Thursday, November 3, 2011

Day Two: Another Skein and Another Project

For the second day of Art Every Day month, I plied a second skein of the silk/merino/alpaca yarn. 


November is a month when we will be traveling quite a bit.  If I'm going to do Art Every Day, then I'm going to need something portable.  I could dig out a UFO - heaven knows I have enough of them - but what's the fun in that? 

Every since Ursula Georges conducted a workshop on the Gunnister pouch, and I did my first 2-color knitting, I've been anxious to make another and to kick it up a notch.  In this case it means bigger and smaller - a bigger pouch and smaller stitches. 

My inspiration are the Sion pouches - a collection of knitted relic bags from the 14th century that are a favorite of historical knitters.  The originals are in the cathedral in Sion Switzerland, and documented in Bishop Rutt's A History of Hand Knitting.  They are knitted in exquisitely small stitches - about 18 to the inch and the smallest bag is 8-1/8" high by 6-1/4" wide.  That works out to about 32,805 tiny little stitches!
Am I ready for this???

First, start a test swatch.  My smallest needles are 000.  I've decided that those are quite small enough, thank you, so unfortunately my gauge will be greater than 18 to the inch.  Second, make an appointment with the eye doctor - I can't see what I'm doing!

Finally, create a design inspired by, but not copied from, one of the relic purses:

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