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Sequences, a project with three parents – a new book, change ringing, and Elizabethan samplers

Cover of "Sequence Knitting - simple methods for creating complex fabrics"

I got this fascinating book last fall, just before we moved. It shows how to make an amazing array of textures and patterns with a weird mix of super-simple knit patterns and math. Or, in knitters’ terms, it uses short sequences of knit and purl stitches, repeated over and over and over and over – on at least one more stitch than multiples of the length of the sequence.

Which brings in the change ringing – recently I had a chance to participate in a demonstration of change ringing with hand bells at a Society for Creative Anachronism event. Change ringing is also pattern-making with short sequences. Instead of stitches, it uses tones, and repeats by starting each round at a different place in the sequence.

The other element is the Elizabethan whitework sampler, like this one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art – long&narrow, many patterns, one colour. Again, making a series of patterns with repeats of short sequences – this time stitches again, though thread through fabric rather than loops of yarn.

Weirdly, when I googled on “mathematics repeat “short sequences””  looking to see if there’s a name in mathematics for this kind of pattern making, it brought up pages&pages of information on short sequence repeats (SSRs) in DNA replication! Which is intriguing, and a little startling.

But, for now, I’m going to stay out of the DNA rabbit hole, and stick to repeating short sequences in a lovely pale grey merino/silk/yak yarn.

Here’s the first few:

1

  1. the whitework sampler in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/217955 ↩︎
By | April 5th, 2024|books, embroidery, knitting, math, Renaissance|0 Comments
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Do your #!&@!! research!

A caution to authors: no matter how well you know your subject, no matter how deeply you’ve researched it, also research your tangential comments. Getting a detail wrong can torpedo your credibility.

A case in point: I’ve just taken The Empire of Cotton out of the library. Been waiting for it for a while & was eager to start listening. Within the first ten minutes – literally – the author made six blanket statements about pre-industrial textiles in Europe that I know are flat out wrong.

The biggest clunker is:

“[your clothes] are largely monochromatic since, unlike cottons, wool and other natural fibres do not take colours very well”

  • really? Had the author done ANY research on pre-industrial dyes? Any at all? Or even looked at paintings of the period? While linen takes colour indifferently, wool accepts dyes just fine, and silk dyes magnificently!

Other dubious “facts”:

“you wake up in the morning in a bed covered in fur or straw”

  • while fur is nice & warm, and straw certainly was used – even in the 20th century, I had occasion to sleep on a paillasse – your pre-industrial bedding might include, among other things, wool, feathers, down, linen, hemp, and, if you’re super-rich, possibly even silk. Not just fur&straw 

“it is hard to wash your clothes”

  • linens, and some wools, are easy to wash

“you change [your clothes] irregularly”

  • most people in Europe wore linen next to the skin and changed these body linens routinely, even daily if they could afford it.

“[your clothes] smell”

  • while standards were less exacting than today’s, stinky clothes were not the norm. Cleanliness was important – one of the functions of body linens was to protect the outer clothes.

“…and scratch”

  • not all wools scratch, most linens don’t scratch, and I’ve never met a scratchy silk

He did get one thing right:

“[your clothes] are expensive or, if you make your own, labour intensive”. Actually, if someone makes them for you, they’re still labour intensive.

The author appears to have been trying to set up his book’s background with a quick gallop through the conditions preceding his main subject. Which is fine; he wasn’t writing about the pre-industrial rag trade. But making pronouncements based on assumptions that seem to come from a combination of “everybody knows” & entertainment industry interpretations, was a mistake.

Now that I know he didn’t know what he was talking about in an area I know well, I wonder what else he got wrong. I’m going to return the book without finishing it. He may be 100% accurate about everything else, but how would I know?

By | January 2nd, 2022|books, dyes, rants|Comments Off on Do your #!&@!! research!
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beautiful beetles & a costume collection

A book on beetle embroidery I picked up yesterday pointed me to a costume collection I’d never heard of before at the Narrya Heritage Museum (hadn’t heard of the museum before, either)!

The book, The Stumpwork, Goldwork and Surface Embroidery Beetle Collection, mentions a Victorian dress from the Narrya collection. The dress is trimmed with net embroidered with beetle wing cases – and manages to be gaudy in spite of being full coverage and made from a somber black silk.

The most interesting thing about it is that the scraps of trim left over from making it came to the museum along with the dress! That’s pretty much unique.

I’d love to hear whether any other collection has a garment and its scraps!

As for the beetle embroidery book, it’s beautiful and it’s set ideas for incorporating beetles in a design for an Elizabethan embroidered jacket or doublet – or maybe a vest – running around in my head.

More on that later, when I’ve finished reading the book & decided what I’m actually going to make…

 

 

 

By | October 26th, 2013|books, embroidery, insects, museums, stumpwork|Comments Off on beautiful beetles & a costume collection
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