Math4Knitters

Math4Knitters: Show 48

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Sun, 20 Mar 2016 02:00:00 -0700

Show notes and more at math4knitters.blogspot.com.

Really old, really cool knit sock from about 1100 - 1200

Click to make bigger.

This one is a bit smaller, but just as cool

My favorite version of an afterthought/inserted/pocket heel. (Full information about making this heel is in my book, Sock Architecture, and my Craftsy class.) If you watch the Craftsy class, you get to see me get REALLY excited when the heel bone and the thumb bone on a model skeleton are the same length.

Math4Knitters: Show 47

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Sun, 6 Mar 2016 09:48:00 -0800

Show notes and more at math4knitters.blogspot.com.

Math4Knitters: Episode 47

A bit of a ramble today about some WTHeck moments I've had while reading sources. Sorry!

Textile fragment found during the Yale-French Excavations at Dura-Europos (around 250)

There is a lot more information about the Dura-Europos site here.

Socks made in the 4th or 5th century, found at the burial grounds of Oxyrhynchus, a Greek colony on the Nile in central Egypt.

These socks are currently at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Math4Knitters Episode 46

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Sun, 21 Feb 2016 02:00:00 -0800

Show notes and more at math4knitters.blogspot.com.

Math4Knitters: Episode 46

I ran my audio through some filters this week. I hope it sounds better.

The Story of Portyanki, AKA "Chemical Weapons"

Wrapping feet in cloth didn't end when knitting burst onto the world scene. Russian soldiers were officially issued footcloths, called portyanki, right up until 2013. Want more? Read up here.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FootClothFromFinnishDefenceForces.JPG

Russians weren't the only ones who used footcloths well into the modern era. Finnish soldiers, German soldiers and others from Eastern Europe did, too. (I got that from Wikipedia, so proceed with caution if you accidentally end up a soldier somewhere from the time period after falling through time. It could be wrong.)

Why would you do this to yourself? Footwraps are definitely cheaper and faster to produce than socks. I could see them being made, easily, from old clothes or other linens. They dry faster than socks. You can re-wrap them in a different direction, so they could still be used even if they had a worn spot or a hole.

This reusable nature wasn't always a blessing, though. My favorite tales of portyanki have to do with the smell. From the Moscow Times:

"They believe that footcloth smell could defeat any enemy, because no European or American can deal with such a smell," she said. "They just smell it and die instantly."

Bykov agreed, recalling, "They smelled terribly, and everyone said portyanki were chemical weapons."

...and another thing that didn't occur to me...

Sometimes footcloths are a blessing in disguise, Merridale said, because when soldiers get their boots, they don't necessarily get ones that fit them.

"If you are good at wrapping portyanki, then you can wrap up five or six and end up with boots that really fit," Merridale said.

I also have a general theory that people who didn't (or don't) wear socks and shoes every day simply have less sensitive feet. A soldier backs me up in this BBC article about wearing portyanki:

"Your feet become so hard you can drive in nails with your toes".

So, there's that.

And Now, A Little Tale of My Hubris

As modern knitters and knit designers, it's easy to get carried away and think that the way that we write knitting patterns is superior to writers of the past.

We are working under different assumptions and expectations made by our audiences, our publishers and ourselves.

When you read "Maintain decreases, in pattern," don't think the writer is just being lazy. She/he may have severe space restraints. She/he may *gasp* simply expect that her/his audience is well-versed in knitting and would be annoyed by stitch-by-stitch instructions.

A little over a year ago, one of my knitting students brought me a well-loved slipper that her mother made her about 30 years before. She asked me if it would be possible to write a pattern from it. I did my best. Then, about a week later, a friend of mine dropped an old booklet on my desk. I think it was to tease me, but I was delighted. It included a pattern for those slippers!

The Bernhard Ulmann Co. gave these slippers the charming name of “Slippers No. 2260” in Bucilla Vol. 340, which cost $3.50 in 1976. The pattern is probably at least as old as 1950, and if anyone hunts around enough, I’m sure they will find several versions. I’ve already heard many charming stories of people learning how to knit with this pattern, which I absolutely adore!

I thought the pattern would be perfect for my beginning knitting students, so I tried just photocopying it for them. As we worked through it, together, however, I found several ways to make the pattern easier to use and, frankly, more fun to knit.

So, I rewrote it. Our beloved, invented-in-the-1980’s ssk didn’t exist at the time, so I added that in. I also added some slipped stitches at the beginning of most of the rows, to make the top edge of the slipper a little neater. I’m also not crazy about counting stitches on every other row, so I put in stitch markers to keep my place. To be nice to our friends everywhere, I’ve also added metric measurements.

The original pattern was amazingly concise. I actually covered it up with my iPhone and I don't have one of the huge ones! But, the original author did something well that I did rather...less well.

The toe of the slipper is all in ribbing. I wrote out stitch-by-stitch instructions for keeping up the ribbing along with the decreases. She/he wrote: "Work 6 (6-8) sts..."

Well, I completely messed up the second decrease row. If you follow my instructions to a T, your ribbing will be off. It is the last row of the pattern and it doesn't really show if you mess it up, but I'm sure it would be frustrating to get all of the way to the end and have it look wrong!

I could have charted the toe. I probably should have. Instead, I wrote it all out, stitch by stitch, found the center of each row, and ended up with this big slice of crazy.

It looks like I stumbled when I thought that the center stitch will be the same on an even number of stitches, worked an even number of times as when it's worked an odd number of times.

In other words, I probably thought about:

P1 (k1, p1) worked once - where the center stitch is a k1.

but:

P1 (k1, p1) worked twice - the center stitch is a p1. Written out: P1, k1, p1, k1, p1.

Now that I see it, I'm like, well, of course! But, I hadn't thought of it before. The sizes for this pattern don't have large differences between them, just a few stitches, which I think makes a mistake like this more likely. But, having noticed this, I will be more vigilant when I write slipped-stitch heel flaps. It feels like this could happen very easily there, too.

I will test-knit the final three rows of each size, just to be sure that it's correct before I unleash this madness on an unsuspecting world.

If you have already bought the pattern, please accept my apologies. That's what I get for thinking that a simple pattern is easy to re-invent! I'll send an update when I finish.

Math4Knitters: Episode 45

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Sun, 7 Feb 2016 07:08:00 -0800

Show notes and more at math4knitters.blogspot.com.

Math4Knitters: Episode 45

Awesome illustration by Leslie Johnson

Books I mentioned:

History of Hosiery

Sock Architecture

The sound quality on this isn't quite as good as I would like, but I'm determined to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I am using a microphone, and I'll see if backing away more from the computer's fan will help when I'm recording.

Isn't That Difficult?

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 02:00:00 -0800

This photo is from the lovely time I had in Iowa in October. I just realized I never shared it with you. Some of the knitters (or maybe just one? If so, she was too shy to tell me.) made these little cuties to go on people's name tags at the event. Best. Nametag. Ever.

I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again. I truly believe that knitting teaches me what I need to know when I'm ready to know it. Maybe other things work that way for other people. Knitting has taught me how to sit still. It has made me a better listener. It has given me a mastery of 3-D thinking that has been a big stretch for me, at times. It turned me into an author, a public speaker and a better teacher than I was before.

Last year, I met a knitter who was showing off a lovely Green Apple Bohus sweater. (More information about these amazing sweaters is here, but you should also check out Poems of Color for a closer look.) I told her that I had heard that the Green Apple is the most difficult Bohus sweater to knit, and wondered at her skill. She looked at me, frankly and humbly, and said, "I just followed the directions." Well, of course, she did a lot more than that! She had the skill, the materials and the patience, too.

It made me think. There are lots of times I've been put off from trying things because I thought they were too difficult. I think we all do that.

I also caught myself thinking - what if life came with "directions." It's an appealing idea, at first thought. But, what if you didn't like the path those directions laid out for you? Then, it would be a prison sentence.

There are a thousand things I could choose to work on at any given moment. It's wonderful, but sometimes the hard part is choosing the best way to use my time.

Right now, I need to make more time for writing. I owe myself (and some other people!) some work in that area. I would LOVE to take my notes from my History of Socks talk and turn it into a podcast, so that even people who can't see me speak in person can experience it, in some way.

This is a little difficult, but in order to make time for more writing and re-starting my podcast, I need to back off from daily blogging. I will probably be most active on Instagram, if you want to see photos of my kitties and other things.

I haven't decided on the exact schedule, but once I start, I will really try to keep it consistent!

Here's to 2016! It will be the 11th year of this blog's off-and-on life.

Math4Knitters: Episode 44

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 02:00:00 -0800

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Math4Knitters: Episode 43

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 5 Nov 2015 02:00:00 -0800

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Math4Knitters: Episode 42

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 41

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 40

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 39

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 8 Oct 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 38

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 1 Oct 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 37

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 36

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 35

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 34

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 3 Sep 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 33

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 02:30:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 32

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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This is when it's going to get a bit strange. I re-ran old shows, then, attached to new shows. So, you might want to keep your finger on the "skip ahead" button, if you have one.

Math4Knitters: Episode 31

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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The big dry spell in shows was for a good reason - I met the wonderful woman who became my wife in late May, 2007. Podcasting had to take a back seat!

Math4Knitters: Episode 30

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 6 Aug 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 29

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 28

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 23 Jul 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 27

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 26

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 9 Jul 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Math4Knitters: Episode 25

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Neel) — Thu, 2 Jul 2015 02:00:00 -0700

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Download/Listen to Episode 25.

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