Knitting while sailing on a wicked cold day on the Bay.
Waves broke over the bow, and soaked my knitting bag. Everything got wet, and the steel needles rusted. However, a little polishing with a bit of crocus cloth, and they were good as new.
Note the knitting sheath - it has become an absolute favorite for knitting out and about.
The current favorite for knitting in front of the TV.
Tools matter.
Most of all, I envy your tool-making skills. Because you are right: tools matter...
ReplyDeleteLove seeing you on the boat, looking so comfortable, knitting included. My husband has made steel needles for me. Now he's inspired by those sheaths. Thanks for posting these photos.
ReplyDeleteHoly Cow! Read your whole blog this weekend, and got out my 'collection' of steel stocking needles and a chunk of broomstick. Drilled a hole in the end of the 14 inches of broomstick and shoved it down the couch cushions. Looked at your videos and read your physics lessons once more, and cast on.
ReplyDeleteI'm a lefty continental knitter. I knit very fast, but pretty loose. (My knit st is loose, my purl st is snugger.) The stick allowed me to knit as usual, but at much tighter gauge than I normally get. I found that I could 'bend' the left needle tip into and out of the stitch, and I could pop the stitch off the rh needle by slightly lifting the yarn held in rh. Therein lies the potential of even more speed. (Righties: look at it in the mirror.lol) It DID take quite a bit of the pressure off my left wrist. I tried to knit 'english' with the stick (I knit english as a righty) and did not see how I was going to get to the speeds I am used to.
At any rate, lh and continental, I easily got textures and gauges that normally are harder to get, for me.
As a handspinner of some decades, my quest for speed there as taken me to building my own electric spinners. As soon as I was freed from the treadles, I found that I was also freed from being near the spinner. I like to spin four to seven feet back from the orifice. My hands caught up with the motor in no time, and my drafting/spinning speed is at least double what I could get chasing the treadles. This put fine singles/multiple plies back in the knitting repertoire in a big way. This Lefty knits Z, so I like to spin S/ply Z to minimize splitting.
I was just thinking I needed another spinner. I have an Ashford trad. flyer and maidens, and another sewing machine motor. Now, I think it will be a DD. You can find pics of Zippy and Big Zippy on my blog. "One Hundred Acres" on Blogspot.
Thanks for writing you blog. I sure will be taking a lot from it!
Sharon
Hi, Aaron. There is a study being done that may become of interest.
ReplyDeleteIt won't be finished until December of this year, but this part of the report caught my attention. (I hope it gets published in English where I can read the results.)
"A textile find in Kalmar in a warship sunk in 1676, among these a knitted silk waistcoat in a ships trunk (still unpublished), adds to the knowledge of knit ware fashion amongst the well to do in the 17th century."
http://ctr.hum.ku.dk/earlymodern/postdocproject/knitting/
Apparently she's studying thousands of fragments and surviving items relating to sailors' knitwear.
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