Part 2

This is the original drawing from Louisa Pesel's book.

I have now drawn my own schema,in preparation for knitting it on a single bed and on a double. A few problems immediately became apparent. A direct transfer of the squares produced this:

In the original drawing, individual threads of the fabric were used as part of the design, a feat which is impossible when knitting, where the yarn is creating the fabric rather than being applied to a fabric.Each square needs to represent one stitch.

You will see that the ratio 2:1 resulted in a column of blanks, effectively a piece of knitting in two halves. By increasing the larger stitch block to 3, but maintaining the same layout, I got this:

The piece is now coherent, but the balance has changed. I then made some small samples to see what I could produce of interest. First on a single bed with hand manipulation

This was ok, quite delicate with the original stitch layout apparent.

Then I tried the same stitch formation on a double bed, again with hand manipulation

Again ok, but vague and a little nondescript.

Next, I made a pattern card of the exact notation

and then put it through its paces in three ways. First, fair isle

Next, tuck stitch

and, finally, slip stitch

While none of these lights my fire, there are - to me at least - some points of interest. Most of what I make is structured and/or contorted through hand manipulation. This almost always produces a fabric which is malleable and has drape, as mentioned in my earlier post. Only one of these samples - the first, a single bed hand manipulated lace fabric - has that drape. The others, especially those knitted using the punch card, are quite stiff. As yet, they are unwashed (each is knitted in a fine - 2/17s - lambswool spun in the grease). It will be interesting to see whether their pliability is increased by washing, or whether the stitch structure continues to support the square.

One thing is clear; I don't think I'll be using these any time soon, although I am glad to have explicitly followed the progress of an attempted transposition.

I shall return to the sphere of 'lumpy' knitting.