The Independent Stitch

Shetland: A new resource for vintage knitting designs

My interest in Shetland textiles focuses on the sheep and their wool, in large part because that’s what I love. As I travel this particular road, I’m grateful for the gifted researchers and designers who pay attention to traditional and contemporary Shetland textiles. Among these people is Susan Crawford, whose previous four books have delved into knitting from the 1920s through the 1950s. For the past four years, Susan has traveled to Shetland twice a year (lucky!) to spend time selecting twenty-five tantalizing knitted pieces from the collection of the Shetland Museum and Archives, examining every stitch, and designing patterns that will allow contemporary knitters to be guided by the works' creators in making reproductions of the pieces or simply being inspired by them.

I’ve seen in person some of the works Susan has selected. I look forward to viewing them through her eyes as well, since she’s had the opportunity to study them in far more detail than I have.

This stunning vest, for example—when I discovered it in the museum on my second trip there, I didn’t want to quit looking at it:

It’s a long way to go to visit a garment, but the experience was memorable—and soon we’ll be able to get a close look without so much travel, because Susan’s Vintage Shetland Project is in the process of being funded through Pubslush. As I’m writing this, the project has gathered £19,998 with a goal of £12,000. I’m not surprised that it’s already exceeded its goal. Susan has a reputation for doing exquisite work. All of her previous books have been self-published, so we know how well she will pull this one off. We also only have to wait until November to see the book published.

You can hear Susan talk about the project on the Pubslush page, and get glimpses of a number of the garments that she has gotten to know so well. I’m including a few of my favorites here. I’m seriously wishing a trip to Shetland was in my schedule for this year (so many fine people; so many great ideas), but I’m still processing the piles of information I collected there last fall. . . .

It was hard for Susan to choose from the many garments in the museum, and it's hard for me to choose what to feature from the twenty-five she has selected. But here are a couple of them:

The breathtaking delicacy of that lace! Wouldn't it be lovely to wear?

There's a strong Scandinavian influence in Shetland, and it shows up in the knitting, with a shift in flavors.

And this cardigan ranks as a favorite for many reasons. Obviously both beautiful and well loved, it deserves to be reincarnated on 21st century needles and given more chances to bring joy into people's lives.

Go check out the Pubslush page, and also there’s a blog tour going on. Here’s what’s happened to date, if you want to see more pictures of cool stuff:

KnitBritish

Tasha By Gum By Golly

Hazel Tindall

Ella Gordon

Jess James

Jen Arnall-Culliford

Maja Karrlson

Karie Westermann

Rachel Atkinson

Coming soon:

Julia Billings - tomorrow

Helen Magnusson

Tom Van Deijnen

Kate Atherley

Jamieson & Smith

Donna Druchunas

Felicity Ford

Ysolda

Donna Smith (check out her post on Carol Christiansen’s taatit rugs study and the exhibition, too)

Susan Crawford

(Cruise around these blogs: it took me a while to write this post because I kept finding interesting things to read.)

For those of us who like yarn for its own sake, Susan has been collaborating with some mills to develop yarns suited to knitting vintage-style pieces—exciting!

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And, by the way, one reason that it’s been so quiet around here is that I’ve been learning WordPress and moving my blog and site to that platform. There are only so many hours in a day, and I’ll be glad to get back to writing instead of learning software. Nonetheless, it’s a good move and very soon you’ll be finding me at The Independent Stitch.

Happy reading, knitting, and spinning to you. . . .

Lithuanian knitting: unusual and approachable continuing traditions

Years ago, when I edited Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot, I learned of Lithuanian textiles through weaving, by way of work by Antanas and Anastazija Tamošaitis and by Kati Meek and an awareness of the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture in Chicago (SS&D Summer 1986). Lithuania is one of three countries tucked into the curve at the eastern end of the Baltic Sea, along with Latvia and Estonia.

Later I met and published several books by Donna Druchunas, who has delved deeply into her Lithuanian roots with a special interest in the knitting heritage. Donna included some Lithuanian material in her Ethnic Knitting Exploration, for which I knitted the samples as part of the design and publishing process. Donna's dedication and rigor make her a great working partner.

Knowing Donna led to my meeting June Hall, who lives in Cumbria, in northwestern England, with a flock of Soay sheep and has been my generous guide and connection to that part of the world. June, too, digs long and hard into the subjects that catch her intellect and interest.

They both have studied the Lithuanian language, traveled to Lithuania, and now (over more than eight years) collaborated on a book: Lithuanian Knitting: Continuing Traditions.

 

It’s a great honor to host Donna here with a blog post celebrating the imminent publication of Donna’s and June’s book on Lithuanian knitting (and sheep and wool). She’s written us a splendidly technical introduction to how she came to know some of the techniques in the book—and notes as well that you can knit the book’s projects with the techniques that are already familiar to you. It’s just interesting, and possibly useful, to know exactly what methods Lithuanians use to make their stitches dance.

— Deb

P.S. I’ll be back with more blog posts before long. My time for writing posts has been consumed by other pressing needs, but it looks like some of those will soon be resolved.

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Guest post by Donna Druchunas

What is Lithuanian knitting?

What makes knitting Lithuanian? Is it special techniques that are used? A unique way to hold the yarn and needles? Certain combinations of colors? Interesting pattern stitches?

All of these things, and more. The techniques I’ve included in Lithuanian Knitting: Continuing Traditions are all based on vintage accessories in museum collections, reproductions of Lithuanian National Costume ensembles, or folk art pieces made by contemporary knitters. These instructions are adapted from Mezgimas (Knitting) by Anastazija Tamošaitis as well as other vintage and contemporary Lithuanian knitting books in my library, along with tips I’ve picked up from Lithuanian friends. I’ve modernized some of the decreases and made other adjustments to make the techniques easier for contemporary knitters.

I love vintage knitting books and have my own small collection of nineteenth-century English-language books, but the earliest Lithuanian-language knitting books I’ve discovered so far were published almost a hundred years later. Sodžiaus menas kn. 5: Mezgimo-nėrimo raštai (Village Arts no. 5: Knitting patterns), by Antanas Tamošaitis, came out in 1933 and Mezgimas (Knitting), by Anastazija Tamošaitis, Antanas’s wife, was published in 1935. 

Together, these two books form a wonderful foundation in Lithuanian knitting. Antanas wrote about the spiritual significance of folk art and documented colorwork motifs and mitten and sock designs from regions around the country, while Anastazija wrote instructions for knitting a variety of accessories using traditional motifs and colors. Mezgimas also includes instructions for knitting techniques that were not traditional in Lithuania, but which Anastazija may have learned about in The Encyclopedia of Needlework, by Thérèse de Dillmont, which was published in 1884 and became a hugely popular reference throughout Europe.

Most of the Lithuanian-language knitting books in my collection were published between 1959 and 1979, during the Soviet period. Most were written by Lithuanian authors, but others were translated from Russian. I found these books on eBay and at used book shops, street fairs, and flea markets in Lithuania. These books are quite similar to the vintage English-language knitting books I have from the same period. They include basic knitting and crochet instructions, a stitch library, and a collection of projects. Many of the books also include basic dressmaking information, along with tips for sizing garments which may be quite detailed or as vague as, “Models are given in one size. If you make a gauge swatch, it will be very easy for you to determine the number of stitches to cast on for your own size.”

I’ve been learning to read and speak Lithuanian, so at first it was a challenge to figure these books out, but since I’m quite fluent in knitting and they all have lots of charts and diagrams, it’s been a good way to learn the parts of the language related to knitting.

The basics: Grandmother’s knitting

My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was in kindergarten, maybe even before that. I started out with a stockinette-stitch swatch and wrapped the working yarn snugly around my left index finger, like a bobbin, to control my tension. 

“When you knit the yarn goes in the back and the needle goes in the back of the stitch,” Grandma told me. “And when you purl, the yarn goes in the front, and the needle goes into the front of the stitch.” The formula was easy for me to remember and I learned to knit and purl with equal ease. I didn’t know that this was called the Eastern Uncrossed or Combination method of knitting, commonly used in Russia and parts of Eastern Europe. To me, this was just Grandma’s knitting.

One of my favorite Lithuanian knitting books, a small volume called Megzkime Pačios (Let’s Knit) by O. Jarmulavičienė, presents the basic knitting stitches just the way my grandmother taught me. Other books offer up instructions for the standard modern-European style of knitting and note that this is the common method used in books, but in the old days, most knitters (in Lithuania) used močiutės mezgimas, or “grandmother’s knitting.” Both methods are interchangeable, the authors explain, as long as you pay attention to your work. In general, the books do not show drawings with hands, but the working yarn always trails off the drawings to the left, with the assumption that knitters will carry the yarn in their left hand, no matter which way they form their stitches.

Knit and purl stitches

Knit = back/back. To make a knit stitch, hold the working yarn in the back, and insert the right needle into the back of the stitch. Pick the yarn with the tip of the right needle and pull it through to form a new stitch.

Won’t you twist your stitches if you knit into the back? Not if you purl wrapping your yarn in the opposite direction. 

Purl = front/front. To make a purl stitch, hold the working yarn in front, and insert the right needle into the front of the stitch. Pick the yarn in the same manner as you do when knitting.

With this technique, switching back and forth between knits and purls is easy and fast. After I practiced for a bit, the process became unconscious as the yarn “automatically” moved to the front or back of my needles as necessary for the next stitch. Ribbing and cables followed quickly for me, and I never realized that purling was supposed to be difficult. Moving your yarn to the front or back of the needles is something that is not even mentioned in Lithuanian knitting books.

To knit without twisting your stitches, always work into the leading (or right) leg of the stitch. It doesn’t matter if it’s in front of or behind the needle.

Decreases

While I was doing my research on Lithuanian knitting techniques, I stumbled onto an interesting discussion in the Combination Knitters group on Ravelry about Lithuanian (and Russian) knitting and how to work left- and right-leaning decreases. This is an important topic, and perhaps the most confusing to knitters who knit in the Lithuanian fashion. Because your stitches are oriented on the needle with the leading leg of the stitch at the back, the normal decrease instructions in English-language knitting books don’t make any sense when you look at your stitches on the needle.

Left-slanting decrease 

A left-slanting decrease is usually worked as ssk in America these days. In my Lithuanian knitting books it’s usually called simply "knit two together," but because the stitches are turned, you put the right needle into the back of the two stitches to knit them together and the final decrease leans to the left. Sometimes it is explained like this: 2 akys, sumegztos kartu gerai iš apačios (knit two together from the bottom, or back). But it’s not usually so simple, because knitting terminology is not standardized in Lithuania, so each author explains things in her own way.

• If you knit in the Western fashion, with the leading leg in front, this will be twisted. You can turn the stitches around first so they don’t twist, if you prefer, which is usually called ssk. 

• If you knit in the Lithuanian fashion, with the leading leg in back, this will not be twisted.

Right-slanting decrease 

A right-slanting decrease is worked as k2tog in America. In my Lithuanian books, this is sometimes explained as 2 akys, sumegztos kartu gerai iš viršaus (knit two together from the top, or front). This creates a decrease that slants to the right, but the stitches are twisted. Depending on the yarn texture and color, this may or may not be noticeable in the finished knitting.

• If you knit in the Western fashion, with the leading leg in front, this will not be twisted.

• If you knit in the Lithuanian fashion, with the leading leg in back, this will be twisted. You can turn the stitches around first so they don't twist, if you prefer. There's no formal name for this maneuver, but it is similar in concept to ssk. It is actually only necessary to turn the second stitch around. The first stitch will be the bottom stitch in the decrease, and will be hidden.

All of this is very technical and fascinating to me, but you can knit any of the projects in Lithuanian Knitting: Continuing Traditions in any techniques you like. In fact, most of the projects are knitted in the round, which eliminates many of the differences between močiutės mezgimas and standard Western knitting techniques.

A Lithuanian knitting book made with lots of Lithuanian involvement

I’ve been working on this book with my co-author June Hall since 2007, with several trips to Lithuania for both of us between then and now, along with uncounted hours of writing, knitting, and editing.* We are finally ready to send the files to the printer. To pay for this, I’ve been holding a Pubslush crowdfunding campaign (like Kickstarter but only for books) and we're over 100% funded today with just 5 days left to go! I’m so excited that so many people are helping me make this dream come true in a way that will give back to the Lithuanian economy. The book is being printed in Lithuania, and the extra funds that come in will go to our Lithuanian art director, Marius Žalneravičius.

I hope you’ll take a minute to check out the fundraiser. If you like what you see, you can also pre-order your copy through this campaign and get some special rewards as an extra bonus!

Thanks!

~ Donna

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* Not to mention lots of language study, leading up to and during the project.

More from Deb: I signed on early at Pubslush to get one of the first copies of Lithuanian Knitting. This is going to be a very cool book that I’ve been following and supporting since it was a vague dream. If you go to the Pubslush page, you can see Donna’s video and hear some snippets of Lithuanian music and see preliminary pages—well worth the 4 minutes.

There are more posts in the book's blog tour here. Felicity Ford's post has a photo of Lithuanian coarse-wool sheep.

A gem of a book: Felicity Ford's KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook

EDITED March 7, 2015 to add: Felicity Ford's KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook is now one of the wonderful books (including Kate Davies' and Elizabeth Lovick's and more) available in the U.S. from Meg Swansen's Schoolhouse Press. I'll link here to the "new books" page where you can currently find them. Thanks to M.C. for letting me know.

Sorry there's been such a gap in posts. I've been washing fiber and writing up information about sheep and llamas. I'll be back.

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Having met Felicity Ford and also watched her in action at Shetland Wool Week last fall, I was predisposed to like the book that she had just embarked on making. That book has just become available (in both print and electronic formats). Backing Felicity’s Kickstarter for the book didn't require any thought at all. I knew what she would make would be worthwhile, and worth having, because Felicity is one of the most creative and intelligent people I’ve ever met (plus one of the most unpretentious).

While I have access to a bunch of high-quality photos related to the book project, I’m going to season this post with photos I’ve taken. Trust me that every production value in Felicity's project is top-notch. The reason I want to use my photos is to represent the way my conversations with Felicity—in person and now in her book—have, even when tangentially experienced, enriched the light and color and ideas in my life.

I knew I’d like The KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook. I didn’t expect to love it and to be inclined to take it everywhere with me.

The printed book has a generous but not bulky page size; has been printed on high-quality paper; and is slim enough to tuck into my backpack next to my computer (the comparatively small backpack already containing that computer, the projector, the cables, my books, travel food and utensils, my 3-1-1 bag, and a novel). When I began to dip into it, I discovered that it is also, Tardis-like, bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, and it provided me with enjoyable reading and discoveries while I traveled—and because I was teaching for the two-week trip, I only had a few moments in which to sample a few of the pages.

The book has been traveling with me, and we both met up with friends.

Nonetheless, it influenced how I went through my days.

One of the things the book is about is paying attention to what’s around us, and what we care about.

I practice this anyway (practice, which means improvement is always possible), and Felicity’s book tweaked my viewpoint in ways that I enjoyed. During teaching weeks, I like to take solo walks to refresh myself and my thoughts, preferably in quiet places full of plants and animals and views. Often I take photos. As I took this week’s walks, I found myself taking different photos than usual, and thinking differently about how I might use those images not as ends in themselves or simple aids to paying attention but as inspiration for Fair Isle–style knitting.

One or two pages before bed gave me plenty to ponder overnight and on the next day’s hike. I could actually spend a week, or a month, on every cluster of concepts. Pacing can fit the available contours of time. There’s lots here: it’s clearly and concisely presented. On pages that I found myself wanting to linger over.

Another thing Felicity encourages is trying things, and making mistakes—those being (as many of us have discovered repeatedly) good ways to learn what works.

The intent of the book is to help us take things we love and learn enough about their shapes and colors, and about interpretation, to use those treasures as inspiration for knitting. Step by step, she leads us through the process, with philosophy and progressive examples, in ways that I’m guessing even the most tentative designer (or not-yet-designer) will find supportive and effective.

Colo(u)r. I have to mention color because many people find it intimidating. The way Felicity works with color here, and shows the reader her process in detail, will be a blessing to many.

Here’s what just carrying the book around with me last week and reading a few pages at night produced in my life:

Waiting for the ferry in Anacortes, Washington: walking around and enjoying the day.

Sunset from the top of Young Hill, San Juan Island.

 

English Camp, San Juan Island, the windy day when I walked the shore instead of the woods.

English Camp, San Juan Island.

American Camp, San Juan Island.

South Beach, San Juan Island.

English Camp, San Juan Island.

Sunset from Young Hill, San Juan Island.

Madrona tree.

South Beach, San Juan Island.

Driftwood at South Beach, San Juan Island.

Dawn from the early ferry.

Ferry coming into the Anacortes dock. My car was #1.

As I was pulling those photos, I found some others on the computer that also seem to warrant contemplation. Here's just one, from Iceland. It would be interesting to extract some patterns and colors from this and see what happened.

Now, some of those just might get turned into knitting concepts that would let me wear one of my favorite places even when I’m elsewhere. . . .

Can I give this book ten stars on a five-star scale? Well, I do.

For a glimpse of Felicity’s personality and of the book, check out the Kickstarter page and video. To order it, here’s the place.

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Post written at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Please excuse any typos.

Felicity Ford's super-cool upcoming book

Okay, so there’s a Kickstarter campaign to fund Felicity Ford’s book on designing colorwork from images in everyday life. You’ll want to go look at the presentation over on the Kickstarter site, and don’t you love the fact that it got fully funded very, very quickly? With Kickstarter, only fully funded projects get any backing at all. Whew. The book will definitely be produced. That’s good news for all of us, because this project is inventive and charming and intelligent, as is Felicity herself. I met her during Shetland Wool Week last fall. I signed up for the campaign to be sure I got a copy of the book as soon as it was available.

Lots of Felicity’s work involves elements of vernacular life: sounds, colors, textures. I’ve borrowed the word vernacular for use here; it’s normally applied with reference to languages or architecture (living spaces). One of my all-time favorite books is Bernard Rudofsky’s Streets for People, which I read not long after it was published in 1969 (then I went and discovered his earlier Architecture without Architects). From my perspective, the type of awareness that characterized Rudofsky’s work also imbues Felicity Ford’s. In addition, I appreciate the extent to which she is well aware of the way women’s contributions to culture have been overlooked because they are most often part of the everyday texture of history, not its cataclysms.

Thinking of Felicity’s work brings out some of my pleasure in language and big-picture theories at the same time that she is absolutely grounded in the simple delights of life. I treasure that uncommon balance between the academic (for lack of a better word) and the practical.

I’ve asked Felicity to talk a bit here about what she does and why, because I think you will enjoy hearing from her. Check out the Kickstarter campaign—be sure to watch the video!—and then come back here for some background. You’ll see immediately, I think, why the way her mind encounters the world deserves all the support and nurturing the fiber community can offer, and why I’m thrilled that her book already has the green light.

Like me, Felicity is avid to see connections and loves details and thus writes at some length. Make a cup of tea and enjoy a journey through parts of her world.

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Felicity Ford on:

SOUND

Sound describes texture and place, which are central themes in how I approach my knitting. When I choose yarn for a project, I am mainly interested in the yarn's provenance and character, and working with recorded sound allows me to explore those aspects of any given yarn. The KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook uses Jamieson & Smith 100% Shetland wool throughout, for reasons I shall get into shortly! But to introduce the idea of a combined sound + wool approach, I want to lead with the Rough Fell breed, whose fleece sounds amazing.

Siiri Kolka took the wonderful picture above in 2012, and in it, I have attached contact microphones to my wool combs and am listening to the amplified sound of combing Rough Fell fibres in preparation for spinning. Even unamplified, if you pull that fleece apart beside your ears, you can hear the hooks, the kemp, the texture, the grit! But amplified, the satisfying scratchy crunch of these fibres speaks directly to my knitter's sense of touch.

Deb wrote recently about wool maybe having a terroir, and to me the sound of the Rough Fell's wool speaks exactly to that idea. It evokes the breed's origins in the distinctive Cumbrian landscape in Northern England. Rough Fell sheep are often kept up on the Fell, and even their name evokes the craggy, moor-covered, mountainous qualities of this environment. Listening to the sounds of the wind whipping over a moor in Cumbria, the distinctive clatter of sheep traversing mud, and the awesome rasping in the sound of the fleece itself, I am inspired to knit substantial, sombre cables that will speak of stones and roots and mountains. I would not make anything which lies directly next to my skin out of Rough Fell wool, but listening to where this breed grows, the shepherds who keep it, and the fleece of the animal itself have given me a deep appreciation of this marvellous textile and the strength and stoicism of the Rough Fell breed. 

So sound can be used to highlight the origins of wool in a distinctive landscape. That was the idea behind Hûrd – A KNITSONIK™ PRODUKTION.

Title: Hûrd – A KNITSONIK™ PRODUKTION
Materials: Edited sonic collage feat. field-recordings of shepherds, sheep, and weather in Cumbria, hand-knitted 100% wool yarn, hand-soldered speakers
Concept: In Hûrd, the sounds of the places, landscapes, animals and people from which wool originates are combined with an end product – a knitted soundsystem – so that as you bring the soft speakers up to your ears, you can hear the sources of the wool that covers them. The title comes from the pronunciation spelling for “herd” (as in sheep) and “heard” (as in sound).
2012, WOW: Wonder of Wool and the Art of Knit and Stitch, organised by Rheged

Working with sound is also more generally about noticing the details where you are. Making field recordings (recordings of ambient, environmental sounds) makes you acutely aware of the textures that are present. While listening to those textures, your other senses soak up information. The light. The colour. The surfaces and shapes. Knitting is always near the front of my mind, which means it's just not possible for me to crouch in a field of barley and record the wind rippling over those tiny grain heads without thinking about how to parse those undulations and rhythms into stitches!

Tim Ingold has argued that you can't divide up the world along different sensory planes, and he is right. As a knitting sound artist, the same world that I listen to is the one that I want to knit, and in The KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook, many of the everyday inspirations have previously informed my sound work. I made a radio show for the BBC about the A4074 road in Oxfordshire along which I commute, and last year—when I conceived of this project—my first instinct was to walk to the messy patch of weeds at the end of my street and sit in it, drawing the weeds, whilst also recording the specific sounds present there. The A4074 and the weeds at the end of my street are both subjects for my book, and I figure every knitter will correspondingly have a commute and a local patch that could be beautifully translated into textiles!

The KNITSONIK Audible Textures Resource (the album I am producing to correspond with The KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook) explores these themes. As its name hopefully suggests, it will be full of inspiring textures, and a sense of witness or presence to daily life. The audio will foreground and celebrate the ordinary contexts in which we lead our everyday lives, and also celebrate the Shetland sheep and its origins in the distinctive Shetland landscape. As you knit stranded colourwork in Shetland wool, you will be able to hear the textures and places which inspired me and hopefully recognise echoes of your own life in those sounds. You can also enjoy listening to the landscape where your knitting wool was grown. 

SHETLAND

The knitting for The KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook is going to be made entirely from Shetland wool kindly supplied by Jamieson & Smith. I find this yarn perfect for knitting stranded colourwork; it is bouncy and soft, but it also has a lovely stickiness, which grips my needles pleasingly as I knit. The magic happens when I block colourwork knitted in Shetland wool; the softness becomes really evident at this stage, and the bloomy halo is very forgiving, and covers up many tension issues and gauge crimes!

Deb's own Shetland research may disprove this, however I sometimes think the rich character of the Shetland fleece—its curious synthesis of rough and soft—might be down to the theory of two-breeds-into-one which Oliver Henry always relates when describing the history of Shetland wool. Oliver has been hand grading and sorting Shetland wool for over forty-five years in the Shetland Woolbrokers, and his knowledge of the fleece is born of years of handling it. He speaks of two breeds—one "kindly-woolled" and the other rough—which ran together on the isles (which are largely without fences) and interbred, producing in time what we now think of as the Shetland sheep.

I've talked about the links between sound and wool in my work in Cumbria, and in Shetland, for Wool Week 2013—rather than making a gallery piece—I created a pattern so that knitters could produce their own small speaker-pillows, clad in Shetland wool. Using Udo Noll's amazing aporee platform, I created a corresponding online soundmap from which you may download and play my recordings from Shetland. The shades I have chosen for the speaker visually evoke the proximity of the sea to the land in the isles, and my idea was that the little kit—pillow-speaker; wool; pattern—would enable us to listen to Shetland wool through Shetland wool.

I've talked about the terroir of Rough Fell sheep, but what struck me as being particularly descriptive of Shetland wool, sonically, is the combined soundscape of sheep grazing by inlets, mixed with seabirds. You are never more than three miles from the coast in Shetland, and the constant presence of the sea gives grazing land there a totally unique sonic texture. There is a certain way that sheeps' baas ring into the sky and combine with the cries of terns and oystercatchers, and the whisperings of the nearby sea. The simultaneous presence of sheep and the ocean in a single soundscape references the dual incomes from hand knitting and fishing that define Shetland's economic past.

A SENSE OF PLACE

Travelling in Cumbria, Estonia, and Shetland, I've been struck by something to do with textile traditions. I'm not from any place that has a big knitting tradition, but exposure to places which do have that has made me think carefully about the relationship between textiles and place. 

In Cumbria I learnt that shepherds used to send off their wool and have it return several weeks later as woven cloth. This would be passed to a tailor, who would turn it into a suit to be proudly worn by the shepherd. I can't tell you how many shepherds showed me photos of themselves, and said "that suit was made from my sheep"! In its various stages of life such a suit would go from being Sunday best to everyday wear, and eventually would be worn only for doing rough farm-work. Jane Knowles—who keeps a fantastic flock of Rough Fell sheep in Shap, along with her husband, Brian Knowles—showed me a Sunday-best suit handed down to her through her family, made in the 1950s out of the wool crop. It was made from Rough Fell wool, and was—as you'd expect—quite sturdy in hand! Yet it was also soft, tailored with great care into clothes which had obviously been worn and loved and carefully maintained. 

When I travelled in Estonia I spoke with knitters and weavers enthusiastically reclaiming their textile history. I referred to this a bit on Tom of Holland's blog, but Liis—an amazing spinner, dyer, knitter and weaver—has been recreating an original garment held in the Estonian National Museum textile collection. She has found a striped skirt from the same district where she now lives, and meticulously dyed some of the shades needed to weave herself a contemporary version. In Estonian culture, there are specific colours and textiles for the different regions and parishes—a graphic code, if you will, of regional identity. In recreating a skirt for yourself with reference to this system, you interweave self, history, culture, national identity, and place together. Like the Rough Fell suit—so evocative of place, agricultural history, and a regionally distinct approach to fashion—Liis's skirt seemed to me to be about so much more than simply making a skirt. It is a site of meaning; a place where land, wool, and culture converge.

Similarly, in Shetland, you find incredibly skilled knitters like Hazel Tindall and the other amazing women in the Shetland Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers, who have grown up steeped in long and deeply localised knitting traditions like Fair Isle knitting or Unst lace. The amazing sweater I am wearing in the photo above (by the sea, with the all-over Fair Isle patterning) was knitted by Alice Simpson of Whalsay, and it is based on a sweater in a photograph of a fisherman. I love the sweater so much because—as well as being warm, 100% wool, incredibly well made, and gorgeous—it speaks of Shetland's knitting and fishing history, and of the world-class skill of Shetland's knitters. I cannot think of a single item from Shetland which would remind me more greatly of the isles than this sweater, which I treasure for its materiality, references, and associations. 

In my case, living in Reading [an hour’s drive west of London—DR], there is no famous local hand knitting tradition like those I have described in Cumbria, Estonia, and Shetland. Reading was once famous for producing broadcloth, but our regional sheep breed—the Berkshire Nott—is long extinct, and evidence of the localised textile traditions is scant when compared to the treasure troves of the Estonian National Museum, or the numerous textile archives in Shetland. However I have been deeply inspired by connections between place and textiles discovered on my travels, and am on a continual quest to develop my own knitting traditions, related to what is here. About a year ago, I wondered if other knitters in our increasingly mobile and global world would relate to this impulse, and so I devised the Quotidian Colourwork workshop (held during Shetland Wool Week 2013) in which people brought amazing stories and beautiful things from their own everyday lives to celebrate in stranded colourwork. I spent several months preparing for that workshop, and developing systems and tools for turning the things that I found super-inspiring into stranded knitting, and the response to the class where I shared what I had discovered was so enthusiastic that I decided "this needs to be a book". 

SLOW FASHION

The approach I'm advocating in my book is definitely slow; it involves a long-term investment in an idea, and more yarn for swatching than you might usually use to get shades right, etc. But the idea also goes beyond trends, and it's not about what's in "this season", it's about making clothes that are a long-term investment in your relationship with the world around you . . . out of a material which I really feel I can stand behind: Shetland Wool from Jamieson & Smith. Like making a field recording, making the swatches involves taking time to invest in, and appreciate, the immediate environment.

If you think about the Rough Fell suit or Liis's skirt, what is so exciting is the whole process and story that leads to the production of the garments. That is what adds the value! I do not have a flock of sheep (alas!) or a loom (again, alas!) but if I cannot grow or weave wool myself, then perhaps I can find other processes which will give my clothes their own story, and connections with my locality.

The screen prints I have produced [center image below—DR] are intended to communicate this idea of taking textures from the world around us and deepening our connection with that world by translating it into stitches we can wear. The slow time scales involved are an important component! I love Reading's brickwork, it's part of what makes home "home". These are my streets!

I love the swatches as a thought process, beginning with trying things out; testing different colours and shades; refining throughout . . . and I love the very particular challenge of turning the messy, 3D, multi-textured world into the specific, wool-textured medium of stranded colourwork. 

COLOUR 

Wilma Malcolmson—AKA Shetland Designer—said when I met her last year that "We are always in colour". This chimes exactly with my feelings, and to me what is amazing about colour is that it is always around us. The KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook is about celebrating the constant presence of colour in everyday life, and pouring time—and love—into embedding that colour back into the clothes you make, to wear.

___________________________

Deb again: If you haven’t already gone to see Felicity talk in person on that video, here’s the link again. I just watched it for the nth time, and it made me smile today just as much as it did the first time.

I’d like to end this post with a photo that combines one of Felicity’s inspirations with one of the swatches she developed from it.

If you’d like even more perspectives on what Felicity is up to, there are other blogs chatting about the colorwork project this month.

Dreaming of Shetland: Thank you!

Friday’s post about my visit to help with shearing a lot of Shetland sheep, like that trip itself, requires an array of thank-yous that would not fit within even my generally overlong post tolerances. Neither that post nor the trip that was its subject would have happened without the Dreaming of Shetland project, which was conceived by Donna Druchunas one morning in February 2013 and has ended up being much larger than she could possibly have imagined—or she would perhaps never have mentioned it out loud, although I’m amazed, glad, and grateful that she did.

Donna was aware that I wanted to continue my research into sheep and wools, following the completion of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, but I didn’t have ideas about how to support that work. While Fleece and Fiber counts as one of the major accomplishments of my life and dedicating four solid years to the project was one of the best decisions I’ve ever been backed into (by myself and others), income to authors from book publishing tends not to do much in the way of covering expenses, except if those authors are, say, folks like Stephen King. I knew what I wanted to do to follow up on that work but not how I would manage it.

I’m also both reserved (except when I’m talking about wool or sheep—as some of you may have discovered) and Midwestern by birth and upbringing (motto: Do Not Ask for Help, Just Work Harder). Thus I have been stunned, delighted, and flummoxed by the outpouring of support embodied in this project.

Here’s some of what the Dreaming of Shetland project has meant, and accomplished, so far:

2013 was a tough year in my life, and included a series of deaths of people and spirits close and important to me.

Places I was able to go and things I was able to do because of Dreaming of Shetland not only furthered  the research project but made the year far more positive and forward-looking than it would otherwise have been.

The first “extra” came in mid-May, when I stayed in the Midwest for a couple of days after teaching at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival and took a side trip to Indiana to visit Theresa Gygi’s flock of fine-fleece Shetlands at Under the Son Farm. This was not all that long after lambing, and there were both plenty of bouncing young ones and lots of fleeces to look at and learn about.

Greencastle, Indiana, May 2013

_____

While I was at the farm, I got an emergency phone call from my sister. I flew home, and then to Washington to be with my mother during her final week, and for a while longer with the rest of the family in the aftermath of her death.

One week after Mom died, I was at the North American Shetland Sheepbreeders’ Association (NASSA) annual meeting at the Estes Park Wool Market, looking at and thinking about and talking with people who know Shetland sheep. Mom was a big supporter of my work, even after the dementia removed a lot of her ability to remember the details and the stroke severely limited her ability to talk. She would have liked that I was in good company just then, doing work close to my heart.

Like the Indiana trip, my participation in that event was possible because of the initial purchasers of the Dreaming of Shetland e-book. It was one of the most healing things on the planet that I could have been doing. Thank you.

Estes Park, Colorado, June 2013

_____

In August, my daughter and I were able to take a detour on another trip and visit the Hilger Hereford Ranch in Montana. We got to see some of the sheep up in the mountain area where they work on weed control. I’m fascinated by the adaptability of this breed to different landscapes. The dry mountain western U.S. provides a dramatic contrast to Shetland.

Gates of the Mountains, Montana, August 2013

_____

Last fall, shortly after my friend Ginny’s and my cousin Christie’s deaths, I flew to Scotland, including time in Orkney and Shetland. This trip had been planned long in advance and the ticket and many other arrangements were already covered. What the Dreaming of Shetland project made possible was my gathering of resources to bring home for study: books, videos, and other treasures. It also allowed me to visit historical sites, and helped with lodging and meals. It was like having very specialized and effective wings. Thank you.

Shetland (Mainland), October 2013

_____

Also in 2013, Jeane deCoster of Elemental Affects Yarns asked if I’d like to come to Montana in spring 2014 to help with the shearing of Catherine Campbell’s large flock of Shetlands. Catherine was at Estes Park for the NASSA meeting, but because of a death in her family we didn’t get to meet then—thus the excursion in August. Because of Dreaming of Shetland, I already knew that I could say yes to the invitation extended by Catherine and Jeane with some assurance that when the time came I’d be able to afford the trip. Last month, I did go to Montana and help with shearing—thanks to Dreaming of Shetland.

 

Gates of the Mountains, Montana, March 2014

_____

Since November 2012, Janet Ellison of Fibre-East in the UK and I have been working on the visa situation with regard to US fiber instructors teaching in the British Isles. We’re about 90% finished with that job and it looks about 90% certain that I’ll be teaching at Fibre-East at the end of July. Because I’ll be so close (relatively speaking), I plan to go back to Shetland for more research in conjunction with that trip. Even though I filled every minute of my time there in October 2013 and learned a ton, I barely began to scratch the surface. This year I’ll be able to take my questions to their next level. This is also something that Dreaming of Shetland is making possible. Thank you all yet again.

What you are all accomplishing with this project? It is huge.

What I will do because of this project? More research! And my best to share the results, in as many ways and through as many channels as possible. Right now my head is buzzing with possibilities that aren’t coming together yet—but they will. This is just part of the process, and part of what makes it exciting.

_____

And now to be specific. . . . 

THANK YOU! to

• the instigators and creators of the Dreaming of Shetland project, without which I could not have done anywhere near as much research as I have already accomplished (with more to come):

• Donna Druchunas
• Anne Berk
• Sarah Jaworowicz
• Susan Santos

• the contributors of content to the Dreaming of Shetland project (check out one or two links a day and enjoy their abundance of creativity and generosity to the communities of which they are a part, including this fiber one . . . and I sure hope I haven't missed anyone! Let me know if I have . . . ):

• Deb Accuardi
• Janine  Bajus
• Anne Berk
• Amanda Berka [Ravelry]
• Cat Bordhi
• JC Briar
• Beth Brown-Reinsel
• Ann Budd
• Ava Coleman
• Linda Cortright
• Susan Crawford
• Jeane deCoster
• Donna Druchunas
• Priscilla Gibson-Roberts [Ravelry]
• Ann Glassley [Ravelry]
• Franklin Habit
• June Hall
• Hunter Hammersen
• Sivia Harding
• Lynn D. T. Hershberger
• Shelia January [Ravelry]
• Jennifer Leigh
• Lynette Meek
• Cheryl Oberle
• Nancy Powell Thompson [Ravelry]
• Betty Salpekar
• Susan Santos
• Kristi Schueler
• Myrna Stahman
• Jeny Staiman
• Meg Swansen
• Stephannie Tallent
• Gladys We [Ravelry]
• Jill Wolcott 

• every individual who has pitched in for a copy of Dreaming of Shetland. Thank you! It's an amazing value for you folks to receive, and it is making an incredible difference to what I can accomplish in learning about sheep and wool, information that I am sharing, and will continue to share, with the fiber community—as thoroughly as I can!

___

 

The initial information written about the Dreaming of Shetland project said that it would help me "spend the next year exploring Shetland sheep and Shetland wool.” We’re already over a year out, and I’m still going strong, with a lot of work done and the sense that I’m still just getting started, because it’s such a rich subject to study. I have many topics I want to explore about sheep and wool in general, and the Shetland work is foundational to them all. I thought that would be the case when I started (thus the focus), and the more deeply I go into the interlaced topics the more apparent it becomes that this is true. I’m going to be on this path for a while more.

 

Right now, I mostly need time: time to process references that I’ve located; to think; to spin; to bring my thoughts together; to write—and to do more research. Thanks to Dreaming of Shetland, those activities are all in the works.

 

I get notifications when people buy copies of the book. Each time one of those comes into my mailbox, I think two things: first, “Wow! somebody else gets to enjoy this amazing publication and discover the work of these gifted contributors!" and second, “Oh, my, this is another vote of confidence in what I’m doing"—and then I tell myself, “Just take it in—breathe, accept, and go back to work."

 

The Dreaming of Shetland book got so big (and was so much work for the volunteer editors and designers) that it’s being released in sections. Buy once, get them all. It’s electronic-format only (believe me, in any other format something like this would never have gotten off the ground). It’s almost, but not quite, complete as I write this. And it’s a treasure that will bring joy of many sorts to many people for many years.

 

So thank you, everyone.

 

And now I’ll get back to work.

 

 

______

 

P.S. One of the things I would like to have access to is genetic data (and analysis) from different flocks of Shetland sheep showing their interrelationships, as well as their relationships to other breeds, specifically North Ronaldsay, Soay, and old-style Norwegian short-tails (spaelsaus). If anybody knows where we might get our hands on information of this type—now or in the future—please get in touch with me! We’re working on some leads to generate this kind of resource material, but it’s all in a to-be-developed state and rather complicated to pull off. Which doesn’t mean we won’t figure out how to get it done. But there’s no point in re-doing work that has already been, or is being, undertaken. So far, we don’t know of any. We’d love to hear that it exists. The “we” is me and a bunch of other folks who are traveling parallel paths on this journey of discovery.

Mainland Orkney: Kirkwall as a home base

Kirkwall is the largest community in Orkney, and is located on the largest island, called Mainland. It makes a terrific base of operations. As with everything I'm writing about pertaining to this trip, I can't do it justice but I can offer glimpses.

Here's a view of Kirkwall, with Saint Magnus Cathedral prominent:

I can't get the cathedral's own website to load right now (it may later when I'm not writing at the coffee shop—indeed, it did), and my photos of the interior seem to be AWOL. I'll have to go to Orkney again and take more, won't I? (It's a tough job, but not one I'd want to delegate.)

For the most part, I focused on early history and sheep-related topics during my time in Orkney. There's so much there that the only way not to go nuts trying to see and do everything is to have an organizing principle in mind for the visit. Even with personal guidelines (or, rather, boundaries), I found it was only possible to do reconnaissance and think about what I was seeing that would shape a future visit. (The same was true for Shetland.) The cathedral in Kirkwall was outside my primary scope, or so I thought. But it was so conveniently located (and highly recommended by a friend) that I did get there just before I left, and was very glad to have done so.

But back to getting oriented in part of Kirkwall.

Here's the street that was the focus of my days there. It is, obviously, better constructed for the use of pedestrians than for cars. And in windy, wet weather, it's more sheltered than other parts of the nearby environment. I'd give names of streets, but they seem to change every few blocks. Walking around is easier than giving directions with names on them. I'm pretty sure this section was called Victoria Street. Other parts of the same continuous route were called Albert Street, and one section might have been Castle Street. (In the other direction, the road turns a corner and becomes High Street, and then Old Scapa Road, and then . . . on foot, it's not confusing at all.)

A number of narrow passageways lead off that primary street. One I photographed is called Gunn's Close. As I mentioned in an earlier post, although I'm a mix of heritages, one predominant family line is the Robson one, a branch of the Gunn clan, which was resident in northeastern Scotland and . . . Orkney.

A similar narrow, but dead-end, passageway on the other side of the main street and a little bit farther from the cathedral led to the self-catering apartment where I stayed. "Self-catering," for those not familiar with the concept, involves renting a space that has cooking facilities and where the itinerant residents do some of the housekeeping to prepare for the next inhabitants (i.e., "leave it as you found it, to the best of your ability"). The arrangement has the huge benefit of permitting easy, comfortable, and economical meals. It isn't necessary to eat out unless you want to.

Just down the street was Lucano, however. It is an extraordinary Italian restaurant, and a delightful place for a lunch and a dinner. The sort of place you do go back to.

As you may have noticed, parking along the street is scarce and short-term. Basically, you can drive along the street to deliver things (like your luggage) or pick them up (if they are, for some reason, too bulky to carry). Thus the car got parked a block uphill, on another street that was adjacent to these garden plots.

The view from there of Kirkwall (and beyond) was lovely.

There are larger roads running through the area, and if you walk from where I stayed back up toward where I took the first photo, you will find a couple of supermarkets, including a Tesco. If you're walking from Victoria Street, you can use trips destined for Tesco as an opportunity to see what happens if, for example, you walk down Gunn's Close.

When I was at the Tesco in Kirkwall, I noticed KNITTING in one of the refrigerated cases.

This is apparently not unusual. But it was one of my first tours of a Scottish grocery store on this trip, and while I ultimately got the hang (more or less) of how they were organized and how things were packaged and what brands were associated with what products, it was comforting (if also a bit startling) to catch sight of "the big knit" in a cooler. It turns out that "the big knit" is a very cool thing even when it's not refrigerated.

I found several types of SHEEP (only one is pictured here) in another aisle.

Farther down what I came to think of as "the street," although there are many others, is The Orcadian book shop, a fine place.

Look what I found there—see the asterisks (it was a fine place even before I made these discoveries):

Another place to visit was R. A. Finn, where I missed out on some hand-dyed North Ronaldsay yarn because I thought it would be there the next day (it wasn't) . . . 

But I did get a skein (now two balls) of marled North Ronaldsay yarn to play with.

And then there's The Reel. Also within walking distance. A great coffee shop with free wifi. An easy place to hang out. (There was wifi in the self-catering unit, but The Reel's was more reliable, if only available when the place was open.)

 AND MUSIC.

I bought a CD—Jennifer and Hazel Wrigley's Idiom. Except for the need to conserve money for wool, I would have bought more. I'll have to go back, right?

Although I'm not done talking about Kirkwall yet (the post on the museum is in process) and we haven't gotten to North Ronaldsay, which was also part of the Orkney section of this adventure, I need to mention the last night in Kirkwall, just before the overnight ferry trip to Shetland. The ferry leaves Kirkwall a little before midnight. It's good to get in the car line about 10:30 or 11. What to do to stay awake and happy until it's time to play the ferry game?

Leave the car somewhere and walk in the early evening toward the welcoming lights of the white building housing The Reel.

Tea, a light snack, and an open music session make for a sweet departing point.

___

Next posts will backtrack a bit, for the sake of The Orkney Museum in Kirkwall and the fine and amazing and wonderful and windy time on North Ronaldsay.

___

The new-to-us pup now has a new name: Tam.

And the approval of our already-resident Border collie, Ceilidh.

More on that soon, too.

Dreaming of Shetland launches!

In February, friends came up with an amazing and unexpected idea to help me do the next phase of research into sheep and wool, which involves a study of Shetland sheep and their fleeces. Shetlands are really complex, even controversial, and consideration of their development and current situation encompasses many questions relating to fibers, regardless of type or breed. They're a microcosm of the wool world—physically, historically, and culturally. I wrote about "Why Shetlands?" in an earlier blog post, and that piece was initially constructed for and appears in the Dreaming of Shetland e-book that is coming into being through these folks' amazing and unexpected idea.

Their idea: to ask a selection of talented people each to contribute a pattern, an essay, or some other item to what would be combined into an e-book anthology, the sales of which would be used to fund my Shetland inquiries: essentially, a community fundraiser, operated informally (albeit rigorously) and in ongoing fashion. Here's the associated website.

The gist: They asked me to meet with them before lunch one day at an event we were mutually participating in. We sat down in the empty dining room. They told me that they had "an idea" and that all I would need to do was "say yes" and "have a PayPal account." Well, I do have a business PayPal account, which I use mostly to buy fiber and books (about fiber, surprised?).

So they gave me the outline: people within the knitting community who might have an interest in seeing what I would come up with in the way of research would be asked to contribute a pattern each to a collection. The plan was to have the whole project happen quickly, so that patterns that would be included would likely already exist—for example, a neat design that was still in the files because it had never found a public home.* The instigators (more on them both below and in a future post) would assemble, design, and set up an e-book collection through Ravelry (to keep this as simple as such an outrageously ambitious endeavor could be). All proceeds would go to my research.

* It only sort of worked that way. A lot of people got inspired to create original designs.

I was, and am, gobsmacked. I prefer to be stubbornly self-reliant and can be more independent than most cats. Yet I am also obstinate about my research, which was being implemented at about 1/1000 the speed that I envisioned, for lack of resources.

I looked across the table at their inspired faces. I thought about the sheep. I thought about the wool. I thought about knitters and weavers and spinners of the future. I thought about all of us now, and how much we appreciate knowledge that deepens our craft and our appreciation for life. I thought about how I am relatively reserved (yes, I can talk fine in public—when I'm talking about fibers) and that this would put me in a bit of a new spotlight—and I decided that the spotlight would be on the sheep, and I could just be a lens. And I thought that at this point in my life, I'm in a position to ask questions and know how to dig for information, if not answers, and to put together what I discover in ways that others may find interesting and useful. I thought about the sheep again—all the sheep, in addition to the Shetlands—and all of the lovely, dramatically versatile and dissimilar wools they grow, wools that we need to know better. And I envisioned that at the end of it all, lots more people would be connected to, and know the joy of, the sheep and their fleeces. And that it could be fun for everyone involved. (And a lot of work. I had no illusions about that. They didn't, either, although like all good things it has become more than anyone expected.)

I slowly nodded yes, making myself say the word out loud as well. I knew that, because of the people who were already involved and those who might be, this would be a big deal.

Yes.

For the most part, I was asked to pretty much stay out of it—to, if I had a spare moment, go research sheep and wool. So I was asked to write the "Why Shetlands?" piece and to review the sheep photos that would be on the cover (to determine whether they were of the Shetland breed, or simply sheep of other breeds in Shetland). While I've seen the photography for the projects (both the photos and the designs make me want to pick up my needles, and in one case I already have), the book is as new to me as it will be to those who choose to buy it. 

The scope: The project got quite a bit bigger and more complicated than the initial intention (doesn't everything?). As matters proceeded, the organizers needed to put a cut-off date on participation in order to actually make it happen within anyone's lifetime. They also decided to release the book in sections, in order to make the logistics (and the file sizes) manageable, although signing up for it once will, over the next several months, yield the whole thirty patterns and associated articles and photographs. 

In the interval between the idea's origin in February and the initial release a few days ago, two things became apparent to me. One was that without some practical help, it would take years, or decades, to accomplish anything toward this research, and the second was that the moral and psychological support of the idea alone has already been hugely beneficial.

A quick note: Even though the release of the e-book has been "soft," without a lot of fanfare and the "announcement" mostly by word-of-mouth so far, the initial proceeds have already enabled me to obtain resources that have previously been very difficult or impossible for me to access.

Whose idea was this?

The idea came from Donna Druchunas, and Anne Berk immediately stepped in to collaborate, enlisting her husband, Bill Berk, to do the photography. Donna's husband Dominic Cotignola provided invaluable, and mostly unheralded, technical help.

Sarah Jaworowicz supplied creative energy, organizational prowess, and graphic design skills.

Susan Santos coordinated the tech editing and kept everyone centered and optimistic.

But listing those individual responsibilities obscures the closely integrated teamwork that even from a distance I was fully aware of, as they nurtured a spark into a whole series of warm campfires to offer to the fiber world.

It says "for Deborah Robson," but I'm just the conduit here. Although yes, I have a dream that this research and our mutually growing efforts and knowledge will have a long-lasting and positive effect on our fiber activities and on communities' and individuals' and several landscapes' health.

Whose work is featured?

The designers and researchers and creative souls who have graciously and enthusiastically come forward to make Dreaming of Shetland a reality include:

• Deb Accuardi 
• Gladys Amedro (with some help from her friends)
• Janine Bajus
• Anne Berk
• Amanda Berka
• Cat Bordhi
• JC Briar
• Beth Brown-Reinsel
• Ann Budd
• Ava T. Coleman
• Linda Cortright
• Susan Crawford
• Jeane deCoster
• Donna Druchunas
• Priscilla GIbson-Roberts
• Ann Glassley
• Franklin Habit
• June Hall
• Sivia Harding
• Lynn (ColorJoy) Hershberger
• Shelia January
• Jennifer Leigh
• Lynette Meek
• Cheryl Oberle
• Cheryl Potter
• David Roth (elusive online) got involved, too, with his camera
• Betty Salpekar
• Susan Santos
• Kristi Schueler
• Myrna Stahman
• Jeny Staiman
• Meg Swansen
• Stephannie Tallent
• Nancy Powell Thompson (internetarily semi-invisible, and a wonderful designer)
• Gladys We
• Jill Wolcott

Take a look at the kinds of work they've packed into the e-book here.

I'm looking forward to seeing and reading it myself! One of the reasons it took me a few days to put this post together was that when I got the preview section last week, I read Donna's dedication and had to compose myself. I always see the shortfalls of what I do: I want to do more than any day permits, and I want to raise all of our boats together. Donna's words let me see that even when my reach exceeds my grasp, I may be getting a handle on some things in a way that's helpful.

So if you are inclined (with all those incredibly talented people involved, I don't know how anyone could resist, even if this were "just" a regular book), there's information on the website (of course they put together a website {wry grin}).

Meanwhile, I need to get back to the quest. As soon as my eyes quit misting up and I can see clearly again.

Thanks, all. I'll bring back sheepy and woolly information and share it.

Photos © Deborah Robson

Dreaming of Shetland cover design by Sarah Jaworowicz

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

I love this book.

But only in the print version.

When I recently had a lot of travel to do, I borrowed an e-reader from the library. My daughter noticed that Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, a novel, was one of the titles loaded onto the device's memory, and she recommended it to me.

Determined to see what I thought of an e-reader in general and this one in particular, I deliberately created a situation where I was stuck without a paper-and-ink book for part of the trip. I opened the file for this title, tried to read it, and decided the narrative felt cold and mechanical and that I would never develop any interest in, or empathy for, the main character. My daughter can tolerate some strongly idea-based books that I find tedious, and I pegged it as one of those. I quit after about the equivalent of fifteen pages. (I usually set fifty pages as my "trial amount" in a print book, but I find any quantity of text harder to gauge in e-format.) I ended up instead happily reading parts of Tina Fey's Bossypants. I didn't finish that book, and would like to. But it was episodic and immediately witty enough to survive the format.

When I got home, one of the library books my daughter had left for me to consider reading was Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. I was dubious. She'd forgotten she'd mentioned it to me in the previous context. She assured me it was good. I needed to grab a book when I was going somewhere that would potentially involve reading-appropriate types of waiting (rather than knitting-appropriate waiting), I needed something that would be diverting and not dismal, and that was the one I shoved in my bag. (Along with one of Alan Bradley's Flavia books, as backup. Just in case.)

Well!

Mr. Penumbra is a completely different experience in print. 

Among its topics are technologies (old-style and electronic), ways we discover things about the world around us, typography, and (toward the end) even some knitting. Also about making things by hand or through computer-power. And human relationships and power dynamics and. . . . That's just skimming the surface. It's an entertaining and thoughtful book, and not at all cold and mechanical.

It has earned a space on my short shelf of favorites. That's a library copy above, indeed, but there will be a personal copy added to the household library by this evening.

IN PRINT FORM.

The jacket design, by Rodrigo Corral,* is kinda magical. That doesn't translate to the e-version, either. In fact, you can't experience it unless you have a physical copy of the book (looking at an image of it online won't do the job; even looking at it in a bookstore probably isn't adequate).

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*Cool. He also did the cover for Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle. 

Ann Kingstone's "Born and Bred" Yorkshire-based designs

Those of you who, like me, enjoy books on the order of Clara Parkes' The Knitter's Book of Wool and Sue Blacker's Pure Wool: A Guide to Using Single-Breed Yarns have a new collection to check out: Ann Kingstone's Born & Bred: Yorkshire Sheep, Yorkshire Style (the extra links go to Ann's other collections, also good to peruse).

I'd describe Ann's accomplishment here as succinct, sweet, and a little bit sassy—while well seasoned with elegance. She published this collection in conjunction with yarn shop baa ram ewe, from which all the yarns are said to be available. (I also found some kits. Nose around the site and see what you discover, too.)

I love the way Ann has designed for a variety of styles and situations and yarn weights, producing nine projects, all of which I find appealing enough to cast on for. I found myself wishing that I'd had the hooded jacket pattern to knit for my daughter when she was small. I knitted her a hooded jacket that she wore for several years (handknits seemed to fit for longer than commercial knits did), so we didn't miss out, but what a sweet garment that is (lower right on the cover, above).

Among other things, I greatly enjoyed the connection Ann made between a number of sheep of the area (of course!) and the designs. The sheep she talks about, and some of whose wool she uses in her patterns, include Wensleydales (both white and colored), Swaledales (those are the sheep at the top of the contents page, just below), Whitefaced Woodlands (a really old breed), and Mashams, which are a traditional crossbred (composed often of Wensleydale × Swaledale, or very similar breeds). Yorkshire is where the annual and famous Masham Sheep Fair is held (it will be September 28 and 29 this year). Both Wensleydales and Whitefaced Woodlands are rare breeds.

Because this is how I think about collections of knitting patterns, here's a summary of the patterns, with quick notes about the designs, the yarn weights, and the specific yarns Ann used:

• Wetwang, a pullover sweater (jumper) with graceful black swans around the yoke and lovely, subtle detailing - DK weight, Wensleydale Longwool yarn from the Wensleydale Longwool Sheepshop
• Roseberry, the wee one's coat - bulky weight, Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds Chunky Undyed in the shade "Light Masham"
• Betty, a tea cosy named after some tea shops I've been told are wonderful - bulky weight, baa ram ewe's "Rare," which is Whitefaced Woodland (yay!) combined with Hebridean (lovely stuff, too)
• Ilkley Moor, a tam - fingering weight, from baa ram ewe "Titus" (Yorkshire fibers: 50% gray Wensleydale, 20% Bluefaced Leicester, and 30% alpaca—yes, the alpaca connection is explained)
• Baht 'At, fingerless mitts - fingering weight, from baa ram ewe "Titus" (same as Ilkley Moor, above; the two designs are related in concept as well as yarn and patterning)
• Hild, a pullover hoodie - aran weight, "Jarol Pure British Wool Aran" from Masham sheep
• Wharfe, boot toppers (not just pretty but practical: keep the wellie tops from chafing legs!) - bulky weight, from baa ram ewe's "Rare" again (Whitefaced Woodland and Hebridean blend)
• Little Tyke, a color-patterned vest for small people - DK weight, Wensleydale Longwool Sheepshop yarn
• Swaledale clogs - aran weight, felted, from British Breeds "Swaledale Aran" (which may later be in stock at baa ram ewe, but I can't find it right now although I did find this)

The names of the designs come from places, a saint, a song (okay, DON'T miss that link! it's just over a minute, and goes really well after the longer clip at Baht 'At above), and more, all with Yorkshire ties. Even though the accompanying text is short, it strikes me as perfectly suited and it's personably informative.

Born & Bred is available in print and digital editions (Ravelry link for the digital version, with more photos of the designs). I am utterly charmed by it.

I haven't done giveaways much before, but Ann tells me we can do one and I opted for the digital edition. If you'd like your name thrown in the hat (probably a hand-knitted cap, actually), let me know in the comments. I'll figure out how to do a giveaway. I'll probably make my daughter do the drawing, so: (1) all names in by April 2, (2) drawing the weekend of April 6 and 7. Please remind me if I forget (see note about the days getting away from me in the post from two releases ago).

Oh, and I almost forgot. Yes, I did already cast on for one of the patterns and it's a fun knit. This one still needs finishing of the ribbing around the hand (in process) and on the thumb opening. I'd hoped to have it done in time for this post (well, I'd hoped to have a pair, but I always want to do more than is quite possible), however . . . I got most of the first one completed!

Baht 'At (check out the song, or Ann's book, for the meaning of the name):

Not entirely off-topic:

While I was finding links for this post, I discovered Moorland Pottery, which has a number of items I enjoyed looking at, some of them relating to sheepdogs, Herdwicks, other Lake District sheep (which look a whole lot like the Scots sheep, but then we're not talking representational art here), and what caught my eye first, the chickens in the wooly jumpers. . . . And yes, Yorkshire-themed items, including some that are "born and bred," which was how I ended up on the site.

Dreaming of Shetland

Updated in July 2013 to add a link here as the Dreaming of Shetland website goes live.

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Ah, time. There just isn't enough of it. If there were, I'd complete a lot more blog posts. I have ten started in MarsEdit, the program I use for composing, and another few dozen that I've meant to start writing but haven't even gotten as far as jotting down titles and concepts for. Often those ideas sit uncompleted because I have other work that needs to be done instead. The quiet here on the blog never results from lack of enthusiasm or a scarcity of things to share: it's an indication that the days end too quickly.

Thus the conundrum that I presented to a group of fellow fiber artists and writers when we got together in February: How to do more of the sheep and wool research that I feel called to undertake, while also earning a living? Most of the work on sheep and wool involves a lot of time for what amounts to honoraria: payments that recognize the value of what has been produced without actually providing enough to buy groceries or pay the mortgage.

The ideas these creative folk came up with surprised and floored me. I'm still recovering, and while I don't know what the efforts that were launched that evening mean yet in practical terms, the support all on its own has been so affirming that I'm challenged to just take it in. One of the ideas was presented to me with the following introduction: "We have an idea. All you need to do is say 'yes' and have a PayPal account." I had to absorb the proposal that they presented to me for a few minutes, then said, "yes," along with "thank you," and "I do have a PayPal account. It's already part of my freelance business."

Shetland

So there are two primary ideas afoot as a result of that gathering's attention to my sheepy obsessions. They both relate to an upcoming trip to the UK, which in turn has been instigated and is being facilitated by a small group of friends. The entire extended group of interested parties still hasn't resolved the visa issues involved in teaching, so this trip will be focused on research, although as the conversations have evolved other folks are stepping up and working on the paperwork part, and I may be able to teach on a future trip.

When the idea of a trip to the UK first began to be bandied about, the initial questions concerned when, and with what emphasis—which narrows down where. There are many ways to continue the research I did for The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, and it would be easy to run off in all directions and end up with scattered bits that don't pull together into substantial insights. There are about 1400 breeds of sheep throughout the world and there is no way I can cover them all. I'm working, slowly, on more of the breeds from continental Europe, mostly with the help and support of people on Ravelry. That's a long-term project and one that so far has no clear boundaries. It will need to perk along in the background until its shape becomes apparent. We all knew a trip to the UK would need to be very focused in order to produce useful results. There are just too many options.

Shetland Wool Week arose as the optimal event around which to plan the trip. Over the past six months or so, I've been pushed toward intensive research on Shetlands, for a lot of reasons. Resources for deepening this research have been dropping onto the path in front of me, one after another, confirming this as a good next organizing principle. I'll have more to say about that as time goes on.

But first here are the two projects that this group of folks came up with barely more than a month ago: the ones that have left me nearly speechless since.

The e-book project: Dreaming of Shetland

A small crew of volunteers is organizing an e-book of patterns, essays, and photographs to be called Dreaming of Shetland to be sold through Ravelry to support my research. While a small crew is putting this together, a large number of people are contributing to the project. It's quite astonishing.

Yes, it will support me, but it will also support the sheep (all sheep, not just Shetlands), and I've been convinced it will also generate a lot of good energy for the people who are helping out, in ways large and small. So I have, indeed, said "yes" and "thank you." (I had a little practice with this earlier, in relation to a different offer. That helped facilitate this opportunity.)

The plan is that the e-book will be available some time in the early summer. Here are some of the materials that the group has generated so far. I really don't have much to do with this. My job is to keep chipping away at the research and writing that I have been set on doing anyway. Knowing that other people are actually interested in this research is a huge plus for me all by itself.

Here's a flyer that they made up to be distributed at festivals and workshops:

 

 

The drawing is mine; I've slowly been doing images of sheep, and had not done a Shetland. I didn't have time to do one recently, either, because of an onslaught of deadlines, but it seemed like an essential element of what was happening (plus I really enjoy doing the sketches), so I ended up "stealing" about 20 minutes a day over a couple of weeks to put this ram together. Drawing a Shetland is as complex a task as researching the breed!

I've written a "Why Shetlands?" letter that will be included in the book, and if I can grab the time I will also put it up in the form of a blog post. Because it's actually written, that should be possible.

Donna Druchunas and Anne Berk are coordinating the e-book project, with the able help of Susan Santos, Sarah Jaworowicz, and others: as I said, I'm doing my best to focus on the research itself and not get distracted by the fact that I can't believe all of this is actually happening.

Here's Sarah's preliminary cover design:

Isn't it beautiful? I'm remembering that my job here is to admire and get back to studying sheep!  The sheep shown in that lower band of images, while they live on Shetland and produce perfectly fine fiber, are not the Shetland breed. I talked about this distinction between sheep-of-Shetland and Shetland-breed-sheep in The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook on page 189. I'll be looking at the whole context, with an emphasis on the breed. There will be at least one sheep of the Shetland breed in the final cover. (Truly: I have yet to meet a breed of sheep whose wool I didn't like. The second-from-right image there is almost certainly a Suffolk, and last week I taught a day's worth of workshop on Suffolk wool, which is one of the most overlooked treasures of our fiber array.)

Here's Donna's description of the project, from her latest Sheep to Shawl newsletter:

I’m excited to be able to introduce you to a new collaborative project I am working on, Dreaming of Shetland. This will be an ebook featuring a group of incredibly talented designers who are giving of their time and talents to help fund Deborah Robson’s research about Shetland sheep and wool. Over the next few months I will be featuring this project in my newsletter and on Facebook, with updates and information about pre-orders as soon as we are ready to accept payments. I hope you are as excited about this project as I am and I look forward to telling you more soon.

There will be a related website at dreamingofshetland.com (no link because as of this writing it does not yet exist).

The notebooks: And a proposed inside view of the Shetland research project

At the gathering in February, I passed around a notebook I'd used to collect my research for the article I wrote for the first issue of PLY Magazine. The reason was to show part of what I've been up to and how I'm going about it. For that article, I had to leave the computer systems behind and work by hand—a practice that I expect to need to continue while researching the Shetlands. The computer was invaluable for The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, and is also essential for the writing portions of other projects including the PLY article and certainly any summations I do of the Shetland research. However, where multiple small bits need to be comprehended and then pulled together, I found the visual and tactile approaches worked best.

Here's a page of the notes pertinent to the PLY article that I took from Juliet Clutton-Brock's A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals (1987):

It's essential to keep track of the publication dates of the research and commentary, because the state of knowledge is changing.

I also need to track dates within the material I'm reading. The timeline you see there is something I constructed to put observations in the appropriate sequence.

Here is one spread of notes from a later source, Tapio, et al., "Microsatellite-based Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Domestic Sheep in Northern Eurasia" (2010):

The reaction to this was: "You need to share these." 

Me: "HUNH? They're just my notes."

Response: "You need to share your notes on the Shetland project while it is underway."

Not long after that, a member of the group offered to help me set up a subscription-based website on which I can post my thoughts and notes and other artifacts of the journey. We've had time to engage in preliminary conversations about this, but I haven't had time to do more than begin to consider what I might do with it.

Yes, high points of the quest will be on this blog. The subscription site will allow me to devote time to detailed coverage, which can't happen otherwise for the reasons noted at the start of this post. It will also provide interested readers with a central place to find more in-depth information about my research process, along with what I'm learning about the sheep and their wool.

In sum. . . . 

There are lots of fantastic ideas bouncing around, and what I need to do now is (1) get on top of mail and finances again, following my recent return from a teaching trip; (2) see whether I can get my taxes for 2012 done without having to file an extension (haven't had time to finish up the data—mileage, inventory, and so on); (3) proof pages for The Field Guide to Fleece; (4) continue organizing all the details (and fiber acquisition) for the remainder of the year's teaching events; and (5) keep up with the freelance editing work.

At the same time, tomorrow night I will, as usual for Tuesday nights when I'm at home in Colorado, go to a coffeeshop for three or four hours. While there, I hope to be able to read and take notes on one Shetland article (maybe two? hope springs eternal). I know which one I will turn to as soon as I get my cup of tea (perhaps Ti Kuan Yin) and bowl of vegetarian soup. That article has been printed out and has been riding around in my backpack, along with the notebook, the highlighters, and the pens, awaiting the moment when I can devote my attention to it.

I can't wait to find out what piece of the puzzle that particular article will fill in. And to make a list of further sources, another task that I have been looking for time to enjoy.