My Lovely Woollie Horse(s)

"Did you see the 'knit your own sheep' thing outside?" - "I am not sure I want to know.." Dave and I are creatures of habit and we have frequented the same little antiques shop for years. We have come to know the guys running the place quite well: they ask me how to thread a vintage sewing machine, we bring them tea, and the banter is always exquisite. Occasionally I go home with vintage buttons. However, the guys are also very good at pulling practical jokes and I thought the 'knit your own sheep' remark was one of them.

Then I saw what they had put aside for me.

"Are they knitting looms?" one of them asked. No, not knitting looms. "I saw them in the house - this 1930s place up north - and I thought of you," the other one said. "They're yours if you want them."

And so this afternoon I became the proud (if bewildered) owner of two pre-WW2 woollie horses.

They both bear brass plaques marking them out as Tulloch of Shetland woollie horses. The only thing I have been able to discern is that the V&A have a Tulloch of Shetland woollie horse in their collection (identical judging by the description? I am basing my dating upon them, incidentally). Anybody able to shed more light on this company?

So, what is a woollie horse? It is more commonly known as a jumper stretcher or a jumper board. You use them to quickly dry wool jumpers and stop the jumper stretching out of shape whilst drying. They are still being manufactured - Jamieson & Smith sell them - and are said to still being used extensively in Shetland.

Seeing as I would not use two woolie horses, I have given the second one to Ms Old Maiden Aunt. It will feel right at home in her shop window.

Knitting as Cultural Activity - Reflections 4

This post is the last in a series of posts extending the talk I gave at Glasgow University as part of the Handknitted Textiles & the Economies of Craft in Scotland workshop series. I am fascinated by knitters' hands. No matter who we are - whether unsure beginners, lifestyle knitters, industry professionals, textile conservationists or artists - we all engage with the craft using our hands. We may hold the yarn in a myriad of ways and work the stitches at our own pace, but knitting is a tactile craft. The fabric is created by our hands. You can tell the difference between handknitted and machine-knitted fabric. Hand-knitted fabric holds the story of whoever made it. It has presence.

I think it is this echo of presence - the shadow of the knitter's hands - that is so alluring to textile artists.

Roxane Permar is one of the people behind the Mirrie Dancers project - a Shetland-based arts project combining traditional lace knitting with state-of-the-art technology. Shetland knitting heritage is a complex story but Permar decided to take what is often a dark story and literally shed light on it by projecting knitted lace sample onto the Mareel arts venue.

The Mirrie project involved a large team of highly skilled and dedicated Shetland lace knitters spread out across the islands who were all asked to knit a sample of lace in a heat-resistant material. The choice of material proved to be a surprising point of contention: some of the knitters refused to work in other material than fine Shetland wool. Other knitters embraced the task with surprising results - one of them started to play around in order to see how far you can take Shetland lace. Anne Euston is now pursuing a textiles degree specialising in a modern interpretation of lace knitting (you can see an example of her work on Kate Davies' blog).

I was intrigued by how far you can take lace knitting and what you can do with it. What does it look like when you project something that fine and minute up on a wall? I looked at the samples Roxane had brought with her - they were so delicate and obviously crafted with great skill and care - and yet when they were blown up, they became disembodied, abstract and strange. I no longer noticed the elegant stitches - I wondered about the holes, the gaps, and the absences caught and distorted by the light.

I thought Mirrie Dancers was incredibly successful - it made me think about the gaps and absences in how we approach about Shetland (lace) knitting today.

By for me, it always comes back to the twin ideas ofpresence and absence*.

The Material Culture students at Glasgow University learned how to knit as part of their Masters. They will go on to work in museums and as field archaeologists - and will be handling handcrafted artefacts as part of their everyday working life. Knitting, Dr Nyree Finlay argued, was a way of making them more keenly aware of both the workmanship behind the artefacts but also what it means that something is handmade.

Did they? Some of them never taught themselves to knit. One girl could cast on, but could not knit. Another could knit (but not cast on). I wondered if they had thought about the materials they used - but they had been so focused on learning the craft that they hadn't thought beyond a basic budget and colours. I don't know why but that slightly disappointed me - I get that mastering the craft was foremost in their minds, but I had hoped they would take the opportunity to also engage with the actual material circumstances of the craft.

And this is where I am left to write about how I engage with knitting as a cultural activity.

My "problem" as a designer is that I tend to start with very abstract concepts (such as Palaeolithic marine archaeology) and I have to spend a lot of time trying to parse that into a commercially viable pattern collection. The collection following Doggerland is rooted in something even more High Concept - and while my ideas are probably more suited to being explored by textile art (hat tip Deirdre Nelson!) I keep returning to my obsession with accessibility. I want to enable other people to knit my ideas and be able to wear them. I want to make meaning through knitting but simultaneously enable others to construct their own meanings and knit their own stories.

(A huge thank you to Professor Lynn Abrams and Dr Marina Moskowitz for inviting me to this series of workshops.)

* I blame myself for reading literary theory at an age when others were out partying. That sort of thing wreaks havoc.

Scottish Textiles Heritage - A Day in Paisley

You may remember that I have been involved with the University of Glasgow and their work on Scottish textiles heritage. Most of the talks from the workshops are now available to download from iTunes.

On a very related note, I travelled to Paisley today to have a closer look at their textiles heritage. Paisley is a town just south of Glasgow and it is steeped in textiles history - not only did it lend its name to the paisley pattern and the Paisley shawl, but it was also home to many textiles mills and weavers. Be warned - this is going to be a picture heavy post. For the full set of photos, do go to the Flickr photo set.

Mile End Mill is no longer a working cotton mill, but it used to be a part of Anchor Mills, home of Coats & Clark and the world-famous Anchor threads and crochet cotton. Coats & Clark still exist today and they still produce the Anchor threads, of course, but the company has left Paisley (though the Anchor emblem is scattered throughout Paisley as are statues of Messrs Coats and Clark). Today the Mile End Mill is a business centre with a gym and a nursery attached .. and a museum.

The Thread Mill Museum is symptomatic of many local museums: it has practically no funding and is run by volunteers - most of which are former mill workers who delight in talking about their former workplace and in keeping the memory of Paisley's industrial past alive. We were greeted by the lovely Eleanor who took us around the small space. There was much to interest the casual textile enthusiast.

Many of the machines on display had been rescued from skips or recovered by former mill workers.

Boxes of brightly coloured crochet cotton. 1970s?

Various stages of cotton thread production - from raw cotton via bobbins to finished dyed thread.

Mill workers leaving the Anchor mills, 1950s. Note the "mill wheel" on the gatehouse.

And that was what really struck me. When we visited, there was a small group of elderly ladies chatting in the room whilst leafing through photo albums. It soon became clear that when the last cotton mills finally closed in the late 1980s, Paisley did not just lose a lot of jobs; it lost a sense of community. The mills had not just provided a paycheck, but also a social structure around which lives were constructed. Tellingly, when a supermarket chain opened a new store in the mill area, it branded its building with anchors. We belong here, it screamed to me, and you belong to us.

Paisley's weaving industry can be examined in the Sma' Shot Cottages - a small cluster of buildings a short walk from the mill complex. They are found in Shuttle Street (Paisley street names are fantastic markers of textile history). I really enjoyed these cottages - I did not know nearly as much about weaving as I did about cotton mill production - and I found the place fascinating. Material history and social history twined together.

This sock-in-progress was too lovely not to photographed. One of the local guides was busy spinning yarn on her wheel when we arrived. I wondered if this was her work too?

A 18th century loom still in use today.

 The weavers of Paisley had a dispute with their employers in 1856 over the sma' (small) shot thread used to bind the weft and warp threads. As the sma' shot was not a visible part of the shawl, employers refused to pay for the thread leaving weavers to purchase the thread themselves. The weavers organised and eventually the employers had to back down. Paisley celebrates a Sma' Shot day today - the first Saturday of July - by staging a rally and burning an effigy of an employer. Ouch.

Paisley museum has an entire section devoted to Paisley shawls, as you might imagine. Sadly the museum is being refurbished and you can only access the shawl gallery by a side door. It is well worth the effort, though. The museum has some beautiful looms with great educational material displayed. And they have shawls. Photos do not do the shawls justice: their colours are deep and rich, and the patterns are intricate and exotic. The shawls were (mostly) woven using jacquard looms with punch cards (as pictured). Many of the punch cards reminded me of knitting charts.

I found it particularly interesting to see how fashion had an impact on the Paisley shawls. The stoles were particularly popular during the Regency period. The 1820s and early 830s favoured triangular shawls (the notes on these shawls called to mind knitted triangular shawls) and later squares became popular. The Paisley shawl was finally undone by the bustle - you did not want to hide your bustle under a shawl nor did you want anything to hide that tiny waist above the bustle. I have always been a fashion history geek and I had a bit of a moment there and then.

The refurbishment meant the Textiles Department was in a bit of a disarray but we were lucky enough to meet up with Dan Coughlan who works as the Curator of Textiles at Paisley museum. This proved to be my personal highlight of the day. Unfortunately we were not able to leaf through the museum's collection of paisley pattern books, but we saw photographs as well as various types of looms. Dan also spoke passionately about the need to highlight not just Paisley's but Scotland's textiles heritage. I could not agree more.

It was raining all day long but I did not mind the rain. There is such a rich seam of textile history in Paisley and it is a shame that this is not discussed with same fervour as Bradford or Leeds.  I wish funding was in place to fully support Paisley's textile and industrial heritage - as it stands, much depends upon volunteers to keep places running. Do visit and do support the hard work all these people are doing. I learned a lot today. I think you would too.

Denmark 2012: A Bit of History & A Lot of Knitting (part 2)

Skipping some 2500 years ahead, we visited Dragsholm which is a local castle. We had one specific reason for visiting the castle: Mary, Queen of Scots. It is a very curious footnote in history.

Mary had a tempestuous life filled with lovers and husbands. Her second husband was found strangled - and she married the man who many believed was the murderer: James Hepburn, the 4th Earl of Bothwell and the last royal consort of Scotland only.

Mary was forced to abdicate the throne of Scotland and fled to England seeking protection from her cousin Elizabeth I. Elizabeth remembered how Mary had previously led a claim to her throne and had Mary arrested and eventually executed.

And the Earl was incarcerated (he was charged with bigamy in Norway after marrying a charming Norwegian wench!) and died at Dragsholm Castle.

The curious tale continues.

James Hepburn was not buried at Dragsholm Castle (lest we forget: he was a villain!). Instead he was taken to a nearby church in the village of Faarevejle.

Faarevejle Church is a tiny, traditional village church. Like so many other Danish village churches, it was built sometime in the 10th century on the highest piece of land in the neighbourhood (which is not saying much in flat Denmark).

Inside it looks like any other tiny village church. All but one pre-Reformation fresco have been painted over with chalky white paint (for pre-Reformation frescos in Denmark, this is a one fantastic website. Go feast your eyes). Nothing indicates that a colourful chunk of Scottish history is resting nearby.

So, we had some detective work ahead of us. Especially as the only sign of life we could detect was the local vicar(?) singing along to the top 40 pop chart somewhere in the vicinity.

Eventually we tracked down the local gravedigger in the nearby cemetery. A cheerful young woman, she was quite pleased to hear that her most famous resident had visitors. And she opened the door to the crypt.

And this is where it gets very poignant.

The 4th Earl of Bothwell. The Duke of Orkney. One of the key figures in Mary, Queen of Scots' life.

And he lies in a damp and dark little crypt in the middle of nowhere. A plaque on the wall (sponsored by the Danish-Scottish Society) was the only indication that anyone remotely important was resting here. The coffin - a modern one - was covered in dust (I think you can tell from the photo).

My partner, the Scotsman, grew very quiet. "How odd, " he said after a while, "to think of him here almost forgotten." I do not know what we had expected but we all left the crypt quietly and did not speak for some time.

Denmark and Scotland. Our two countries united in a very strange, poignant way. Maybe that is why I keep thinking about that afternoon.

Denmark 2012: A Bit of History & A Lot of Knitting (part 1)

Denmark is a small country which is probably the reason I can get away with describing somewhere one hour away from its capital as "rural" and "remote". I grew up in rural and remote north-west Zealand, not far from this lake. Tissø means 'the lake of Tyr' - Tyr being one of the Norse warrior gods. The photo was taken just in front of an excavated Viking settlement on the banks of Tissø (where these pieces of jewellery were uncovered amongst other things) but the area has been populated since Mesolithic times. Important Neolithic and Bronze Age sites are in neighbouring fields and are just waiting to be excavated. Walking across the Viking site towards Tissø felt like walking across History itself - especially because it was a frosty, foggy day. It was easy to imagine my ancestors making the same walk and feeling the inherent magic of the place.

Tissø is part of a marshy landscape known as Åmosen (literally: the Creek Marsh) which stretches across most of my childhood landscape.

Åmosen is dotted with megalithic tombs - they are so common that my parents have two passage graves in the back garden(!). The one shown is a dolmen surrounded by standing stones. It dates to approx. 3500-3200BC. Åmosen is also known for the plethora of Neolithic settlements - the majority of the finds exhibited in the National Museum have been found in this marshy land. No wonder I wanted to be an archaeologist when I was growing up - it is difficult not to be enchanted when you can find arrow heads everywhere and explore ancient tombs in your back garden!

One of my favourite artefacts was not found anywhere near my home, but I think this stone dagger is just so amazing.

It is the Hindsgavl Dagger and can actually be seen on Danish bank notes.

The skill exhibited in shaping the stone is just outstanding and although the National Museum holds many equally intricate daggers from the same period, the combination of craftsmanship and the natural beauty of the stone is breathtaking.

We didn't get a proper photo of it for some reason, but I just want to mention The Sun Chariot that was found just a bit north of where I grew up. It shows the sun being drawn across the sky by a divine horse. Note the wheels: I want to knit a jumper that uses the wheel motif. It is one of my favourite motifs. Every time I see the Sun Chariot I get quite emotional. It epitomises my cultural heritage, I guess.

The pins in the photo belong to the same period as the Chariot and were found nearby. I love the swirling circles - all symbols indicative of the sun worship prevalent in the Bronze Age.

If you live in the UK, you will be familiar with the Danish butter brand, Lurpak. Did you know that a lur is actually a Bronze Age musical instrument used in religious ceremonies - and probably connected with human sacrifices? Did that put you off your sandwich!?

Norn

Many cultures have stories about threads, spinning, and weaving. After all, textile-making used to be an every-day activity (I nearly wrote 'part of the fabric of life' - language is full of textile metaphors). Norse mythology is no different. The norns are female beings of fate, of sorts, and 19th century images often depict the norns weaving at the foot of Yggdrasill (the world tree). I like to imagine the norns as being far less picturesque and a lot more unknowable than most of the imagery associated with them.

I don't know why I chose to call this jumper "Norn" on its Ravelry project page, in other words. Maybe because it reminds me of Scandinavia, maybe because I spend a lot of time weaving threads behind one another (the joys of colourwork).

But Norn it is.

It is working up relatively fast and the luse pattern is really easy to remember.

I am also very happy with the colour choice I made: Rowan Tweed in Bedale for the body, and Bainbridge for the contrast. Bedale is a nice, but not dull oat-meal colour and Bainbridge is a dark red with interesting flecks through it. Essentially I'm knitting Norn with the Danish flag colours but in a not-obvious and completely wearable way.

You can say what you like about 19th century appropriation of Norse mythology (and I don't have many nice things to say), but I do love reading translations of the Poetic Edda that go like this:

Mightily wove they the web of fate, While Bralund's towns were trembling all; And there the golden threads they wove, And in the moon's hall fast they made them.

In case you are interested in reading more about Old Norse texts and the sources of what we today know as Norse mythology, Heimskringla is an excellent place to start and many of their texts are even available in English. Their photo archive may be of interest too if you are of the visual persuasion..