I have a stash of wonderful, hand-dyed, soft-spun single wool hanging out here, and it's been hanging out here for a long while, too. It's indigo-dyed in two shades of blue, plus there's a grey and a brownish grey to go with it. However, it seems to have some make-a-bad-decision vibe hanging to it.

Originally, I bought it to knit myself a Pinwheel Sweater - only to find out, when the thing was almost finished, that it does not flatter me at all and, to be blunt, actually even looked butt-ugly on me.

[caption id="attachment_2149" align="alignnone" width="902"] Almost done. And unfortunately not The Thing For Me. At all.


[caption id="attachment_2148" align="alignnone" width="902"] Sleeve finished with a tiny bit of entrelac-like knitting.


So I frogged it. And then thought about what to do with it, and I came up with the idea to do an illusion-knitted Tardis scarf. Which I started, and I made good progress on,  and now it has been almost finished for a while...

[caption id="attachment_2147" align="alignnone" width="602"] The Tardis knit, seen from above...


[caption id="attachment_2146" align="alignnone" width="640"] ... and at an angle. It really looks Tardis-y!


This, however, has proven to be another bad decision. Illusion knitting, to work properly, needs to be rather firm. The result of this? A very wide, very firm piece of knit fabric that will not be comfortable or easy to wear as a scarf. Or anything else, actually. And I do intend to wear my knit things - otherwise I could decide to use it as a rug, or wall-hanging, and it might do nicely there, but somehow, I'd prefer it to be wearable. (It's also not as illusionary as I had hoped; the motif is rather visible from straight downwards still.)

So I will frog it again. And next time? Well. I'm thinking about trying to make a jacket/cozy sweater-like thing out of the wool again, but this time, using a pattern that actually flatters me, and probably employing the mix of colours to do some nice entrelac.

[caption id="attachment_2145" align="alignnone" width="640"] Entrelac knit with the same kind of wool. I think this will be the thing.


After all, this looks promising, doesn't it?

Slipping stitches is nice, and can be very helpful, but it takes time. Also, it tends to annoy me when I have to do an abundance of it... so I was thinking of alternative methods to get the new stitches to go through two previous ones, but without slipping stitches. I was thinking about just knitting into the row below in addition to the current row, or about having two needles parallel in the knitting... and, as we were hanging out together, I told the most patient husband of them all about this, and explained about the necessity to slip stitches with the other method because otherwise the stitch to discard won't go over the newer ones in the proper direction.

After mulling this over and thinking a minute about it, he asked "Why don't you just align them differently?" Brilliant man. So once I had yarn and needles handy again (this might have involved buying a set of simple metal needles to live in my handbag, because you can always find a use for metal sticks, and there was yarn in the bag already) I tried both my ideas (which did utterly not work, both of them, but it was interesting to see how spectacularly they failed to work) and then the different alignment.

So here you go, courtesy of the Most Patient of All Husbands, a second method to do compound knitting, with no slipping at all as long as you work in the round.

All stitches are aligned with the right leg behind the needle. The older stitch is now always on the left side, the newer stitch on the right side of the pair.

[caption id="attachment_2062" align="alignnone" width="640"] Insert right needle straight through both stitches on the left needle and wrap yarn from back to front (so the right leg of the new stitch will lie in the back)...


[caption id="attachment_2061" align="alignnone" width="640"] ...draw through both stitches on left needle...


[caption id="attachment_2060" align="alignnone" width="640"] ...and move the first stitch on the left needle over to the right.


[caption id="attachment_2059" align="alignnone" width="640"] The new stitch lies on the right, the older stitch on the left.


[caption id="attachment_2058" align="alignnone" width="640"] View from the back - you can see how the stitches sort of cross over each other on the needle.


This is nice and relatively fast to work, and involves no slipping. There is a little danger of stitches swapping positions, though, especially in the first and last stitch of the row, mostly due to them being much looser. Knitting in the round eliminates that problem, and it also lets you work without having to deal with a return row, because that... well. That's an entirely different beast.

To get the stitches that have to be discarded to move over their new counterparts in the correct direction, there needs to be some slipping of stitches again. I tried doing a return row, similar in method to the original instructions, and lo and behold - there were twisted stitches again:

[caption id="attachment_2057" align="alignnone" width="640"] Insert left needle through both stitches on right needle.


[caption id="attachment_2056" align="alignnone" width="640"] Wrap yarn from back to front around right needle, pull through both stitches...


[caption id="attachment_2055" align="alignnone" width="640"] ... and transfer first stitch on left needle to right, dropping the second stitch off the needles.


[caption id="attachment_2054" align="alignnone" width="640"] Then transfer both stitches to the left needle.


[caption id="attachment_2053" align="alignnone" width="640"] The result after one more regular row: after the return row, the stitches that were worked in the return row are twisted...


I'm quite sure that the twisted-stitch issue can be resolved by different alignment or some other shenanigans. There remains, however, an interesting fact: no matter which method, the original or this one, working in one direction only is much easier than turning around and working knitting in the flat. So knitting with stitches through two previous rows instead of just one seems to be much better suited to working in the round, not in the flat.

Which sort of fits into the picture of early knitting being done in the round only, as far as we can tell from our evidence. So maybe there was a point in time when flat knitting, going back and forth in rows, was developed and it didn't work so well with the stitches in double depth, leading to the development of the knitting through just one previous row? Who knows - but maybe, some day, we'll have a few more knitting finds to help with these questions.

I hope you enjoyed this series about knitting - and if you find a better method, or a good way of working the return row, please let the rest of us know in the comments!

Time for some more knitting stuff! In the last installment of this little series, we've identified the stitches in the row worked from the left onto the right needle as the culprit for the twisted stitches - or, to be more precise, the alignment of these stitches. The stitches worked in this row sit with the right leg in front of the needle, and when they are pulled over the newer stitches off the tip of the needle, their legs cross.

Oh, and I've taken the whole shebang over to utterly oversized demo needles - so things should be clearer visible now. The "regular" towards-the-right row is knit in blue, the return row in red. As you can see, the blue stitches are all twisted (left leg crosses over right), while the red stitches all are untwisted.

[caption id="attachment_2043" align="alignnone" width="300"] The result of the return row: the stitches are untwisted.


Remember the observation that the stitches lie differently from the first post in the series?

[caption id="attachment_2042" align="alignnone" width="300"] Stitch alignment as resulting from following the instructions correctly: red stitches with left leg in front, blue with right leg in front.


The instructions result in a different alignment of the stitches, so that the stitches of the return row (which is worked onto the left needle) are sitting with the right leg in the back. Consequently, when working only the return row, all stitches will be untwisted, resulting in the correct fabric. When working the two rows alternatingly, the towards-the-right row (blue) stitches are twisted and the return row (red) stitches aren't.

There are two possibilities to deal with this. As you are slipping stitches a lot anyways, you could just slip the two stitches individually on the towards-the-right row, re-aligning the first one (the one on the right) so that the left leg is in front.

[caption id="attachment_2041" align="alignnone" width="300"] One option: realign the stitch to be pulled over so the left leg is in front of the needle.


Or you wrap the yarn around the needle the opposite way when knitting the towards-the-right row.

[caption id="attachment_2040" align="alignnone" width="300"] Wrapping yarn the other way around, so the left leg of the stitch will lie in front.


Both options will work, and you will end up with the fabric as intended: each stitch going through two other stitches instead of just through one, as modern knitting does as a rule, and with no twisted stitches. It will still involve a lot of slipping, however, even if you work in the round.

So, to return to one of the earlier questions... is there a less slippery, possibly more efficient way to do this? Stay tuned to find out more!

As Harma pointed out yesterday in the comments, there' s an issue with crossed stitches in the knitting method I've shown. Well. Let' s tackle this issue right away, shall we?

I took very good care to follow the instructions exactly, including the direction the yarn wraps around the needle. Which, indeed, results in twisted stitches (the legs crossing) every other row... why? Because of the stitch alignment. Remember that I mentioned how the stitches lie on the needle in that method, partly with the right leg in front and partly with the right leg in the back?

Having twisted stitches every other row points to there being an issue in only one of the rows - either when working on to the left needle, or when working on to the right needle. So let's make things easier to sort it out by restricting ourselves to one direction only. This is done by working in the round (all the extant pieces I know of, by the way, were worked in the round). Or, if you are a lazy person like me who just wants to do a few test stitches and not fiddle too much, on a pair of double-pointed needles. (The trick is to just move the knitting over to the other end of the needle, let the yarn go right across the back of the fabric, and knit the next row in the one and only working direction.)

I'll be sticking with the first row for now... here we go:

[caption id="attachment_2025" align="alignnone" width="300"] After a few rows of working on to the right needle.


This is what it looks like after a few rows, always working from the left needle on to the right needle (following the instructions). All stitches are aligned in the same way: with the right leg in front of the needle, as customary in modern Western European knitting. And you can hopefully see that all the stitches are twisted - the left leg crosses over the right leg in every stitch. So this is the row, obviously, where something happens that should not happen.

Where does the twisting occur? Here' s what happens:

[caption id="attachment_1935" align="alignnone" width="300"] ... and pull through.


The right stitch, with its right leg in front of the needle, is drawn over the two newer stitches. The right leg is thus drawn to the left of the two stitches - resulting in a twisted stitch.

Sometimes it can be hard to see whether stitches are twisted or not - if in doubt (and the fabric can take it, obviously that' s not possible with archaeological knitting) just stretch the thing out.

If the stitches are untwisted, it opens up completely:

[caption id="attachment_2029" align="alignnone" width="300"] Knitting from the dolly, in its normal state...


[caption id="attachment_2030" align="alignnone" width="300"] ... and stretched horizontally. Stitches and ladders between stitches both open up.


When you stretch out the knitting with twisted stitches, the ladders between the stitches open up, but the stitches themselves are pulled tighter, forming firm little columns between the ladders:

[caption id="attachment_2031" align="alignnone" width="300"] The knitting stretched out - you can see that the stitches are pulled tighter together. 


So. Our twisty issue lies with the stitches in the row working onto the right needle, and it' s related to the alignment of the stitch on the needle when pulling the stitch over. There you go. Next time, we'll take a look at the other row...

So... as seen yesterday, working compound knitting (or double-depth knitting) on a dolly or similar thing is very easy. Let's add some challenge - off to the needles with this!

Ruth Gilbert (who is one of the reasons I started knitting a few years back) brought instructions with her to the Textile Forum, taken from Marianne Erikson's book Textiles in Egypt 200-1500 A.D. in Swedish Museum Collections, Gothenburg: Rohsska Museet. You can find them on p. 235, fig. 23. Or look at the following knitting pictures, where I'm following her instructions.

You're always working with a pair of stitches (so cast on double the amount you want to work).

Transfer both stitches to the right needle.

[caption id="attachment_1929" align="alignnone" width="422"] Unworked stitches on the right needle...


Insert left needle into the right stitch, loop yarn around right needle, and pull yarn and stitch through.

[caption id="attachment_1928" align="alignnone" width="420"] Insert left needle into the right stitch...


[caption id="attachment_1936" align="alignnone" width="420"] ...loop yarn around...


[caption id="attachment_1935" align="alignnone" width="422"] ... and pull through.


Note the alignment of the stitches: The older stitch lies to the right, its right leg behind the needle; the new stitch lies to the left, its right leg in front of the needle (as is the customary orientation in Western European knitting).

[caption id="attachment_1934" align="alignnone" width="300"] Stitch alignment.


For the return row (if you are knitting flat), you insert the left needle into the second stitch on the right needle,

[caption id="attachment_1933" align="alignnone" width="300"] Insert left needle into right stitch on right needle...


loop the yarn around the right needle, and draw yarn and the stitch on the right needle through.

[caption id="attachment_1932" align="alignnone" width="300"] ... loop yarn around...


[caption id="attachment_1931" align="alignnone" width="300"] ...and draw through.


The older stitch now lies again to the right of the pair, with its right leg in the back; the old stitch on the right has its right leg in the front.

[caption id="attachment_1930" align="alignnone" width="300"] Stitch alignment. New stitch to the left, old to the right.


Now transfer both stitches to the left needle and continue.

These instructions totally work - and they are a lot of slipping stitches. It gets less slippery if you work in the round (where you only use the instructions for the first row, working from left to right), but it still feels... awkward.

Is there a better way to do it? One more efficient, and involving less slipping? We'll see. Later this week.

After all the computery shenanigans, it's high time for a proper textile post again. And fortunately, I have just the topic!

When I was at the Textile Forum, one of the presentations was about old knitting, more specifically what can be called "compound knitting". These really early knitting finds (from Egypt, dated to about the 5th to 7th century, to give you a rough timeframe) are not showing the same knit structure as we are used to. Modern knitting goes through the stitches in the last row to add the next row to the top. These finds done in compound knitting go through the last two stitches to add the next row. Are you confused yet?

The pieces presented at the Forum are all tubular, usually rather narrow, and sometimes striped across or worked in colour sections. They might have been worked on a knitting dolly, or worked on needles - it is hard to tell. We can look a bit at the different methods, though.

Compound knitting is very, very easy to do on a knitting dolly (or however you call these gadgets with pins to loop your yarn over) - you set up as usual, with base loops, and then you wrap the working yarn around the dolly twice instead of just once. Now when you are working your first round, lift the bottom loop over both the strands above it.

Here's how it looks when you are a few rounds in:

[caption id="attachment_1920" align="aligncenter" width="428"] Lifting the lowest of the loops on the dolly over the one on top of it and the working thread.


The white thread is there for better orientation. You can see the red (lowest) thread being lifted up over the white thread (which has been on the dolly for one round now) and the blue working thread. (The dolly, by the way, is a very crude homemade version that sports some nails left over from my active digging days.)

As a result, you get the compound stockinette fabric.

[caption id="attachment_1917" align="aligncenter" width="437"] Compound knitting on the dolly, knit side.


It doesn't look much different from regular modern knitting, but you can see that the stitches go through two of the previous rows - look at the green stitch in the top middle, for instance. This is even easier to see when you use a contrasting thread and look at that:

[caption id="attachment_1919" align="aligncenter" width="386"] Compound knitting on the dolly, seen from the inside.


When you knit in a single row in a different colour in regular modern knitting, you have the little "dashes" on the purl side in one row, followed by a row of your regular colour, followed by the contrast colour row again. In compound knitting, the dashes are one extra row apart, as you can see in the picture.

Working this on a dolly takes no extra effort to do (it might be a tiny bit more fiddly to pick the loop to pull over, but it doesn't make much of a difference). The resulting fabric, though, is a different creature from regular modern knitting: it is much thicker while still very stretchy.

It gets really interesting when we try to take this to the needles, though... which is something for the next post.

I'm back home from Backnang - it was a wonderful weekend, and I'm only sad that there was not more time for me to stroll around outside and enjoy the beautiful weather, or take a more leisurely look at all the stalls with fibres, tools, and (of course!) yarns.

This is where I spent most of my time in Backnang:




- right beside the table of Margit from Alte Künste:

 

I also had the pleasure of teaching medieval spinning to a group of enthusiastic and interested spinners on Friday and Saturday, and on Friday there were even two participants who had their very first experience in spindle-spinning. Both courses were sold out in the blink of an eye, a joy to teach, very well received and I'd be happy to offer them again in Backnang in 2017.

Today, though, my mind will have to get out of the wool-mode - I have to finish reading the typeset proof of our new book this week, and I hope to make very good headway today. There is tea, there is chocolate, there is a red pen - and it's nice weather, perfect to sit in the spring sunshine and reading.