Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Ikat, etc.







Here’s the current state of the little-boy sweater, including the beginnings of the wallaby pouch. Attaching it was tough, even with the purl bumps to go by. I am all thumbs with a crochet hook in my hand. But the job has been successfully completed.

So today is the day to pick up the Princess.

Thanks for the help on ikat-knitting. Esther, you’re right, that’s the IK article I was thinking about – although I see when I look it up that it is about creating vertical stripes, not ikat. I googled, and got the excellent article you recommended, Anonymous. (Blogger has cut off the end of the URL in your comment, but the link just given will carry anyone interested to the spot.) Google also suggested a scarf pattern by Lucy Neatby.

I couldn’t find the Kim Salazar pattern. I think she is consolidating everything on the wiseneedle site – but I kept getting a pop-up which said I had won a Really Big Prize, and wouldn’t go away, so I fled without perhaps looking hard enough for the ikat pattern.

Clearly, some ikat-systems depend on the hand-painted yarn having equal lengths of each colour, which is not true of Yarnyard yard. But the article just mentioned by Estelle Carlson is based on the entire length of the repeat, from one loop of the skein to the next. Maybe I’ll play around a bit with the April Yarnyard offering.

VKB

Things have been incredibly exciting lately. In the last 16 days I have bought no fewer than eight rare, early copies, from six different sellers. Assuming the most recent purchases actually turn up, I now have all but 10 of the 69 issues in the original series. I am missing three war-time ones, and seven from the '30’s.

Last night I bought this one from a seller in Canada. I was the only bidder, and got it for the upset price of $9.99. That’s five pounds for the VKB of autumn, 1937. It’s obviously in shabby condition, but who cares? It’s got its cover. Clearly, I ought to be watching the American VK list; but there are hundreds of items on it, and it’s hard work. Delynne, a blog reader, spotted no. 11 for me. Thank you, and thank you.








And while we were in the country last week, my sister kindly bid for and got this one for me. It pains me to show you the picture. You can be sure I won’t treat it like that once it’s in my hands. It is the issue for autumn, 1944.

I hope (for the sake of my credit card, if nothing else) that that’s going to be all for a while. I can curl up with my treasures and study the evolution of the modern knitting magazine. The earliest VKB’s had neither a cover-picture of one of the delights within; nor a chatty introductory letter from the editor; nor multiple-sizing.

There will be reports to come.

2 comments:

  1. sorry but i always search for particular volumes of magazines or books on ebay and they list them first. maybe you do so too but i could be a tip off. i enjoyed your scottish pictures a few days ago of the tweedy landscape.

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  2. Anonymous2:25 AM

    Delighted to see you got that VK. Your blog has given me many hours of enjoyable and educational reading so I'm glad I could be of help.

    ReplyDelete