It seems that if I spend my entire day beavering away (love that expression) on my steeked jacket, the weight of the yarn does a number on my poor hand and I'm stuck knitting lace all day today to give myself a break. Aw. Shucks. That's too bad. Poo. (I was up 'til three last night, listening to my wrist throb.)
Three pattern repeats to go. I hope to get done with the sleeve by next weekend and join the whole thing up on one needle - it'll go fast after that. (But not fast enough to be done in time for cold weather this year, because I AM AN IDIOT. But I digress.)
Otherwise, I'm finishing up some undocumented knitting that I whipped through really fast as a baby gift for a friend who is having a little girl:
One of EZ's baby jackets from "Knitter's Almanac". I'd REALLY like to know what the hell that spot is on the lower left hem, but I'll blast it with the bleach pen and give it a wash, and all should be well. (All better be well.) The underarms need sewn and there are some pink ribbon roses to sew on, and it'll be ready to rock. Awww. Ain't it cute? (To add ribbon to the pattern, work a row of yo, k2tog across, the last row or so of the yoke before shifting to the lace pattern. Then just thread a ribbon through it and sew down the ends.)
IN THE HISTORY DEPARTMENT:
I caught a show on History International the other night as I was up late knitting (love that time of day; everyone's in bed and the house is quiet and the cat's on my lap and I can watch a documentary in peace and get some knitting done), and the show was a list of the top ten greatest
archeological finds ever pulled out of the ground in England (the island, as opposed to the nation). The second-best thing ever found was the treasure/tomb/hoard at Sutton Hoo, which was the grave of an Anglo-Saxon king/chieftan person of great wealth and (I would assume) power. In the grave was a whole 'suite' of matching Anglo-Saxon Man Jewelry: Belt ends and buckle, shoulder clasps for his cape, a purse 'lid', etc. (That's what 
these photos are of.) It even included a sword with a matching hilt. This is a very famous bunch of artifacts (in archeology circles) and so I'd been aware of them for years and years and had always assumed that these pieces were enameled. (And now that I think of it, did the Anglo-Saxons DO enamel? Anyone?) Guess what. They're not. The red you see is GARNET. All those little bits were custom cut, they think by children, and then set into the gold. The gold was so pure and soft that it was then smoothed out to overlap the edges and hold the garnet bits in. I do believe my fir
st words when hearing how the workmanship was done were "Holy fuck." Amazing. Just amazing.
Oh, and for you other history buffs? The number one find was the written tablets from Vindolanda. Gotta say, I agree. I wish I'd caught the first half of the show.
9 comments:
is undocumented knitting allowed, unless it's for someone who reads your blog? I think we need a judge's ruling on this one.
I've gotta get that book. I have too little EZ in my life.
You're not making me want to get to the sleeves, you know? I'm picturing long, slow periods of knitting to be endured rather than enjoyed.
I wish I had interesting stuff to watch late at night. I was up til 1am and just watched a bad movie (on DVD no less, not even on TV because the choices there were worese). Those are amazing. Garnet is incredibly beautiful, as is all that stuff. So beautiful infact that I can forgive you for not including any baby photos in this post.
Wonderful baby jacket. At first I thought you had made a variation of the Surprise jacket, but this one looks much more comfortable. And beautiful.
The archeology stuff is amazing. I thought it was enameled, too. Wow!
Love the bleach pens! They are quite handy when you spill dye on the countertops as well. Not that I would ever be so careless...
See? See? OCD is not a "disorder" -- it's the urge to cut tiny pieces of garnet to exact shapes without having any idea what garnet is or what you would use it for! It's the urge to make a net using hundreds and thousands of the exact same knot, without any idea that netmaking exists. It's the urge to knit without having any idea how to knit. [pant pant] I think I'll go wash my hands and count stitches now!
Damn. You know, they've got pictures of the Sutton Hoo find in our 12th grade lit books--do they mention any of that shit? NOOOOOOOO...they just show a big ugly helmet with a caption, "Found at the Sutton Hoo find." Morons. Way to kill a perfectly marvelous subject...
Yeah...it's just too bad when you have to knit something you love...that baby jacket? Turned out FABULOUS...spot? What spot...never existed.
The spot on the baby jacket looks suspiciously like "cat spit" - after I caught my cat tasting the yarn, the same spot cropped up on a baby afghan I made. It washed out (those were the days before bleach pens)
SQUEE! I've seen that Sutton Hoo lot and it is SPECTACULAR! But I don't remember knowing about the garnet, how amazing!
It seems I've seen a few of those Surprise Jackets lately; people seem to like making them--they sure are cute, especially with the ribbon (run-on sentence much?). I need some more babies in my life to knit for.
Interesting theory about cat spit...
They reshow that programme (I assume it's the same, presented by Tony Robinson?) every so often here, so I presume that you'd get it reshown there! Some of the earlier things are fantastic too...
Garnet is my birthstone! Could we find some children to cut some for me? As far as I know, Chinese started the enamel thing, and I don't think anyone else even attempted it until probably sometime in the late 19th century - it was much easier to buy/kidnap/steel Chinese artisans.
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