Preparing for Pennsic

My favorite thing to do at Pennsic is to teach and take classes. While some classes may be better than others, I always come home energized and itching to start a new project.

When I was Mistress Brid's apprentice, she had me keep a book of quotations that inspired me, for whatever reason (not just related to fiber arts). As I am gathering together my supplies for Pennsic, I thought it would be nice to share a few sentiments I found:

"There is no better teacher than the process of teaching itself."

"General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students."

"General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher, and your fellow students."

These quotes are from a Corita Kent, an artist who taught at a small college back in the 1960's. She did amazing graphic arts work, with a social responsibility message. I was lucky enough to see an exhibit of her work a while back at The Tang, a small museum in Saratoga Springs.

So, if you are going to Pennsic, don't forget to take time away from the battles and shopping to take a class. And if you happen to be one of the many amazing teachers, you have my heartfelt thanks. I am looking forward to learning new things!

Medieval Style Knitting

One of my goals for this year is to knit something in a medieval style. This has taken a lot of thought and practice. I decided I wanted to make a small bag. First I looked for some appropriate inspiration.

 Then I started knitting on smaller and smaller needles.

I worked my way down to size 0 as I played with various colorwork designs. Here are a few of the things I made:

The "white" mitten was knit on size 1 needles, the grey sock (my own design) was knit on size 0 needles.

While I was knitting, I was designing my pattern. I decided to base my idea on an embroidered bag that included large versions of arms. I plotted out my arms and my husband's arms, and then experimented over and over until I was happy with the surrounding images.

 The problem with this idea is that both of our arms include 3 colors. I have not found an example of medieval knitting that includes more than 2 colors per row. Perhaps I should have stuck to embroidery! But I am persevering. I am using size 000 needles. I started by practicing carrying the colors around the row, using cotton crochet thread. It was terrible to work with at such a small scale, and I quickly switched to a lace weight wool/silk blend. I played a bit longer, and have now started my actual bag.

You can see the start of my arms on the cotton sample at the top of the photo. I've gotten fairly competent at keeping the threads untangled. On the actual bag, I have knit a plain band for the top and I'm ready to start adding the designs. Check back at the end of the summer and I will show you how far I have come.