I just finished reading "Hind's Feet on High Places" by Hannah Hurnard. It's a truly beautiful allegory for the Christian life, and I found myself drawing a lot of encouragement from it. I've always found the interpretation of Song of Songs as Christ's love for His Church to be a bit far-fetched when the Song seemed to be so explicitly sensual, but "Hind's Feet" does a beautiful job of illustrating the idea of Jesus as a loving bridegroom through its language without becoming entrenched in the symbolism.
The Center Blocks: Swedish Two-Ended Mittens use a new technique for me, twined knitting, also called Tvåändsstickning (which is a wonderful looking word that I am undoubtedly mispronouncing in my head). At its simplest (ha!) it's done by using both ends of a center-pull ball, alternated every stitch, one yarn twisted over the other between each stitch. It makes a firm, warm fabric. At first I assumed it would be basically like double-knitting or fair-isle, but it's as different from either of them as they are from each other.
Yarn-wise I had to get the two colors (Knit Picks Wool of the Andes sport, Marina and Peapod) wound into a single center-pull ball. The first time, for the first mitten, I used an empty mini-M&M's tube as my nostepinne; I couldn't find it yesterday when I went to wind the yarn for the second mitten, so I used my P/Q (15mm) crochet hook instead. I wound the green on, and then laid the end of the teal over it and kept winding until it was one big ball.
Once I got the cast-on figured out (somewhat unorthodoxly, but it worked), I fumbled with several different ways of juggling the yarns, cursing the YouTube videos I was trying to follow and my stubborn fingers in turn, until something clicked and it was smooth sailing from there. I had to make some adjustments at the thumb (it was enormous). I cast on the second mitten with great confidence, only to discover nearly an inch into it that I was well on my way to making another right hand mitten instead of the lefty I needed to complete the set. Rip it, rip it, rip it.
I've really been into teal and lime for a while, expect to see more of this combo in future.
Tvåändsstickning - yes it has a wonderful look and sound. I find it very similar to fair Isle knitting, but I migth have misunderstood something. What great coloutrs and a funny pattern. I have made the very same mistake with mittens, boy I felt stupid,so I'm happy to not feel alone any more ;)
ReplyDeleteIt is similar to fair-isle in a lot of ways, but the floats are much shorter because they're twisted every stitch, and no attempt is made to keep the floats loose because the goal is to make a firm fabric, and traditionally only one color is used, though obviously more than one is still possible. I find that I can't work them the same way; when I knit fair-isle I hold one color in each hand, but for tvåändsstickning I have to hold both strands in my right hand.
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