Today's meaningless post (progress reports plus a doily pic)

 Roll call on my projects!

Tia Rigid Heddle Loom First Weaving Project

The piece is off the loom.  I hem-stitched the ends.  That was a new thing for me!  I went around four warp threads and up two weft threads.  The instructions I was using went from left to right.  I don't know if that's the usual direction, but it felt very much like I was sewing left-handed.  The stitches are a bit uneven, of course, but were getting better by the time I was done.

Then I soaked the piece in water for a long time.

The red runs.  Runs and runs and runs, even with lots of direct rinsing.  So the white is now a somewhat blotchy off-white.  I don't believe all the excess red is gone, either!

The so-called magic where everything supposedly gets relaxed and filled in?  Didn't happen.  Maybe that's because this is cotton?  Or it needs a hot-water washer and dryer experience (with plenty of soap in the wash), ironing, a bit of abuse, or something beyond what I did?  The bits that are uneven are probably more obvious since the warp and weft are so contrasting in color.  It's not hugely uneven, but enough for me to notice.

So, now I have a striking yet not terribly attractive piece of weaving, yay!  I don't know if I'll do anything with it or just toss it into my samplers and prototypes box.

I mean, it's not terrible.  As a beginner piece, it is perfectly fine.  I learned a lot by doing it, and feel very ready to tackle the next project.

Fresh off the loom, it was 9.5" wide and 52" long.  After the long soak and then hanging it to dry, it's about 9" wide and still 52" long.  I haven't cut the excess warp length yet.

I'm not sure what I'll weave next, and whether it'll be on this loom or another of the small looms floating around the household or borrowed from friends.

Lavori 07/30 Doily Progress and Chart Error(s)

I've knit a couple of rounds, yay!

As I wrote earlier, for round 165 and beyond, I'm following the basic pattern set up that was established in previous rounds.  That means that the first set of hex mesh needs one more hex mesh motif (k2tog, yox2, ssk) for all the rounds until further notice.  The second set is fine as charted through round 169.

Round 169:  This should start with a 1Mv.  In other words, the last stitch of round 167 will become the first stitch of 169.  (When you reach the end of round 168, move the last stitch to the beginning of the next round before starting the chart.)

I'm still looking at the charts to see how I want to handle the discrepancy once I move to the 12 PR/rnd chart.  It becomes more of an issue when a leaf closes up and the double-decrease of the leaf tip needs to merge into the hex mesh.  Plus there's still the extra-or-missing? issue of the asymmetric yarnover placement in round 173.

Hobbit Shawl (F&F Comfort Shawl travel project)

I'm on the last ball of yarn.  This has been going much faster than I expected!  I still like the shawl.  It seems like it'll be an OK size after blocking.

It's turned out to not actually be a great travel project because I can't keep track of things when I'm in meetings and stuff.  I need to be able to count every now and then!  Plus knowing if I'm on the right or wrong side of the shawl also turns out to be important.

I might make another of these after this one is done, using some other batch of yarn.  It's a good pattern for yarn with a longish variegation and/or lots of small batches of this and that.

Appledore Gansey

This seems to be going pretty well at the moment.  My gauge does seem to be 4 st/in in stockinette, whew.  I'm on the second skein of handspun.  I seem to have chosen the largest skein after the smallest, but that doesn't matter.

At this point in the sweater, it's actually a better travel project than the Hobbit Shawl.  I have to re-measure the intended recipient so I know when to begin the underarm gusset but there's a fair amount of knitting to do before I get close to the underarm.

I like how it looks so far.

Etc.

I'll be traveling a bit in the next few weeks, possibly including a bit of camping.  I think I'll bring some Red Heart acrylic and #7 needles and make k1p1 hats for charity.  That's if I do anything, of course -- I feel more comfortable having a project with me even if I never touch it.

I don't remember what else I'm thinking about starting -- just the usual cloud of "maybe I should do X!" that follows me around much of the time.

Doily Pic!  (Erich Engeln #60E)

It's been a while since I've included a doily pic.

This is a pattern by Erich Engeln, #60E, i.e., the E pattern in pamphlet 60.  It's small but cute, though I say that about almost any doily I knit.  It has 30 rounds.  Apparently there are a few design quirks, but I didn't write down what, if anything, they were.  Clearly it could stand to be re-blocked, assuming I still have it around and haven't given it away.

I knit this many years ago, probably in the first several years I was knitting doilies.  I think it might have been the first Erich Engeln pattern I knowingly knit.  Maybe that's why I noted the design quirks -- his designs and charting styles are distinctive, possibly in a way I had not previously encountered.

A group of us on one of the old lace mailing lists did a group order from the person who had the rights to sell copies of Erich Engeln's patterns.  We bought a complete set of the pamphlets, all photocopied but still quite legal.  I think there were close to 100 pamphlets -- tons of lovely designs to knit, all in Erich Engeln's distinctive charting style.  This doily is one of those designs.

Doing an international group order like we did is the Doily Underground in action.

A Tale of Three Doilies

And they're all pink. How odd. I guess it's not really all that odd. I made the doily above from a brand new ball of DMC Cebelia #20. There was enough thread left over to make a few more small doilies.

The first doily, in all its poorly-blocked glory, is a Herbert Niebling pattern. It's roughly 82 rounds. I don't think it has a name. It certainly didn't in the pattern source I was using! The flowers look a bit like tulips, so I often refer to it casually as the tulip-like doily. The flowers look more like campanulas or penstemons, some kind of bell-like flower. In any case, they were very interesting to do. The stamens near the top of the flowers are defined by a wrap stitch. That's the first time I've encountered a wrap stitch in a Niebling pattern! I have since done others.

The pattern is not attributed to Niebling, but it contains a lot of his characteristic quirks. The hex mesh background, the floral motif, the way the different stitch patterns are used for textural contrast... Who else would have designed it? (That's an honest question, by the way. I'm always interested in learning more about other doily designers and their design styles.)

As usual with Niebling patterns, it was a fun knit. There were a few rounds that didn't flow as well as they could have. Most of it was very nicely put together. It's not the best knitting or blocking I've ever done, alas. The blocking can be fixed, but I'm stuck with the uneven knitting. Oh, well.

The second doily I knit, from the leftover pink thread, is Kinzel's Coronet doily, from the First Book of Modern Lace Knitting.

If you've gone through the archives for this blog, you'll see an off-white Coronet in my first post. I like the pattern, so I've knit it more than once. The Coronet pattern is a typical small Kinzel pattern, very elegant and restrained and with a whole lot of stitches. It has 46 rounds.

After this doily was finished, I still had thread left over.


So, I knitted up a quickie pattern by Erich Engeln. This one is the descriptively-named #9F. It has 42 rounds.

OK, it's not a descriptive name. Engeln patterns usually do not have names. Those of us who own the pamphlets call them by their pamphlet name. This is from pamphlet #9, and it's pattern F in the pamphlet. It's small but cute, perfect for the amount of thread I had left.

There was thread left over after this one, too, but I decided that enough was enough. It's in my crocheted-snowflake stash. After that, it will go into the weaving/braiding stash.

Anyway, one rather interesting thing about all the above doilies is that they all use the same hexagonal mesh lace pattern as a background lace stitch.

What's really interesting is that each designer uses a different method to increase in pattern.

Niebling uses many different kinds of increase methods, depending on the pattern. Some are clunkier than others. This one is both elegant and simple. The edges of the hex mesh, where it butts up against the tulip-like flowers, start and end with double yarnovers. This sets it up perfectly for the next round. It's all hex mesh -- either \OO/ or O/\O. It starts with one double yarnover and goes from there.

Kinzel's is almost as elegant. It has a kludge or two at the beginning. It starts with a single yarnover and works its way up to a (yo, k3, yo). The next round, which is the real start of the hex mesh, is slightly asymmetric in order to get to an even number of stitches.

Kinzel uses (yox2, k1) at the edge of each hex mesh section. (It finishes with a k1, yox2.) The middle part is all \OO/. The double yarnovers plus a single knit stitch allow the hex mesh section to grow effortlessly. But it is different from Niebling's version. And the first couple of rounds are not as seamless as Niebling's beginnings.

The Engeln pattern uses yet another method. The first round is a single yarnover. Then, he goes immediately to an even number of stitches by doing (yo, kp in stitch, yo). His way of increasing in hex mesh varies. The ones used for the patterns in this pamphlet are similar. The increases at the sides will be single yarnovers. The following round twists the yarnover (yo, k-tbl, yo). After that, he'll use single knit stitches at the edges instead of decreases to keep the pattern flowing until there are enough stitches for the full \OO/ pattern repeat. And by then, he's starting to develop the next set of increases.

I know that what I really should do is scan all three charts, and excerpt the small areas that demonstrate the differences. However, each pattern uses a totally different chart style! It's hard to follow unless you're already familiar with those charting styles. Someday I'll try to chart up the three different chart sections to show you the three different methods these designers used to increase their sections of hex mesh lace.

So, can these kinds of differences be used to identify the designers of unattributed patterns? Yes, I believe so. It's not definitive, but it's one more bit of evidence that allows us to infer the designer's identity.

Someday, I may design my own complex lace patterns. Should I choose to use the hexagonal mesh stitch pattern, looking at the way other designers do it will help me to develop my own style.

These are the kinds of things that fascinate my doily-obsessed mind. The doilies were fun to knit, too.