New Year

A few quickies:

We traveled to Virginia for the holidays where I got to visit a new yarn store in Fredericksburg.


It's called Old Town Yarnery and was small but lovely.


I implemented my New Year's resolution of doing more stash knitting, so I only bought a sheepy keychain and the pattern for the Rivulet Shrug.

I indulged in my love for soft-shelled crabs.



I also did a bit of junking and picked up this Reward of Merit card


as well as this nineteenth-century hollow gold brooch ($10!) and a new huck towel.



I'm still without regular internet access, so thanks for hanging in with me until I get that sorted out!

Vacationing with a Vengance

For an academic, the end of the semester is simply brutal, with no way around it. The benefit, however, is that once grades go in, we're done. Completely. No unfinished projects, no meetings, no anything.

I took advantage.

LB, Steu, and I went to visit our friend, Rhys, for two weeks and watched his four-year-old open presents. Can you spot him?

With no television and almost no Internet, I knitted and knitted and knitted, finally finishing the cashmere sleeping socks I'd started in June of 2009.

I went to three different LYS and bought souvenir yarn.

I went junking.

I returned refreshed.

____________

Coming soon: New Year's resolutions.

Dear Shirley

Presents have been coming into my life of late, and who doesn't love that?

My friend Shirley just sent me a stack of these beautiful huck towels with Swedish weaving for my collection.



She sent them for a sad reason: she's moving into a retirement home and has to downsize even more than she already had.


Shirley reenacted well into her 80s, and we'd sometimes take a break in the afternoon and sneak off for a margarita.

I love these towels. There's also an antimacassar (the blue one) and a luncheon cloth (the yellow one).


Obligatory knitting content: I am again totally obsessed with Civil War knitting. I've been cranking out undersleeves (like these for second mourning), purses, and stockpiling patterns and yarn for hoods galore. I've got a few barters finishing up and a few more lined up. I can't explain the sudden surge of interest, but I'm definitely going with it.

Superstitions

I like to think of myself as above superstition. No salt flies over my shoulder. I like black cats. As a child, I fearlessly chanted "Black Aggie" into the mirror. I ignored the curse of the boyfriend sweater with no ill effects at all.

I won't walk over a sidewalk grate, mind you, but that's certainly not a superstition; it's because I'm fully convinced that the grate will collapse and send me careening down into the sewer system where my lifeless body will be gnawed on by rodents. Even worse, the gnawing part may commence before the lifeless part. Such rational behavior as avoiding grisly and certain death isn't superstitious at all.

I've a few small superstitions. While riding in whatever is my current vehicle, I flat out refuse to talk about even the possibility of future vehicles in my life. No talk of "my next car" is allowed. If anyone broaches the subject (and LB is notoriously bad about this behavior), I caress the dashboard and reassure the car that it is loved. Laugh if you will, but my last car, a Ford Escort, had over 206,000 miles. My current one, a Toyota truck, has over 210,000.

When giving a purse or a wallet, I like to include a penny, so the purse may never be empty.

Today is Friday the thirteenth, and it's a lovely day at that. I will hear from LB tomorrow. I busted a plagiarist (I guess Friday the 13th is unlucky for him, but it made my day) . I was given a literature class for the summer (Hurray!). I'm happily knitting. The hellebores have survived the cold snap and are blooming furiously.

May all Friday the thirteenths be so nice.

________________________

On the pins: Yet another Nancy Bush sock. I've now made twelve out of the twenty-four patterns in the Vintage Socks book.

On the walls: new towels for spring

And because I was in a picture-taking mood, I photographed the four square dance advertisements in our guest bathroom:

No one likes a sweaty square dancer! Use Mum Mist!


Even with your period, you can dance 'til dawn with Kotex, but don't forget to brush your teeth with Ipana!

And my favorite . . . drum roll . . .

Too constipated to square dance? Don't be a Droopy Dora! Eat Bran Flakes!

Marking Stitches

On socks, I actually use more stitch markers than most people. The general public tends to use just one marker to indicate the beginning of the round. Because of the way I knit socks, I use an additional two, marking the sides of the sock as well.

Instead of dividing the heel stitches on two needles and keeping the instep stitches on one, I divide my stitches evenly and use stitch markers to indicate the breaks. I also transfer the last worked stitch on my right-hand needle onto a free needle to begin working on the new left-hand needle.

I find this technique stabilizes my needles, helps me avoid ladders, and prevents a lot of strain at the corners on the instep. My stitches literally* spiral about on the needles.

The sock I'm currently working on required an additional two markers (to mark both sides of the instep pattern, both sides of the instep, and the beginning of the round) for a grand total of five.

For the longest time, I couldn't see the point of lovely stitch markers. People were going crazy for them on etsy and buying them by the gross, it seemed like. I'd always just used a bit of yarn or some plastic ones I'd inherited.

Then I found Suzanne's markers, which she sells at Knitorious. I bought one Stitch-n-Pitch-themed marker, then about 16 Mardi Gras markers, which I've been hoarding. I've also given a few of Suzanne's markers as birthday presents. I asked Suzanne to work an orphaned earring into a stitch marker, and I've just ordered a bunch of charms on ebay for an upcoming themed knitting swap. I'm clearly hooked.

Suzanne's markers are not the split-rings or jump-rings I've seen elsewhere. Hers are a solid ring, and the beadwork displays her wonderfully creative colorwork.

These current socks, my bright green socks, I've taken to thinking of as my St. Patrick's Day socks. I'm currently fighting the urge to buy one of Suzanne's shamrock markers specifically for working on these socks. I don't know how much longer I can hold out.

__________________

Speaking of colorwork, the lovely and talented Anna Allen remembered that I collect huck towels and found these lovelies for me. I've been slow to change the towels, but these colors have inspired me to think of the daffodils that are forcing their way up in the yard. Later today, I'll be swapping out the old towels for some sunshiny yellow ones.

Thanks Anna!

___________

Today's grammar note: Watch out for that word "literally." Literally means "actually" in the sense of "strictly speaking." People use it as an intensifier though, which leads to unintentionally funny sentences like "My head is literally exploding!" Don't be that person.

Huck Towels

For Yoel:

Huck towels aren't really special--maybe it's just me.

Huck toweling is a type of woven cotton fabric. You may have seen it on those old blue cloth towel rolls in gas stations or old diners. It's similar (but not exactly the same) to Aida cloth that cross stitchers use.

During the 1930s and until the 1950s or so, it was popular to do a type of embroidery on them called Swedish weaving. The floss was woven through the top of the towel and didn't show on the back. The designs tended to be bold and geometric.

Generally people made towels, but I've seen aprons, pillows, valances, table runners, antimacassars, etc. There are also pattern books out there like the one above.

Colors tend to be the colors of what were called "powder rooms" since that's where the towels hung. And you can see the trends in bathroom colors: lots of pink and green, quite a bit of baby blue, but also a surprising amount of black and turquoise. I've found that the rarer colors are burgundy, gray, and orange.

If you click on the Swedish weaving tag on my post, you'll see some of my collection.

I've been collecting them since the mid-80s and probably have about 250 examples. Prices have climbed quite a bit, but I currently limit myself to $3 or less per towel.

Like I said, they're not hugely special, but I like them for their graphic quality and vivid colors.

Rock Stardom

I had promised to talk about my rock-star talk, but now I'm frantically researching and working on the next talk, due tomorrow, on top of a job interview.

So here's the quick and dirty version:

• I was invited to give a lecture on nineteenth-century itinerant dancing masters. Although I whined quite a bit, being invited was a big honor. The lecture was sponsored by an archive at a major state university. There were only three lecturers, and I was one. The whole idea kind of blows my mind.
• There were about ninety people in the audience, one of whom was knitting a pair of bright green mittens. I found that comforting. A few more nodded off. I tried not to take that personally. At least they napped for the other guy too.
• I wore my Mardi Gras stole and got complimented on it.
• The lecture part went well--I spoke for almost forty minutes and then answered questions for what seemed like just as long, but was really more like ten minutes. Answering the random questions was like being on a quiz show, but I managed to pull it off.
• In addition to the lecture, I also taught a dance workshop for sixty high school students. Although it was the first time I ever say anyone text and dance, the workshop too went well.
• I was in a play.
• I also had a rock star gig.
• The money is all spent already.

So there you have it. I stand in front of a room full of people every single day, so while I'm inclined to whine, speaking in public doesn't really bother me.

The best part though was that they put me up for two nights in a suite at the Hilton. Normally when I visit this town, my friends kick their kid out of his bed and I end up wedged in next to a pile of boy-smelling stuffed animals. I'm glad to be in a bed instead of the floor, but my god, those beds at the Hilton ... It's true what they say about them.

While I claim to be a rock star, I'm more like the garage band travelling around in a beat-up van, sleeping on someone's floor, and stealing sugar packets from the gas station. I am unaccustomed to luxury: cable TV, a business suite with free color printing, free breakfast, a feather bed, down pillows, a down comforter, high-thread-count sheets, a plush blanket, the most comfortable mattress I've ever slept on. I returned feeling like a new woman.

I also had time to visit two LYS and to junk. The haul was as follows (clockwise from the top):

• A book on dolls with an entire chapter on what were called "peddler dolls." I bought the book because of one small photo of a peddler doll at a charity bazaar. On her table is a tiny knitted miser's purse.
• Three huck towels, one in a fairly unusual burgundy and grey combination. The tag on the box of towels read "Old cloth tops $6 flat full" in a shaky scrawl. It turns out that meant I got a box of about twelve towels, three of which were huck, for $6. I'll recycle the others.
• One pair of nineteenth-century coral branch and gold earrings. They look quite a lot like these, but with a integral hook. I looooooooove them.
• A ridiculously expensive, two-sided, enameled shawl pin. I'd been looking for one for a long time and had bought several different styles I ended up not liking. I'm glad to have it; don't ask me how much I paid for it. Like I said, that rock star money went fast.
• Over 400 yards of 100% silk yarn. I decided that winding it would be a nice way to relax after my rock star gig. I was wrong. It kept me up until after 2 am and had SIX knots in it. S.I.X.
• Four skeins of silk perle to be used for knitting miser's purses.
• Yet another wishful attempt to find the pompom maker of my dreams. I'll let you know how it goes if and when I ever try it out.

By far the best purchase was this sweet, delicately hand-cut sillhouette of a boy and girl winding yarn.

It makes my heart sing.

Finishing Up

Today was a day of completions.

I made the tassel for a Civil War sleeping cap out of some yarn I got from Sam.

I finally finished seaming and beading the miser's purse.

I wove in the ends of the Diva Royale scarf (pattern to come if there's any interest).

I took some photos I'd been needing to take.

...of my bathing costume

...of a huck towel

I got several weeks ahead in my photocopying for school.

And at the end of the day, my sewing room still looks like this.

Catching Up

Since our last meeting (which was apparently just about two weeks ago), here's just some of what's happened:*

• Completely cleared out my office for the first time in at least six years.
• Went to a very weird reenactment near Kansas City.
• Went antiquing and found the aforementioned brooches.
• Called 2 dances.
• Had oral surgery and subsequently six stitches in the roof of my mouth.
• Gave a knitting lesson in Spanish.
• Drove to Potosi and back.
• Went antiquing again, but only found one huck towel.
• Went to a dance weekend and called there too.
• Quietly resolved that these were no longer my people.
  
• Went antiquing again and found some 1864 sheet music from the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair.
• Cooked greek lemon chicken for 180 people.
• Finished the trim on my reproduction bathing costume.
• Worked in my LYS.
• Bought cardinal needles from Serendipity Needles (review: better than expected)
  
• Was on television.
• Missed it because I was at Stitch N' Pitch and also forgot to set the VCR.
• Finished a knitted t-shirt.
• Began a chevron scarf.
  
• Began another pair of socks.
• Began a chenille ballet-wrap sweater.
• Knitted the back of a bolero jacket.
  
• Had a week-long "foodie visit" (their words) from my parents.
• Went to Guido's, Viviano's, Berterelli's, and Missouri Baking Co.
• Went to Fast Eddie's, R. Pizza Farm, a Grafton pub crawl/miniature golf tournament, and the Fin Inn.
• Struggled to keep from telling my father that a man who didn't know as recently as the 1980s that he needed to drain tuna doesn't really need to be lecturing us about food.
  
• Ate at Aya Sofia and Ted Drewes.
  
• Started the first day of summer school.
  

There may have been more; I can't be certain. Tomorrow, back to our regular schedule.

________
*remember that rule for colons, folks. Everything to the left must make up a complete sentence.

Huck Towels

Picked up last weekend when I was calling a dance at the governor's mansion. There were more in the antique store than I could afford, so I concentrated on the cheap or the unusual.

Plus one plaid handkerchief, which I adore.

Coming Unraveled

Ravelry is hitting the lizard part of my brain like heroin, just like I knew it would. I may never come up for air.

So here's another cop-out--a knitting postcard from my personal collection.
And here's some of the stuff I picked up down in the Ozarks this weekend:
From left to right:

• a chrome bar for hanging hand towels
• an apron in swedish weaving
• blue and black swedish weaving
  
• a CDV of a grave
• orange and black swedish weaving
• advertising ephemera for Smile soda

Happy Halloween

I was all set to ignore Halloween this year, partly because I have been spending my money and time on nineteenth-century candies, partly because I haven't had a porch light since 2005, partly because fighting my way back to the decorations bin in the basement depresses me, and mostly because it falls on knit night.

I did put up the towels.

No one noticed.

I decided I was simply tired of Halloween. Then I saw Annie's Halloween decorations. One phone call to Schnucks' customer service and I was out the door on my way to collect the last pair in the city. Apparently the latest news articles on minorities being less likely to celebrate Halloween has some degree of truth. I found the flamingos in what some of its neighbors call "ghetto Schnucks." I call it great customer service.


I also have a Halloween surprise prepared for knit night and as a thank you to the folks who helped me put on the knitting lecture. It started like this:


Here's a sneak peak, but all will be revealed tomorrow.

September Towels

In between another swollen eyelid, some bizarre Yahoo malfunction requiring me to drive to a different computer, and not enough hours in the day, I'm reduced to falling back on the towels.

Enjoy.

Clearly the fact that I could only pull off a coordinated display of eight means only one thing. I need more towels.

Nauvoo Rendezvous

Unlike seemingly everyone else I know, I did not go to the Bethel Sheep and Wool Festival this weekend. Instead, I went to Nauvoo. It was quite charming, especially the Labor Day parade with its marching band of about 18 musicians and its floats from the local nursing home, grain elevator, and pumpkin patch.

I didn't go into any of the buildings, but later I found a brochure so I know which sites have actual historic artifacts and are less likely to be crammed with missionaries. When I go back, I'll be prepared.

We also stopped by the rendezvous to learn about history. There I learned fascinating things like that it takes six months of "constant" spinning and knitting to make a damn ugly baby sweater. I also learned that in the eighteenth-century there was a fabric mill in St. Louis and France sent thread to it and traders could buy US-made calico. Finally, I learned that even though a certain calico looks so modern that it could come from the Laura Ashley outlet, it's really a documented print because an Iroquois women explained ...

Actually, I believe none of this crap, and I don't want to even repeat the fabric theory lest I perpetuate it. Let's just say that the best way to learn what kinds of fabric women of a certain era wore is to study lots of textile books, quilt books, and original garments.

And don't just take anyone's word for it, even if she is Iroquois.*

I also managed to get in some antiquing. All in all, the haul was good:

• an 1850s or so Reward of Merit
• a brass(?) buckle which is the perfect size and scale for a civil war belt. In fact, it's likely a nineteenth-century buckle.
• a collar
• a pinking chisel. It doesn't look like much, but this was a major find. Nineteenth-century women did not have pinking shears and used chisels to scallop and pink the trim on their dresses, bonnets, parasols, etc. Most antique dealers don't recognize them for what they are and they tend to be found in the tool section.
• Not pictured--a watch fob with quartz beads ending in a little quartz cask (present for LB)
• 5 huck towels (a gift to me)

I seemed to have magic eyes this weekend. Every time I looked through a pile of modern stuff, I was able to spot the one nineteenth-century item, whether it was the only two documented prints buried in a stack of remnants at a quilt shop, the coin silver on a pair of eyeglasses, the late-war CDV in a stack of postcards, whatever. It was a cool feeling.

A quick glance through six tables of used books turned up the only two 1850s and 60s volumes. I know because I took several much, much longer looks subsequently. I ceded those books to another, but I wanted to show off the best, an 1860s holiday annual. Holiday annuals were gift books put out by various publishing companies around the holidays. They often contained short stories, poems, and engravings of pretty women.

I've been reading the stories, and they're pretty funny--all about not-quite-beautiful country girls who grow up to marry very handsome wealthy men.

Although I did sustain one knitting injury, a needle into the palm of my hand, it was a great trip.

I even finished the gator scarf. Just in time for a 96-degree day.

_________________
*I'm not trying to denigrate oral history, but in this case, something definitely got lost in translation. I think I can discern the ur-theory in there--that Native American women tended to pick a certain type of print because it reflected some of their spiritual beliefs. That doesn't mean, however, that every print in that design is a documented print, nor that prints in other designs are not documented to the period