[pinz-n-needlez]

I should introduce myself.....

I do most fiber stuff, spinning, weaving, knitting, crochet, embroidery, sewing, quilting, etc.

I play with a Medival reenactment group, and do most of my research in the years between 1000 and 1600. I can tell you alot about knitting in the Middle Ages. ;-)

I'm determined to get to work on my looms this winter, a 60" Cranbrook countermarche, 24" Leclerc rigid heddle and assorted inkle and small box looms. I've got a $200 bid on a 60" Macomber loom for doing Colonial overshot coverlets. The bids close Saturday, my fingers are crossed.

I quilted my first vest during the first round of Clinton banking hearings, way back in the early 90's. I try to have an engrossing hand project to work on durings hearings and big political scandals. I don't know if Free Republic has saved my fiber art, or just warped it a bit. lol

I've been known to Freep while making socks, especially through long political threads. Actually started hard core sweater making during Carter's administration because it was a way to get through EVERY article in Newsweek to try to make some sense of National politics. I was in my early 20's then.

I made my mother a set of 4 needlepoint chair cushions during Nixon's Watergate hearings.

When my 4 kids were little, I would read knitting and weaving books while I nursed them at naptime or at bedtime. Now I'm free to use that information, just got to make the time. Hence the need to Freep and knit.

Thanks for a wonderful thread, Knitting a Conundrum, I've enjoyed your comments and webpage since the Laci threads last year. :-)

Pinz

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Have you ever gotten on the Historical Knitting list at Yahoo groups? Most of the hard core users are medieval reenactors of various stripes...although they tolerate us 18th and 19th century types (I reenact the Federalist period...persona is centered on about 1790. I wanted a period with no war going on...just heading west. Hubby's getting too old to play soldier and he hates drill. Hubby's got a secret wish to reenact the 900s, but he just can't leave the black powder alone).

But the knitting I like best is probably the 1840s-1880s...lots of cotton work!

[wildehunt]

I quilted my first vest during the first round of Clinton banking hearings, way back in the early 90's. I try to have an engrossing hand project to work on durings hearings and big political scandals. I don't know if Free Republic has saved my fiber art, or just warped it a bit. lol

I first discovered Rush while weaving in my studio on dark winter afternoons in Vermont. I guess my craft was instrumental in my politcal progression.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

In the first half of the 19th century, scarves were called comforts. Somewhere in one of my 1840s knitting books, there is a pattern for a comfortable comfort.

Most of the early scarf patterns that were for serious warmth then seem to be double knitted.

Or possibly k1 p1 whch the Workwoman's Guide, printed in the 1830s, calls something like "imitation double knitting." I'm too lazy right now to get up and look for it.

Seems that no one can find any documentation or examples of knitted scarves in the 1700s. They weren't doing much flat knitting then, and it may have just seemed like wasted time to bother with knitting a scarf, when there were so many pairs of stockings and mittens to do and there was a strip of wool fabric handy.

Now for the real purpose of this piece.

My favorite non-lacy knitting pattern makes a great scarf. It's sort of a almost rib pattern, which doesn't get as stretcy as real rib.

cast on a mutiple of 3 + 2 stitches. Say, 24 +2 = 26. Then the pattern is all simplicity: sl 1, k2p1 across, k the last stitch. All the rows are done the same.

looks like this;