knitting belts show up again in Wendy Keele's , Poems of Color. So, knitting sheaths and knitting belts are real tools used by professional knitters to knit decorative objects.  Mary Wright's, Cornish Guernseys & Knit-Frocks makes it clear that knitting sheaths and knitting belts were the standard tool of the serious traditional knitter.


Now, many modern knitters want to discard these traditional technique, and knowledge of  textile production for loosey-goosey knitting that is suited only for "art" knitting.  They want to kill and bury traditional techniques, and the associated knowledge of  textile production.  They denigrate and depreciate people who use such tools.


In doing this, modern knitters are no better than some terrorist group that wrecks museums, destroys historical sites, and plunders archeological sites.  In either case, it is the deliberate destruction of  knowledge and history as a result if ignorance and ideology.