A Statement in Knitting

Knitting history is what I try to do and so, with lots of leftover skeins, partial and whole, of Paternayan Pesian crewel/tapestry/needlepoint wool, I knit this piece, randomly using colours. History is random and ever-changing, too, but also repeats itself, as do the wools. The letters are in evergreen, because history is alive, and green is my favourite colour. I considered doing an outline stitch around the letters to make them more prominent but decided against that for two reasons, namely, I do not like to mix techniques in my work, and the lessons of history are not always evident, and thus, to use the cliche, it is doomed to repeat itself. If we could all clearly see the lessons of history all of the time, that would not happen, a theory, of course, which ignores the human factor. The corners are not beautifully and invisibly sewn as they are scars that all history leaves behind.

The piece measures 16” across and 10” down and the capital letters measure 2” high. It was knit it on 2.75/2US size needles.

I am still blocking the piece and will probably knit a plain back piece and attach it to the front to keep it flat as the edges keep curling inwards, no matter how much I block them. The knitting on the edge/frame sections is flatter probably because I was not changing colours as much nor was I carrying the green strands behind. I probably should have made the edges/frame sections wider but I was just about out of wool so I had to stop. In fact, if you enlarge the photo and look very carefully at the bottom row of the piece, you will see an almost complete row of brown as I ran out of black at the very end.

Flat-End Miser's Purse

I am enjoying experimenting with different miser's purses. This one was knit on 1.75mm/00US size needles and used approximately twenty-four skeins of seventeen different colours of DMC Six Strand Embroidery Floss. The same flat-end trellis pattern is knit on the reverse side in similar but different colours in an effort to stash bust. The two shaded green section was knit in the round and the floral part in two flat sections which were then sewn together. (Click on the photograph for a larger version.)

The purse measures 2" across at the middle of the flat end and 2 ½” across at its bottom end. The floral section, not including the blue rows on the top and bottom, is 1 ¼” long. The circular green part measures 3 ¼” at its widest part when laid flat. The slit in the middle (not visible) is 2" long and the length of the purse, not including the pompom, is 12".

I based the floral design on an early 19th century French purse from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA:
http://www.mfa.org/collections/search_art.asp?recview=true&id=47438&coll_keywords=miser+purse&coll_accession=&coll_name=&coll_artist=&coll_place=&coll_medium=&coll_culture=&coll_classification=&coll_credit=&coll_provenance=&coll_location=&coll_has_images=&coll_on_view=&coll_sort=0&coll_sort_order=0&coll_view=0&coll_package=0&coll_start=21. The original purse was knit in silk with glass and metal beads.

The pompom at the dark green edge was suggested by the Nelson Purse (see a previous post) and plastic rings were wrapped with silver thread to mimic silver rings.