Toiles Peintes and Sketching My Designs

Toiles Peintes is a French term meaning "painted linens" it actually was that a piece of heavy linen on which the tapestry under design construction was made to be sketched, and designed to be rigid enough, and durable enough that the design would be suitable for hanging. I actually prefer to do these on rolls of Japanese paper, as it's very handy to be able to cut off pieces of irregular sizes, I feel much more economical, and it suits the brushy style I like to write and draw when sketching.It's a great concept for those early knit sketches, especially to help me remember what I want to change up if I am adapting the design to a cushion or a hat or a pot holder. And I like to decorate my yarn stash room with these. My newest find is an antique album, and I use these sketches, or occasionally the swatches themselves  in place of the picture openings to create a unique heirloom all of my own.

Knitting by the Era

I knit therefore I remember. Or at least I'm trying this. Have you memorized the order of the era's of history? Well, here's a list and as we go we will be thinking about what to knit to honor each era.
VICTORIAN: 1830-1914
ROMANTIC: early 1800s
REALISM: LATE 1800SNAPOLEONIC: 1799-1815
BAROQUE: 16th to 18th century; rococo style
ENLIGHTENMENT (RATIONALISTIC) or Age of Reason: so late 17th century
RENAISSANCE:Florence was the root: 1400s
MIDDLE: a big one, and not really in the "middle" but from about the 5th to the 11th century
DARK AGES: a phrase first used in 1602, but refers to before the Middle Ages

The Seven Virtues of Knitting

I'm liking Plato's Seven Virtues. And they certainaly apply to our knitting, so to break it down for us I have appropriately retranslated for the clicking needle set:
PRUDENCE: Finish your projects.
JUSTICE: Spend as much time and technique on the finish work as on the project
RESTRAINT: Restrain the overwhelming force of forging ahead without a gauge swatch for the fitted items
COURAGE: No pattern is too hard to try
FAITH: I think this on applied to my first attempt at turning a heel, they told me to just follow the instructions and believe it would be a heel, and it was!
HOPE: So many ways this applies, no need to elaborate!
LOVE: To thy ownself be true: color, pattern, texture