Eskimimi Knits knitting blog

One of the first patterns I truly loved was Sharon Emery’s October is for Spinners scarf. It isn’t because the design is fashionable or likely to become one of my wardrobe staples, but the forming and execution of a concept is wonderfully realised in this piece of knitting art.

Image © idyllicchick, click to go to the Rav pattern Page

From the Ravelry Pattern page:

Arachne, the original spinner, is portrayed here in a twisted stitch pattern from Barbara Walker’s Third Treasury of Knitting Patterns. The scarf begins on size 6 US needles using four stands of lace weight yarn held together. While the scarf progresses threads are dropped and the needle size is increased as the consistency of our spinner’s web is interrupted by neglect and disrepair.

The spider’s web becomes less consistent and the uniform quality degrades with tiredness and age, ending in a disorganised and unpredictable texture, reminding us of the powerful forces of age and decay. But I also like to look at it another way, literally. Viewing it from the other end the scarf could also represent the learning curve of a knitter. The first, disarrayed stitches, incomplete, dropped loops, slowly finding consistency and uniformity through practice and refinement.

image © idyllicchick

As a piece of art, though, I like the original sentiment, perhaps along with the belief that you need to learn something, master it, before you can deconstruct and un-learn it in a meaningful way. The free-form scribbled figures of great artists do not come without years of meticulous observation of their subject and perfecting life study portraits, and so perhaps with this pattern. I don’t think I could knit this scarf without a considerable bit of experience and confidence behind me, and perhaps I am approaching that stage now.

Sharon Emery’s wonderful pattern October is for Spinners, is available as a free download from Hanks Yarn. There is also a group for a perpetual October is For Spinners KAL on Ravelry for anyone wanting to read up on the pattern and other’s experiences and work-arounds.

All pictures used with kind permission from the pattern designer, Sharon Emery.  Find her here on Ravelry.

Click here to see other blogs tagged with knitcroblo2, blogging about this same topic for Knitting and Crochet Blog week. (May take a few hours to update on Google)

Beautiful fabric, spun from the silk of Golden Orb spiders

Those interested in the fibre arts are finding it easier to source ever more exotic fibres to run through their fingers and weave around needles and hooks, especially with the advent of the internet and the spread of knowledge about the beautiful yarns available to crafty folks.  There are some real luxury yarns on the market, perhaps the zenith being the almost mythical Qiviut/Qiviuk – the downy undercoat of the musk ox.  As light as air, as warm as a 1,000 tog duvet and with a softness you cannot imagine (or so I am told, at least… I am unlikely to ever get my pauper’s hands on any), this prized fibre seems to be the height of luxury, but is that about to be surpassed?

Simon Peers, British art historian, may have eclipsed the combers of must-ox bellies in seeking out the most unlikely and labour-intensive fibre-source.  The beautiful golden brocade-like fabric above is in fact spun from spider-silk.  Spider silk, in fact, that has been collected from a team of no less than one million Golden Orb spiders.  Quite a feat, especially as the silk was collected from living spiders, harnessed together in groups of 24 whilst the end of their silk was gathered together and slowly extracted, being hand-spun and wound delicately onto a spool.  Four strands of this 24-ply thread were then plied together to give a 96-strand yarn to use in the weaving of this magnificent cloth.  It has been said that at no point in the weaving of the cloth did the spider yarn break, so no spit-splicing and no extra ends to weave in, at least.

There are plants to make a second cloth come next spider-season in Madagascar, where the Golden Orb spiders were harvested.  It’s all but impossible to imagine that such a yarn would ever find its way onto the knitter’s market, but it is sometimes good for those who knit and crochet to stop and remember the sources of the yarns that we enjoy working with, and to remember what wonderful jobs the creatures that produce some of those yarns actually do in manufacturing their own thread creations.

I was going to post a photo of a golden orb spider but they are huge and I'm a wimp.