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.

Eastern Cross Stitch Revisited

I like ECS.  The fabric is thicker, with much more cushion and ventilation than plain knitting.  It has a much softer feel than plain knitting knit at the same gauge.  This makes it ideal for socks.  On the other hand, it can never be as weatherproof as plain knitting so it is not as suited for outer wear, where wind is a factor.

ECS wants to be knit with small motions.  Large motions tend to tighten up the fabric and make the next row difficult to knit.  Thus, ECS is easier to knit with a working needle that is stabilized, and more difficult to knit with say circular needles, where both needles are hand held.

I first tried ECS on circular needles and it too much effort to be practical.  Yes, it could be done,  but it was an effort.  Then, I went to  DPN with a knitting sheath.  That was much better. As I discovered that blunt needles work better with knitting sheaths than DPN,  I used knitting sheaths with blunt needles to knit ECS faster. To be frank, knitting ECS with blunt needles is fast, but tricky.

Now, I know that leather (Shetland style) knitting belts are the  support of choice for DPN, and DPN with a knitting belt is the tool kit of choice for knitting Eastern Cross Stitch.  And it is a stitch that allows knitting very tight fabrics, very durable without the extra leverage that a knitting sheath provides.  And, when knit very tight, ECS is much less stiff then plain knitting knit similarly. Plain knitting is the path to a tight firm fabric. ECS is the path to a tight, soft fabric.

ECS is a very nice fabric for socks and undergarments.  I think it is likely the basis of the traditional "Jersey".  It has taken years for me to come to a technology that made knitting such fabrics a reasonable effort.

Why did I not get here earlier? Conventional wisdom did not tell me that a knitting belt could produce such fabrics.  Today, I see knitting belts with pointy needles as the tool of choice for lace and crossed stitch fabrics.

The  other side of this is that a knitting sheath with blunt needles remains easiest and fastest way that I know do plain knitting, garter stitch or Fair Isle.   

Eastern Cross Stitch

Somebody asked about Eastern Cross Stitch, but that sample does not seem to photograph well, so I dug through my swatches for on one of gansey yarn knit on 3.75 needles.

Pix includes pages from Mary Thomas's Knitting Book

At that gauge, the knitting is easy enough.  Knit tight, ECS is much harder.  I did have a very good technique for doing it with blunt needles, but I seem to have forgotten the method and am back to doing ECS by brute force with pointy needles.  I need to re-un-vent the technique, and document it better.

The question to test is: " ECS provides cushion and ventilation which are good for socks. Do the virtues of ECS make it worthwhile for other objects considering the extra effort of production?  Or,  are there much easier ways to produce the fabric? We know that in old times ECS was much favored.  Was it much favored for all objects or just socks?  Why was it much favored?

You can see that I have been going round and round on this for some time.  Picking it up and dropping it in fits and starts.

ECS 3

A swatch/prototype in progress.  The stitch is eastern crossed stitch.  The yarn is Paton's Classic Wool.  The gauge is 8 stitches per inch or 32 stitches per 4".  The object is the torso for a knit in the round Jersey.

This object is out of my bin of ECS WIP.  Today, I knit the same stitch at the same gauge - I just knit it at a practical rate. The fabric is lovely.  Now, I know how to finish it off in a reasonable time.  The scale is marked in inches. 

ECS 2

After some additional swatching, and reflection, I expect that eastern cross stitch was the stitch used in the classic "Jersey" shirts produced in the Channel Islands for seamen and fishermen.  Perhaps ECS was also used in the heavier Guernsey shirts, but it makes a glorious fabric for general outdoor wear.

Eighty years ago we could buy knit wool sport shirts! Today, they have been replaced by knit cotton and polyester.  And while I love my knit cotton rugby shirts, when cotton (and linen) are wet, the are not nearly as warm as a knit wool.  And, knit synthetics are not safe around open flames.  No, knit wool is the right fabric for working and playing away from central heat.  And, ECS is the best stitch that I know for finely knit shirt fabrics.

And eastern cross stitch produces a warmer and more weatherproof (keeps out wind and wet) fabric than modern Weldon's stockinette.  (Knit with hand held, pointy needles)  At the very least, there are many little stitches in a finely knit shirt, and Weldon's methods are a lot of effort for a few stitches.

I do not expect anyone to accept anything that I say.  I expect everyone to THINK and test everything.  Swatch, and test heat flow though the fabrics. Swatch, and stitch the swatches into garments and test how they perform.  I expect my students to be adventurous and creative.  I expect my students to never accept the current technology as the end point.  If you are EVER satisfied with the current technology (spinning, knitting, weaving) then you do not belong here.

Our current hand made textiles are not as fine or produced as quickly as the hand made textiles of times past. That proves that we do not need power equipment to work faster.  That proves that we do not need computers to work better.  We can do better than we are doing by improving our skills and refining our tools.  It is not easy, but my students are not lazy.  If you think it is too much work, you do not belong here.

Eastern Cross stitch

My attention was originally drawn to Eastern Cross Stitch when I read in Mary Thomas's  Knitting Book, that in previous times, it had been a very popular stitch. This raised the question, "What was  Eastern Cross Stitch's particular virtue to make it popular?"

Yes it produces a nice firm fabric, but so does stockinette when knit with fine needles and a knitting sheath.

However, with flat tipped needles (and a knitting sheath), Eastern Cross Stitch turns out to be the fastest stitch to knit. (Or at least the fastest I have found so far.)   The hand movements are few and tiny. They can be done quickly and with minimal effort.   In hand knitting, fast is cheap.  Fabrics knit with Eastern Cross Stitch had the lowest cost to knit.  And, it produces a warmer fabric using larger needles (fewer stitches per inch^2).

I played with ECS on pointy needles a while back, and knitting it was more effort than knitting stockinette so I have bins full of ECS WIP.    Now, I know how to finish them quickly and easily. Knitting ECS with pointy hand held needles is also more effort than stockinette.  I actually expect that at one time ECS knit in the round would have been considered "stockinette".  Consider for example the stitch structure of the Coptic socks.

Eastern Cross Stitch has rather abruptly become my default stitch for firm fabrics. (Pending  full testing of the prototypes.)   It was just a matter of finding the right tools to make the stitch faster and easier.

This of course raises the question as to whether the Channel Island knitters used the ECS as a competitive advantage in knitting seaman's clothing.  In any case, it is easy to see why the stitch was popular.  And, it lends credence to the old stories of very fast knitting. (e.g., even faster than :

Ribbing

Socks knit from fine, multi-ply or multi-strand yarns do not need ribbing for stretch. These fabrics have enough stretch in the fabric.  However,  knit to fit - you do not have the crutch of ribbing to hide defects in fit.

This has implications for interpretation of old art for the presence of knitting.  Look at the socks and hose in Weldon's, and  it is difficult to determine if the fabric is knit or woven.  It is even harder working from an oil painting or fresco.  You may not be able to knit like that but, people can and do, and people did.   I find that textile historians tend not to be able to knit that well, beginning with Rutt.

Earlier, I mentioned that the current generation of sock needles are 8" long. These days, my finer needles corresponding to UK 16, 17, and 18 are 14" long, and I have stopped using the shorter needles in these sizes.  A work in progress on these needles is difficult to transport, and thus, these days all the fine knitting is done at home.   (Just a year after I got a knitting bag big enough to hold my gansey needles, I have stopped using them).  My favorite chair while knitting with the long needles remains a wooden folding chair - because it gives clearance for the knitting sheath and the needle.

The leather knitting pouch works very well for the more flexible, blunter needles (if any 1.5 mm needle can be called blunt  ; )  that I am using these days,  and I could live with a knitting belt as my sole knitting support.  I do like the knitting belt for knitting in the car or on aircraft.  And, certainly the Shetlanders knit gloves professionally on such long needles.  However, swaving with bent pricks is a game changer for fine gloves, and one cannot swave with a leather knitting belt.  Thus I need to keep my knitting sheaths for swaving. And I do think that the right knitting sheath is faster than a knitting belt. On the other hand, a knitting belt is faster than the wrong knitting sheath. And if one is switching back and forth between different sizes and lengths of needles, it is difficult to always have the right knitting sheath at hand.  And on socks, I like Eastern Cross Stitch on the sole, and swaving does not do that easily, so currently all socks are knit on 8"  straight needles with a knitting sheath.  Right now, the only WIP being knit on a knitting belt is a gansey from 6-strand fingering yarn on 14" long 1.5 mm knitting pins.  It is a nice fabric.

At this point, I think that modern knitting patterns are the result of trying to make a silk purse out of fat, 2-ply yarns.  There was a time when wassit was a standard yarn, used for utility knitting.  It was 5-ply.  The resulting fabric was durable and elastic. It was DK or sport weight, but could be knit on UK 13 or 14 needles to produce a very dense, elastic fabric.   Then, as we started using cheaper 2-ply yarns, they did not have as much elasticity, so we started doing more ribbing.  Ribbing is a trademark of a knitter that does not use multi-ply yarn.

When I started spinning 5-ply, I replicated the commercial product.  It produced stitches that "popped!" More recently, I have been making these yarns with less ply twist. They have to be steam blocked to balance, but they produce a denser fabric without the needle holes. I like it a lot.  Not as much stitch pop, but over all, a more attractive fabric.

Knitting and Nalbinding

All knit fabrics can be replicated by nalbinding. This is controlled by natural laws as deep and wide as the more commonly known Newton's laws of motion. Therefore nalbinding a replica of an object says nothing about whether the original was made by knitting or nalbinding.

On the other hand, knitting is faster. It may be that an object may be practical to use and wear out when it is quickly knit, but when made by nalbinding the object is too valuable and precious to be subjected to the wear of routine use.

Thus, I "knit" my boot socks.  It takes me 20 hours to knit a pair, or 15 hours to swave a
pair.  I could produce the same pair of socks by nalbinding, but it would take twice as long, and be less uniform and consistent.  As practical objects, subject to wear and abuse, I want to invest an minimum amount of time in each pair of socks, and  I knit or swave my socks.  Therefore there is a purpose, and a value to knitting.

I like the Eastern Crossed Stitch (ECS) for sock fabric.  However, while ECS can in theory be swaved, as a practical matter, this fabric must be knit.  Just because a fabric can be knit in theory does not mean that it can be knit with the wrong tools or without specific tools and techniques.  One certainly cannot walk into to modern LYS and purchase the tools required to rapidly produce ECS.  That does not mean that such tools do not exist and were not not known to professional knitters in the past. It only means that such tools are not common today.

DK Burham replicated objects using nalbinding.  Every person familiar with nalbinding knew that could be done, so Burham's work is interesting, but it provides no useful information. Certainly nalbinding is suitable for luxury objects, or objects of ritual or ceremonial use.  Economic constraints constraints of whether nalbinding was economically practical for objects subject to wear were not considered, but we know that the socks were subject to practical use and were in need of repair.  Thus, we can guess that the socks were not luxury, ritual, or ceremonial; and, economics did play a role in the choice of fabrication method.

Moreover, if the socks were substantially knit from short pieces of loom warm waste, then the Coptic Socks may contain individual stitches that are neither typical knitting or typical nalbinding, but which are simply the result of  repair of dropped stitches or darning/weaving in ends at a break in the yarn. Before I started swatching these ECS fabrics, I did think that 3 of these stitches  indicated that the fabric was nalbinding.  However, as I look back over my knit ECS swatchs, I do see similar stitches in my knit ECS work. This was something that I could only discover by knitting ECS. I did not settle any question, except that ECS makes great socks.

Over all, I am highly amused that so many people are so passionate in favor of a flawed analysis that provides so little information.