Bluest of Blues

I'm beginning to knit up some baby boy hats. And of course, blues are what we grab for. But which blue? There in lies a challenge. When I grab a blue, it's likely to be green: Turquoise or Caribbean. So I'm trying to get at those purer tones, Royal and Navy are of course gorgeous, but perhaps a highlight of some other sparkling hue when knitting! My favorite is sitting in the sun, to really see the sheen, and of course whether it's a synthetic or a natural fiber the cast can vary so greatly. Here are some other blue shades that entice me today: Toluene, Indigo, Azure, Ultramarine, Cerulean, Prussian, Cobalt. Any others I should be considering?

Patternwork

If you can be disciplined enough to do your swatch, then you can measure it, and then you can create a graph that is customized to the swatch and then the pattern ou draw on to it will fit the yarn quite nicely.The last pattern I did I used "knitting graph paper" but then I knitted various gauge swatches to see what looked the best. Backwards, but fun! Here's the on line graph by gauge I stumbled on Sweaterscapes Knitting Graphs

Navajo Warming Blanket

The look of the last striped blanket I knitted was so Navajo in the look that as I looked at a stack of Manose de Uruguay handspun kettle dyed wool in colorway G I decided to make another blanket and this time get the brown, beige, gray, and red of an even more traditional Southwest look. The gray Twinkle yarn, and Rowan Big Wool, with  the remains of my treasured because discontinued chunky Malbrigo created a palate that was exciting to me and inspiring to just look at.

The Navajo weavings have been sorted into the Classic, the Transition and the Rug periods. The Classic period spanned about 200 years after the mid 17th century, the Rug period from just prior to 1900 until now, with Transition being in between. The styling was simple: rectangles that could be worn as a wrap or a shoulder blanket. The yarns of the tradional Navajos are S-spun worsted and they had long fibers and were somewhat stiff. By the time they were moving into the Transition period they had z-spun worsted that were probably from churro wool of the Spanish. Eventually more nappy yarns of the English and Americans was introduced. Then softer yarns they called Germantown or Saxony from mills of New England that came from the Saxony-Merino sheep found in Saxony and Germany. The yarn itself was spun in the Phily suburb of Germantown, and often the dyes were synthetic. Eventually the Navajos were convinced to try to improve their sheep with these blood lines so they could get more wool per animal, but often lack of suitable range to be fed and inbreeding produced wools that were poor in quality.

The yarns were used in weaving but I like to think that the thick blankets I knit with the 50 mm needles and the multiple strands use create a melange reminiscent of the weft and warp look. The traditional coloring reds were of cochineal or the bayeta. Cochineal itself is from a bug that lives on the prickly pear. Other red tones are achieved by the addition of Lac. Lac is an Oriental import that is the resin of insect scales that traders introduced into the Navajo color palate. The greens were of an indigo and native plant yellow dye mixed together. White as a color was not used in the oldest patterns, but probably was introduced by the Spanish. Sumac twigs and leaves created the blacks. As they moved into their Transition period, the weavers got practical and began using kit dyes that were provided to them by Wells and Richardson of Vermont. these prepackaged Diamond dyes would work by just adding water, although the resulting colors were compromised significantly due to their poor woo. By the 1930s a vocational high school teacher, and Navajo weaver named Nonabah Bryan began cataloging formuls from dye mixed of local plants.

When creating my patterns for the striped blankets it is so tempting not to plan at all but to knit and just grab whatever fancies my eye next. But then, when using some expensive yarns I'm more apt to want to plan, and it's fun to experiment with patterns with some tape and short cuttings of the wools. I have loved the Moqui pattern of narrow indigo blue and black stripes, but I had decided not to use an actual blue in this blanket. The Chief blankets, the small, almost square blankets of the fourth phase of the Classic period are some of the most inspiring striped patterns. The wider than long blanket are more traditional of the Navajo, and the ones more long than wide are the serape of the Spanish. Red or blue bordered blankets were also called "maiden shawls". I'm sticking to stripes for now and may more into some graphed designs with the traditonal diamond centers that are common in these rugs.

The project is underway, the night is young, I rest my hands every few rows as it gets heavier and heavier, and as the fire is winding down, the blanket will help to warm me while knitting in the quite house.

Reference Navajo Weaving, Three Centuries of Change, by Kate Peck Kent

Fierce Fibers

I've loved the "yarns of transformation" logo of Alchemy, and hae made many a flowering concoction of beads and knitted balls, and trinkets just to be able to grasp the concept of art and magic that their subtle dying conveys. And bamboo ,pine, silk, jadite and steel have intrigued me from other spinners of fine threads, just to give you some examples of my favorites. And as I read the lore of whitches brews, love potions and the fircests of treatments for fevers: like the henbane and wolf's bane. If I could weave just a few fibers into some flax as tribute to the women before us, it would be quite something.

Knitting on a Rainy Day

The claps of thunder were always believed to be the reeling in of the flax that Frau Holda, the supernatural matron of both spinning and childbirth. Frau Holda's cloth was finely spun linen, which she might be loaded back into the spindles at night. The threads of her flax were a bit portent, 'as many good years as many threads" and the cloth must be finished by Epiphany. Are you holding the flax, are your hands flying so fast you must stop them to stretch. Play some music from Braveheart and it will take you away to times of castles and candles and let your imagination knit wild.

Knitting and an 'Agent Provacature'

Getting to the root of why we want to knit what we are working on. It has to be the inspiration, no? We all have seminal events in our life, and some may grace your emotions with an "agent provocateur". For some of the history behind that provocative name, check the blog post on GynoGab. And for those who have an ongoing 'agent provocateur' it would be well to identify it's source. So when I knit, I take copious notes in the margins of things I've read during the day, remembered to look up, or spoke about in hushed tones late at night.

Squares and Boarders

My grandmother Pearl taught me to crochet. She and her sister Rae used to knit and crochet. They knitted an exquisite set of boy girl dolls for all the cousins, and needless to say mine didn't survive my play dramas. They also would crochet blankets for all of us. One did squares, one did boarders. One did the doll bodies, one did the clothes. What amazes me is how perfectly the gauges always match. I've madly studied my sisters dolls (the saver in the family) and it's impossible to tell two women had their hands on these dolls, they are perfect. When I got older I thought about their collaboration on colors, it wasn't anything I ever talked to them about when I was a little girl. But theirs was the endlessly beautiful granny square blankets I never tired of looking at. At their house they did more complex ivory lace spreads, and place-mats and samplers. My first little afghan I made around the age of 8 or 9 survives, not too wobbly, and I can't look at it without thinking about how I couldn't wait for grandma's visit to show her the completed project. And though I eventually taught my sisters, two daughters, a daughter-in-law to crochet I don't have that perfect harmony collaborator, although we've occasionally helped just a bit!. Now that there's a new generation, there's a part of my tiny dream: someone to share squares and the boarders with!