BS: traditional knitting patterns

Subject: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Emma B
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 11:48 AM

For all you knitters out there...

I have long been interested in the traditional knitting patterns of the UK and further afield and have even copied some museum garments from photographs.

Every year en route for a musical holiday with friends on the Isle of Arran I have travelled through the old Scottish town of Sanquhar but, not until listening to the Open Country programme on BBC Radio 4 was I aware of the black and white knitting patterns unique to that area.

Examples from the Future Museum of SW Scotland.

Anyone else have favourite patterns? - mine are the Hebridean ones from the Gansey patterns of the Scottish fishing fleet to the knitted lace shawls

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: gnomad
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 12:41 PM

I'm no knitter, but having heard the programme while driving I wondered whether your post would be on this branch of the subject.

Thanks, Emma, your examples helped me visualise what the programme was talking about. They look like a LOT of work to me.

I was fascinated that sizing was done entirely via choice of needles, yarn, and tension, with stitch numbers and patterns the same for all sizes. Damn cunning these Scots.

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: MMario
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 12:45 PM

I've seen some of the Sanquhar patterns - and like all colourwork they scare the beejeebers out of me. I'll stick with the lace....

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 01:59 PM

JeeeeeaaaayyyySUS! If I made those, they'd cost a bloody MINT!
(not that I could make them....)

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 03:56 PM

The Art Of Shetland Lace
Fair Isle Knitting
These two were put together by my very ex sister in law. My niece modelled a lot of the stuff in them and my mum knitted quite a lot of it (Sarah not being a good knitter!) and all the photoes are by my brother Alexander Don Photography. I have copies of both somewhere Emma and would gladly lend them.

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Emma B
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 04:54 PM

I have a book by Sarah Don Jane but that's not the edition I have - mine dates back to 1979 and has a look I can only describe as unmistakably 70s as far as the models are concerned:)

Another Fair Isle one is by Shiela McGregor

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 05:00 AM

I recently discovered knitting after needing something to take my mind off the pain of watching my dad go through various operations, getting worse and nursing him and then passing away in Feb 07.

I started knitting to keep my mind straight - reading didn't work I read the same old line again and again. Knitting helped me keep going, and I've not stopped since. It's a great calming thing

EWIS

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Emma B
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 05:49 AM

The Shetland Lace Shawls are beautiful, finest of all are the
Wedding Ring Shawls
; these were commonly six foot (180 cms) square and so finely knitted that when finished, the shawl could be passed through a wedding ring.

Some examples of patterns can be found on the Sheland Museums web pages

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 08:37 AM

It isn't 'calming' at all for me. I get more and more and more frustrated until I'm pounding on the needles to get them thru. The work is obviously getting tighter and tighter....until I finally just throw it at the wall in disgust and frustration. Crochet is just as bad for me.

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: MMario
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 08:47 AM

I thought it was the Sarah Don books you had told me about, jane. I am pretty sure I did manage to score one...got to dig out the library and check.

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Grab
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 09:23 AM

Not convinced about resizing via needle choice. My mum used to do a lot of knitting, and regularly produced two or three sweaters a year. We found that fisherman's rib sweaters in acrylic wool were ideal - very warm, even when wet, and quick to dry too. The downside though was that they'd loosen over time until they became shapeless woolen sacks. Using small needles with a tight knit helped stop that happen.

One of these days I've got to get a knitting machine. I used to do a little knitting when I was a kid, but there's no way on earth I could knit an entire sweater by hand in less than about 10 years! :-/

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 09:32 AM

I'm not a natural knitter, but I have produced a few garments...

Mother, on the other hand, being disabled, would sit in the sofa and do nothing but knit. Her record was 4 children's cardigans (12-14yrs) in a week. A baby cardigan would appear almost overnight as it were.

I remember being sent to the jumble sales in the village with instructions to buy any hand knitted garment so she could reuse the wool. It would then be my job to unpick it and hold the hanks of wool over a bowl of hot water - just the job for a winter's night! The steam would take the kinks out of the wool and then I'd have to ball it up for her.

Usually, we'd be wearing the new garment a week after the jumble sale had provided us with the raw material.

Oddly enough, when she acquired a knitting machine, her productivity dropped - it meant sitting upright in a hard chair, in a cold room so in the end it was scrapped.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 03:27 AM

well, I do have to admit to developing a bad case of tourets occasionally when I'm knitting...

my significant half always ask me if I'm doing the oh b****r pattern again.

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: jacqui.c
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 08:22 AM

I used to knit a lot but got Carpal Tunnel in both wrists, mostly down to knitting, and had to give it up. Crochet doesn't seem to cause the problem.

I do keep looking at the Shetland lace shawls and wondering whether I could do it again.

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: MMario
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 08:30 AM

jackie - there are a number of shetland patterns that can be successfully mimicked in crochet....

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: jacqui.c
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 08:52 AM

True Leo - but they are never going to be as fine as a knitted one. It's just one of those things that I may have to try one day, just to see if I can do it.

Not right now though, I've got too many crochet projects to do.

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: GUEST,Animaterra's Secret Santa
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 06:33 PM

I sent my santee a book about traditional knitting in the UK (a great find at a garage sale). Alas, the lass hasn't figured out who I am, so I won't sign. But I researched her here at Mudcat and found that she is a knitter. Maybe she'll notice this thread and buckle down to untangling the clues I've set down before her.

I know several of you who have already posted on this thread could ID me in a slam dunk if I gave the same clues here.

Nudge nudge, Allison!

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Emma B
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 06:47 PM

A great Frank Sutcliffe photograph of Henry Freeman wearing a traditional gansey.

for a further look at the Whitby Lifeboat click here

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 07:16 PM

I'm guessing a "gansey" isn't the life preserver made of cork, right?

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Emma B
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 07:18 PM

not really :)

some examples here

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 06:43 AM

SS, you're here, too? But I'm so DUMB- what clues??????????

(but yes, it's a great book!)

Subject: RE: BS: traditional knitting patterns
From: Ottillie Don
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 11:39 AM

Cheap shot Mrs Duck!