A note from a user

Knitting Sheaths

Knitting sheath and needles arrived today, and the resulting swatch just blew my mind. So very, very different than what I did with circulars (which will be of no surprise to you, I know, but it was still pretty amazing to me).

Pix at : www.flickr.com/photos/71643053@N06/8440833845/

I get many such messages.

The best fiber in the world

is clean (except for spinning oil) and freshly combed or carded.  Really!

Last night, a member of a local spinning guild was destashing fiber, and she brought in a big pile of very nice fiber.  I did not have my trusty twisty stick, with me, but without asking the price, I bought a couple big bags full.  One bag is white long wool, maybe 40 count, and I plan to spin it at maybe 10 count. It is just beautiful stuff, I know it will spin Fast and Easy.  Fiber Porn.

I get home and toss it on the distaff, put the 5,600 ypp bobbin on the wheel, and that fiber does not want to spin.  Yes, I can coax thread out of it, but it breaks off every couple of yards.  This is not what I wanted.  This is like work.   This is spinning purgatory.  I wanted something that was like a video game, where the fiber slides into to the hungry orifice, and the only question is, "How fast can one feed the monster?"

So, this afternoon,  I spray a handful of the fiber with spinning oil, and I comb enough to fill a distaff. It takes 5 minutes. Boom!  It spins like a dream - 6 yards a minute without any problem, because it is the best fiber in the world.

Sheringham fabric

In Gladys Thompson, page 83 et seq.  there are a couple of ganseys done at tensions of 12 or 14 spi using 3 or 4-ply yarns. I had approached this using yarns spun for weaving and fine needles, but the fabric was never interesting enough to put the effort into.

However, with swaving, it is pretty reasonable to produce 14 spi from Froehlich Wolle Special Blauband.    (50 grams = 225 yards; 2043 ypp.)  The pricks are 1.5 mm.

I find this fabric  -- interesting.
.
In this case, the WIP is a the thumb for a glove.

I bought this yarn when I still looked at yarn labels.  The yarn band recommends 30 stitches / 4 inches on US2  (2.5 -3 mm) needles. I found that fabric much too loose. I did not like that  fabric.  That is why I never did anything with this bin of yarn, and thereby still have it.

Turf wars

I see some English knitters telling me that "Ganseys" are their turf, and that I should not try to say anything new or different than what the current generation of English Gansey knitters are doing and saying.  This has the effect of limiting useful discussion. This is very like another issue I track.

After a long and rancorous review, Wind was published to some nasty comments in the climate science community.   I see this as turf wars between folks in ivory towers that do not need turf.  It would be silly, except that there are interesting things in the paper.  Are they useful things?  Maybe, but the turf wars are limiting useful discussion. I basically see the guys in climate science telling the authors of  Where do winds come from? that the authors are outsiders, and should stay off the turf of climate science.

The inside joke here is that the climate scientists are some of the smartest guys in the world. Similarly, those English knitters are some of the best knitters in the world, and they are behaving like pointy headed academics in ivory towers.  Knitters are supposed to be smarter than that.  : )

I would take these English knitters more seriously if most of the orders for gansey tools that I am working on right now were not for folks in Yorkshire.

I really do not care what other people knit!  I do not try to tell others what to knit.

I do say what fabrics I like to knit.

I do say why I like those fabrics.

I do say how I knit those fabrics.

And I do tell people how they can knit similar fabrics and objects. I try to make it reasonable and logical.  Easy is another matter.  A good Guernsey is a hundred hours of hard work.  However, sometimes it is worth it. I do tell people that it is not always worth it.  I do tell people that "sometimes, less is more".  I think a knit object should fit the need. The need may be for status, or it may be for warmth.

My wife says, "It is a barbarity, clarity is a rarity!"  And turf wars are the enemy of clarity.They end up as a hen party with everyone picking at each other's language, rather than addressing issues of substance. Turf wars over ganeys keep people from enjoying the full spectrum of knitting.

Gansey knitting

A competent knitter can knit ANY style sweater, on gansey needles. Garments for sailors and fishermen can be knit quickly, and so tight as to be weatherproof. (Gansey needles can also be used to produce the finest lace. One millimeter gansey needles are much easier to work with than 1 mm circs. I have used 0.5 mm gansey needles, but I do not have any 0.5 mm circs to compare them too.)

The essential characteristic of a sailor’s or fisherman’s sweater is the warmth it has from being tightly knit. More loosely knit sweaters are not as warm. I find that a difference in stitch gauge of only 7% can result in a sweater having catastrophically less warmth. Sailors and fishermen wearing sweaters that are not as warm tend to get hypothermic and perish. If several of the sailors on a ship get hypothermic and perish, then the ship will be lost and all on board will perish. Thus, loosely knit sweaters were inherent not suitable for wear at sea on sailing vessels. (No problem for modern vessels with engines and heaters.)

Up to Victorian times, gansey needles and a knitting sheath were how all seaman’s sweaters, mittens, hoods, watch caps, socks, & comforters were produced. Gansey needles with a knitting sheath were used from the Arab world to Greece to Spain to Brittany, Normandy, Channel Islands, England, Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, and through out the Hansa. The style and decorative stitches did not matter as much as the inherent warmth resulting form the leverage of the gansey needles packing the yarns together. Tightly packed yarn prevented air from moving through the fabric and carrying the heat away from the body. Air will flow freely and carry heat through any gap in the fabric larger than ~40 microns. (twice the thickness of a single fiber of merino)

Such goods can also be knit on circular needles. However, knitting such a fabric on circular needles will, take much longer and will stress the wrists resulting in Carpel Tunnel Syndrome (CTS). Perhaps not on the first tight fisherman’s sweater that one knits, but such knitting will take a toll on one’s wrists. The replica sweater that Mary Wright (Cornish Guernseys & Knit-frocks) first knit circa 1976 resulted in wrist surgery. In 2005, there was gansey sweater knit along on circular needles. Five of the 6 finishers required wrist surgery within a year. Therefore, with circular needles the tendency is to knit more loosely. Knitting 10% looser, takes much of the stress off the wrists, but produces a much less warm fabric.

In contrast, in 2008, I finished a Filey Guernsey with 750 cable crosses in 9 days, with no wrist problems. When I teach, I pour a bottle of water on a “gansey”, talk for a while, pickup the sweater and pour the water into a sink or bucket. The table or floor where I poured the water on the sweater is still dry. Those sweaters are weatherproof. I have half a dozen sweaters that I can use for this demo - and most have been worn a great deal. They are very comfortable for sailing. The styles and yarns used vary significantly, but they are all weatherproof.

If you want to hand knit sweaters for a boat load, or ship full of seamen, you will have use gansey needles or you will either knit too loosely and all will be lost, or you will ruin your wrists before all the sweaters are knit, and those seamen without a warm sweater will die.

“Gansey” is not the style of the garment or the decorative stitches. “Gansy” is a technique of fabric production, that can be used for all types of fabrics that can be hand knit. Gansey knitting has different physics than knitting with hand-held needles. Some kinds of objects such as gloves that can be gansey knit are better swaved. And, under some conditions, some kinds of objects can be more conveniently knit with hand held needles. However, the last time I thought I had a good example of such an object, some careful swatching showed that gansey knitting was better.

It is one of those Love/Hate relationships

I am coming to really like swaving.

• It allows the production of very fine, very consistent, very tight fabrics. 
• Minimal stress on the hands.
• The knitting tools are very compact. 
• The knitting implements are not sharp.  One can work very fine yarns into very fine fabrics with tools that are not very pointy. 
• Swaving is very fast. 

Swaving has some real downsides.

• "Lace stitches" are difficult.  
• Decreases are so difficult that for cuff down socks I switch back to sock needles for the toes.
• Repair of mistakes is difficult, NO!, I mean really difficult. Picking up stitches after frogging is difficult.  On the fabrics where I really need them, I have not been able to make life lines work.
• Soft fabrics with loose gauge are difficult.  
• It requires a good knitting sheath with a needle adapter that allows easy rotation of the needle/prick.  the needle adapter may have to be oiled or greased - that means gunk on the knit object.

I am sure that I will find other issues, as I have not tried a large object like a sweater yet.

On balance, the speed of production, ease on the hands, and beauty of the fabrics wins.  Yes, it is the right way to knit socks and gloves.

Swaving and knitting pouches

My progress on learning to swave has been good. Overall,  I am not yet as fast as with ordinary knitting, but stress on my hands is less, allow more knitting to be done in a knitting session. Individual stitches are faster, but the process is not smooth and continuous.   Decreases and repair of mistakes are much slower and suck up any time gained by making stitches faster.

The quality/consistency and tightness of the fabric is the is as good or better than I can achieve with long gansey needles.  Since socks are hard to do on long needles, this is the very best sock fabric that I have ever produced.

Can swaving be done with Shetland style leather knitting pouches?  The pouch can be used to hold the prick as it is rotated to produce single stitches. However, the pouch has too much friction to allow the spring of the fabric to drive a continuous process as with a knitting sheath.  And, the angles are wrong.  It is not ergonomic.

Knitting pouches are the tool of choice for knitting fine, soft fabrics including fine lace and soft Fair Isle.

Starting first swaved object

3-Ply fingering swaved socks started:

Those are 2 mm pricks, and they produce a firmer, denser fabric than 2 mm sock or gansey needles with the same yarn. It is a very nice boot sock, glove or mitten fabric. The fabric is very consistent and uniform (for somebody just learning a new knitting style.)

"disingenuous" - rebutted.

Some people knit because they like the process. I knit because I want particular objects. I want those knit objects as soon as possible. Thus, I look for techniques that allow me to knit particular fabrics.  And, I look for techniques that allow me to knit those fabrics as fast as possible.   Come on, am I the only knitter that wants to get stuff finished?  I do enjoy knitting, but I have a lot of stuff that I want to knit, and a limited amount of time to knit.

Swaving seems like an approach that allows me to produce fabrics that I like, at a very rapid rate. For that it is worth a lot of effort. On the other hand, swaving turns out to have a very long and very steep learning curve.  I admit that I am still at the bottom of that learning curve.  We could climb the curve faster if other people would make swaving tools, and tell us what tools work and what tools do not.  It would be nice if other people would work out the technique.

However, people seem prone to just carping that my swaving technique is not as good as it could be. I know that.  Why am I the only one posting on this topic?  Why do they not post better tools and techniques?

We have no extant tools known to be used for swaving rather then knitting, so I was making tools from the example of one glover's needle (because it was different) and some rather general descriptions. There were problems with the proportions of the first needles that I made. The result was they produced beautiful fabric, but the process was very high effort, and not ergonomic. Still, I think that working out the motions of swaving was very ingenuous.

Last summer, I worked out some the problems with the proportions of the pricks, and the process become much easier and more ergonomic. I started exploring what the process could do.  The video (a few posts back) is 6-ply yarn being knit on US1pricks to produce a very tight fabric that is even tighter than anything I could produce with gansey needles. In its own extreme knitting way, it is kinda neat. My wife took a video of some of that work, and it got posted.

As I do, what I call "swaving", the prick rotates in the knitting sheath. That is different. On the other hand, if you are not looking for it, it is very hard to see in video. (My wife also says it is hard to see in real life, and she has very sharp eyes.)  I can see it because I know the physics of the process and know what is going on.  I do see the needle rotating in the knitting sheath. I see the pressure applied with the side of my hand to the shaft of the prick that causes the prick to  rotate.  Since most knitter's needles do not rotate when slight pressure is applied to the shaft of the needle, most knitters do not recognize that a rotational force is being applied to the working prick. The needle is not wiggling back and forth, it is not flexing, the knitting sheath is not moving, rather the prick is rotating in the knitting sheath. As it rotates, the tip of the needle describes an arc.  An arc that takes the tip of the prick into, and out of, the stitch -- driven with one linear motion of the side of my hand.  Like it or not, that is different from other all other knitting techniques.  It is is proper swaving.

Now, I know the yarn can be carried with either the right or left hand. I consider both swaving because in both cases the prick rotates in the knitting sheath. Knitting when carrying the yarn in the left hand may be a bit faster.  And I have figured out how to purl - much easier when carrying the yarn in the right hand.

The surprise is knitting fine yarn with very fine (1.5 mm)  pricks into firm fabric.  I like this fabric for socks and gloves.  Today, swaving is the easiest way I know to get this done.  For now, it seems to me that socks, mitttens, and gloves from fine yarns are the tasks where swaving truly excels.  (Now, it is worth spinning finer yarns.)

Failure for knitters to recognize the rotation of the prick, makes me wonder if Rutt actually saw swaving and failed to recognize why it was different than knitting.  Really, unless one is looking for the rotation of the prick, it just looks like "knitting".

Finer needles

Currently the finest needles in my needle chest:

That is 1/4 " graph paper.  They are pointy.  In the summer, leather aprons are good.

I just use the 1 mm (000) needle adapters with them.

The Briar Patch of Cowbands

A big part of learning to use knitting sheath is learning to properly secure it to your body.  Different knitting sheath designs work best with different kinds of cowbands .I have made different designe of knitting sheaths and tested them with different kinds of cowbands.

A few representative knitting sheath designs.

(the ruler in the center is 6" long)

 Thus, when you are making a knitting sheath, you need to think about what you are going to wear as you knit, and how you are going to secure the knitting sheath.

My first success with knitting sheaths came after I saw the Hornblower series on PBS. I saw the sailors (costumed as British navy circa 1800) wearing heavy leather belts, very low on their hips.  I realized that a knitting sheath could be tucked in to such a belt (over the right buttock) for gansey knitting.  This worked so well that I used heavy leather belts for all my knitting sheaths for a long, long time.  For knitting very firm fabrics with long needles, nothing surpasses a heavy leather belt.

Knitting sheaths that work well with heavy leather belts.

However, not everybody wants to knit with long gansey needles, some want to knit with shorter needles.  The heavy leather belts are not the best solution for using a Yorkshire goose wing knitting sheath with sock needles, or for using larger needles for producing softer fabrics.

Shorter needles and the production of softer fabrics allow the use of other kinds of cowbands.  One that works remarkably well is the elastic waistband of sweat pants (or gym shorts in the summer.)  Some kinds of knitting sheaths do well tucked into an elastic waist band.

I like wearing an apron when I knit. In the winter, it is a bit warmer.  In the summer, a good apron helps protect my lap from the sharp tips of very fine needles.  And, a white apron can reflect a lot of light onto dark yarn, and a dark apron can reduce glare when knitting outside.  Apron strings are one the very best ways to secure a knitting sheath.  A lot of my knitting sheaths are now made to work with apron strings.

 

Some knitting sheaths designed to work with apron strings.






As I knit, there is some downward pressure on the working needle as I knit, but I put a lot of effort into learning to knit so that I do NOT  pull the needle out of the needle adapter or the knitting sheath out of my cowband.  However, most knitters do tend to pull up on the needle. The slot in the knitting sheath for the cowband must have edges to resist both up and down forces.


The knitting sheath on the right above does not, and thus while it works well for me with apron strings, it would not work well for most knitters.  Most knitters would want to use that knitting sheath only with a heavy leather belt .

I had some success with thin synthetic belts as in:

These require narrow slots for the fabric and the knitting sheaths must be held on the belt in some way, or most knitters will pull them up and off of the belt.  This was a light weight knitting sheath for camping and the clew to hold the yarn went through the hole and held the knitting sheath on the belt.

 Here is another approach that works for thin woven belts:

This is another photograph of one of the knitting sheaths on the blue apron above.  That groove allows it to work well with a thin nylon belt. This photo also shows the narrow leather belt from my knitting pouch.  The truth of the the matter is that narrow leather belt on the knitting pouch has become one of my favorite cowbands for knitting sheaths when knitting softer fabrics.

Knitting sheaths with strap from knitting pouch.

I also like (card) woven  or knit sashes to hold a knitting sheath: 

This is a garter stitch,  knit sash that I wrap around my waist and tie, which works very with knitting sheaths when knitting softer fabrics.

If you only wear dresses and disdain belts, sashes, and aprons, then I suggest a knitting heart that is stitched to the dress.  The stuff above is knitting gear that I know works very well, because it has been used and used.  However, a nice dress belt, fresh from Needless Markup Department Stores will work just as well, and be more attractive.  Likewise, I tend to use the prototype knitting sheaths that are functional, but not pretty. 

Swaving with straight needles

Many modern DPN fail when bent for swaving.  Can one swave with straight needles?

Well, no! Swaving requires the needles to rotate for the tip to produce an arc of motion.  When a straight needle rotates, its tip stays in one place and there is no tip motion to make the stitch.

With a flexible needle, the knitter can flex the needle and use the resulting bend to rotate the needle. This made me think that I was swaving with straight needles, when in fact I was swaving with curved needles.

First video of swaving

The rain has paused, and there is enough light for video.  Unfortunately the I have a limited number of good swaving needles at this time the the good needles have this 6-ply navy yarn on them that just sucks light out of the frame.

Here are some very short clips.  These are done very slowly for the camera, and the motions do not really work that well when done slowly.

Swaving "needles' are called pricks. The pricks, sheath and setup are here: 

I find that short pricks work better.  Long pricks tend to get torqued  off axis and become difficult to rotate. Thus, I like swaving pricks that are no more than 8" long. The curvature is so slight that the needle will fit into 1/2" pipe.  Thus, when the prick is rotated in the sheath, the tip describes a circle of less than 1" in diameter. The arc of movement is limited by the legs of the previous stitch.  Thus, fine motion control of the  working prick is not required.  Then the left prick simply follows the right needle, and since they are both in the same stitch, the left prick follows the same circular motion as the working needle.

The are three motions in the formation of a knit stitch.  Push into the stitch. Loop yarn. Pull back.  At the end of the pull back the stitch pops off the left needle, but remains on the working needle.

For a purl stitch (not shown) the yarn is brought forward, the working prick is pulled into the stitch, the yarn looped, and the pricks pushed away so the yarn pops off. 

While there are 3 motions, the yarn looping is a continuation of the first motion, so the direction of motion of the hands only changes once in the course of a stitch, and is very fast.  The tension of the stitches is also very uniform (and tight!)

For comparison here is my knitting with the same yarn and needles:

Note that there are 4 motions, each of which require fine motion control.  Yes, swaving is faster.  And, while knitting can be done with a loosely secured needle, swaving requires that the working needle rotate easily on a fixed axis.

Swaving has become my knitting style of choice because it is fast and it gets more knitting done for the same effort.  On the other hand, it must be done fast.  It does not work for slow knitting for relaxation.  It is a high effort activity, that results in getting a great deal of knitting done rapidly.

  

Why don't I post more of my knitting?

Because I have too many things on my plate!

Knitting sheath  for with set needle adapters for straight DPN  in 7 sizes.

(this is California, where some are bent.)

Knitting Sheaths for Swaving

The straight needle techniques that I have worked out for knitting with a knitting sheaths work better when the needle is held more or less securely and does not wiggle or slip out. Wiggle increases wear, thereby enlarging the hole and slipping out is a problem for beginning knitters, and it can result in the knitting needle popping out at an inconvenient time.  The first knitting sheaths that I made were often made of softer woods and wear was a real problem.  Knowing that many old knitting sheaths were made of ceramic, metal, or had brass liners, I tried lining the needle hole with brass, but this allow the needle to slip out easily and was never very satisfactory.  Thus, I put a lot of effort into designing needle holes that simply did not allow needle wiggle, and thus were simply more durable.  These holes hold the needle with friction and do not allow the needle to accidentally slip out.

However for swaving, the needle needs to rotate easily in the needle hole. My holes that grip the needle are not suitable.  However, needle holes lined with metal or ceramic are very suitable.

I think we can go back to P. C. Brears, The Knitting Sheath, and understand that the knitting sheaths made of ceramic and metal, or with metal liners such that the needle could rotate freely in the needle hole, were likely for swaving, although they could also be used for knitting.

These days, I use needle adapters lined with brass for swaving.

more Swaving

The key to ergonomic swaving is the correct needles.  When I first made up swaving needles, I was working from a sample of  a glove needle, and I tried to scale it up to 6" and 8" needles.  It does not work.  The longer needles were not ergonomic  :  (  As I found out!

The sample glove needle had a 90 degree bend in the middle, so as it rotates in the knitting sheath, the tip describes a circle with a radius of 2".  Turns out that is about right for my hands/style.  If I take a 6" sock needle and put a 90 degree bend in the middle, then the tip describes a circle with a radius of 3". That does not work as well for me.

Now, I bend the 6" and 8" needles much more gently so that as they rotate in the knitting sheath their tips describe a circle with a radius of ~ 2" or less -- yes-- the gentile curve that we see in old needles.  About the gentile curve that we see in well used wooden or bamboo needles.

However, swaving needles have a ball tip, with essentially no taper. My swaving needles started as sock needles, but now the tips have been ground round, because that works much better. Note that it is much easier to grind the tips before bending.  : (  My needles are hard to bend. Addis are much easier, but they are plated, so you do not want to go grinding Addi tips.  Some steel DPN are made from tubing, which is likely to crumple when bent.

The needle is "popped" into the stitch, yarn looped, then both hands push down and out in a short, brief, powerful motion. In my style,as the hands are pushed down, the palm or ball of the thumb pushes the upper end of the knitting sheath down about 3/8" of an inch, the knitting sheath pivots, and the working needle levers the yarn through the stitch using the leg of the last stitch as a fulcrum, while at the same time pushing the working stitch open to allow the loop of yarn to come through. This happens suddenly!  The needle with its loop of  yarn pops through, and the small (3/8") motion of the left hand slides the stitch off the needle.

The system allows very large forces to be applied to the knitting. And the system works better when the firmness of the fabric can add to the "spring" that pops the stitch.  At this time, I actually do not know if the system will produce the soft fabrics produced by CYC (http://www.craftyarncouncil.com/weight.html) recommendations. I have been knitting medium (4) yarn on 2.38 mm needles at 7 spi (28 s/4").  I like the fabric. I do have some finer needles, and someday, I will move on to finer yarns.

Swaving is very good for crossed stitches, and it is very good for garter stitch.

/Edited on 7/27/2013  Here I was knitting crossed garter stitch.  Eastern Crossed stitch at a firm gauge is not possible with blunt pricks./

 Likely, one of the reasons for the popularity of crossed stitch fabrics in the old days was that crossed stitched garter results in fabric that has a minimum number of stitches per area, and thus was fast (cheap) to knit.

The process works with firm and very firm fabrics.  The produced fabric is more like high quality machine knit sock fabric than like most modern "hand-knit" fabric. (This may just be me as I like this fabric.)

Stitches tend to lay along the curve of the needles right down to the tip.  Dropping stitches is a much larger problem, but ladders and even tension is less of a problem.

On can knit/purl with swaving needles, but swaving does not happen with straight needles.  One can use the same knitting sheath, but the needles are not really interchangeable for production work.   For me at least, ordinary knitting/purling with a knitting sheath and curved needles is much slower than ordinary knitting/purling with a knitting sheath.  On the other hand knitting/purling with a knitting sheath is much faster than knitting/purling without a knitting sheath.

I have not figured out how to purl with a swaving motion. I have to just purl.

/Edited on 7/27/2013 - I have gotten very good at purling using the swaving motion.  It just took a lot of practice./

Thanksgiving

My wife was napping, the sauces were simmering, and I was putting fingers on some new ski gloves.

One of the needles was a second (not good enough to sell) and I had tossed it in my knitting bag, and then grabbed it as I sat down to knit. It had ball points.  I was thinking, "A ball tipped glove needle is an oxymoron!"  It poked my palm, so on the next round, I bent it.

And on the next round, everything conspired, and I was swaving.  Yes, today I give thanks that at long, long, last I understand ergonomic swaving.  It turns out the path to swaving is through mittens, red wine, and turkey gravy. And, yes, long ago I was correct about Yorkshire Goosewings being designed to pivot on the point of the hip, I was just wrong about the motion used to drive them.

They are pushed down with the ball of the thumb, and the spring of the fabric causes them to spring back.  It is like magic.  It can be done with other styles of sheaths.  In this case I was using a Durham design.

I had to go dig out all of those swaving needles that I made so long ago.  Now, I know how to use them.

Tools for knitting gloves

I understand that new new edition of The Hand Knitters of the Dales will be out shortly, and I thought I should revisit glove making tools.

Certainly, in 1848, knitters in the Dales were still knitting a full range of items, and would have used a full range of knitting tools including long gansey needles and knitting sheaths optimized for such long needles. However, commercial hand knitting of fine women's gloves persisted into the 1930s.  Ladies gloves were the last commercially produced hand knit objects in Yorkshire.  Later Shetland and Bohus professional knitters used leather knitting pouches.

This post is about the tools that I have found to be most useful for knitting gloves.

I differ from most authors writing bout knitting sheaths (including Peter C. D. Brears) because I make knitting sheaths of various materials, styles, and sizes, then I knit with all the tools that I make.  The tool making informs the knitting, and the knitting informs the tool making.

Early on, I found bout 11 different knitting techniques that used a knitting sheath. or knitting stick. Some used the spring action of the needle, some used the spring action from the rebound of the knit fabric, and some used the elasticity of the cow band or the spring action of the compression of the knitter's abdominal tissue.  These spring action motions were faster than knitting that required two separate motions of the hand controlling the working needle. ("Cow band" the technical term for the belt that holds a knitting sheath.)

For a very long time, I thought that long knitting sheaths supporting short needles required two separate motions of the hand controlling the working needle.  I knit a large number of very nice socks and mittens this way, and everyone was amazed at how fast I could knit.   However, I thought the the two separate motions were intrinsically slower than gansey knitting with long steel needles .I tried using pieces of gansey needles with brass tubing to act as springs shorter needles.  I tried a lot of stuff.  A lot of it did not work.

 I have found that large knitting sheaths can use the elasticity of the cow band and the knitter's abdomen to deliver a spring action that be used to drive small (sock & glove) needles. It is really not that uncomfortable.  It would not be that bad to knit 50 pair of mittens in year using this technique.  What is required is a fairly large, broad knitting sheath and an elastic cow band.  After much evolution, the tool kit that I like for gloves is:

I use a cow band of hand knit garter stitch about 2" wide.  It goes around my waist twice, and is knotted.

I use a big knitting sheath of pine with chip carving that tends to help stabilize it in place. (It is tucked into the cow band.)  That thing is 14" long.  It is ugly, but it works.  It is not something most people would drag around and use to knit in public.

I use 6" long US 1 DPN for the cuffs and wrists. (set of 5)

I use 4" long glover's needles in sizes 1, 0, 00, and 000.  (I work with sets of 4.)

And, I like a fine steel crochet hook.  Not shown is the tapestry needle that is always in the knitting bag.

The system is wicked fast, and produces fine uniform product.

The patterns that I like for making gloves that fit are in Mary Thomas's Knitting Book.   Good patterns for mittens are in Latvian Mittens by Lizbeth Upitis .   However, I change the gauge around, and knit much tighter fabrics.  I do this, because tighter fabrics are warmer and more durable. And, I do it because I can.  A knitter with a knitting sheath can easily knit fabrics that are much tighter than any fabric knit by a hand knitter without a knitting sheath. Thomas's and Upitis mittens are better than those in Weldon's.  Robin  Hansen's Favorite Mittens has some useful material in it, and has more about fit than Upitis and less than Thomas.

A knitter with a knitting sheath can easily use the small fine glovers' needles. Trying to use such needles without a knitting sheath is a slow and uncomfortable process.  This is why we do not see many glovers' needles anymore.  And cables? they just cannot keep up at all.

Commercially knit gloves may have had cuffs and wrists that were produced using swavling.  Swavling is a knitting technique where the rebound of the fabric provides the spring action for fast knitting.  Swavling is done with blunt, curved needles called "pricks" and it also required a knitting sheath.  In swavling the prick rotates in the knitting sheath.  Swavling can be very fast, and produce a very fine, uniform fabric, however it is high effort!

Steel needles in the Low Lands

I went off to Flanders without crocus cloth.

Here in California, it tends to be dry enough that my knitting polishes my needles as fast as they can oxidize, and with a reasonable amount of knitting, my steel needles stay shiny and smooth.  That turned out not to be the case in the Low Lands. Even knitting with a coarse, oiled wool, over the course of a week the steel turned gray.

 It was not really so bad, I was traveling and knitting with them where-ever,  and being less slippery, they were less likely to fall out and go where-ever needles go on the train. Over all, in a month, I lost one needle.

Nevertheless, those remaining needles are going to get a good rubbing with crocus cloth for wondering abroad without protection.

The only knitter that I met in Europe that uses a knitting sheath was a Docent at the Anne Franks House Museum in Amsterdam.

I looked and did not see any knitting sheaths.  As part of Monument Day and there was a large street market in Delft, with a large number of antiques dealers.  Two said they had knitting sheaths at home, but never brought them to street markets because such things never sell.

The only other person that I saw knitting in public was the lady that ran the sewing and knitting department at Bon Marche in Paris.

A train did not come, so I taught an 8-year old girl waiting next to me on the platform how to knit and gave her needles and yarn to knit a scarf.  Actually, it was my wife that did the teaching.  She does not knit, but she is a much better knitting teacher than I am.  Anyway, there is one more knitter in Amsterdam.

The lesson from the trip was the very high quality of spinning in Flanders circa 1500, and the fact that they were working with wool/silk blends at that time.

Fractured History

"All the history texts" say that Flanders got rich selling cloth.

They may have made their money selling cloth, but the quality of their spinning was a major component of their success in textiles. They were very good spinners.

This can be seen by comparing Flemish tapestries to tapestries from other regions during the same periods. The Flemish spinning is finer and more uniform. The uniformity is what matters.  Consistent thread thickness allowed the Flemish tapestries to have really straight lines.

Look at the best Belgian lace. The thread is finer than what was being used by other lace makers.  And again, the uniformity is astounding.

With machine spun thread, we are accustomed to very uniform spinning.  However, those old spinners of Flanders produced hand spun thread and yarn of great uniformity.

And they were great dyers. The perfect color across huge tapestries shows that they really knew how to produce consistent colors in a huge variety of shades.

The folks in Flanders may have been the best weavers in the world, but they were likely also the best spinners and dyers.