Knitting with something different.

I am finding all kinds of little stuff to work on instead of the vest. But the vest requires full brain power, and I don't know, maybe it is spring, maybe it is the time change earlier this week, but I am having a tough time focusing on one task. Or even 2.

As the big department stores seek cheaper goods, their yarn departments are suffering. For decades, a department store was where you went to get good old ordinary crochet cotton. No longer. There is only 1 big store carrying any locally. I don't think they they are carrying much, because everyone who is looking for crochet cotton says the same thing: 'Its so picked over'. I've never met the person who is doing the picking, and never met anyone who says they have such a good selection. I'm thrilled to see that at least one yarn store (River City) around here is carrying it, in a good selection of colours (not vast, but decent) and we are going to see how it sells. If it sells well, who knows, there may be more selection.

Like anything else, people will like to see how it is going to look. Crocheters know, because for far too long, it and acrylic were the only things being crocheted with. Knitters are a tougher crowd. So I am knitting and crocheting and tatting up a few little samples of some of the colours of the fine cotton thread we have.

I decided to start with the knitting, and I hoped to have it done yesterday. The little white edging sample is from the Knitted Lace of Mary Schiffman. It is the sort of thing that was used on the edges of pillowcases, and undergarments, and tea cloths for tables. Most of the lace edgings I am familiar with are crocheted but after working one in knitted lace, I get it. There is the same rhythmic quality that infects (in a very good way) all knitting. I can the understand satisfaction that could be taken from making miles of this braid. I can understand why a person might knit this sort of lace edging rather than crochet.
The green sample is the Little Arrowhead pattern from Barbra Walker's First Treasury (or second. the book is upstairs.) I've already knit a table cloth in the darn stuff - all of it wrong. My frustrations with this knitters inability to count to 2, doesn't dim how nice this sample is going to look when it is finished. This lovely rich moss green dances and glows in the light. I hope this little sample will show some of our younger knitters, that cotton knitting is something to aspire to too.

One of the best parts of my knitting journey has been learning the depth of tradition behind it all. The tradition behind knitting lace is deep and strong. But right there alongside those strong and vibrant traditions of Estonia and The Shetlands, at exactly the same time in history, over the last 150 years, we had our own tradition born out of a desire to have pretty things to wear and born out of what was available. Here in the vast western spaces of North America, the common fibre to knit lace with was cotton. Cotton thread knitting is our tradition, and I urge us not to give short shrift to our own history because few books have been written about it, because it isn't as popular as knitted laces with wool.

Pick up a copy of the Lacy Knitting of Mary Schiffman, or get it from your library. Check out some of the fine old crochet doily pattern writers like Elizabeth Hiddleson if you can. Search, see, find out what our fore-mothers were doing.

And then knit a little something with cotton thread. In garter stitch. Seriously rewarding stuff. An unexpected pleasure.