I haven't been doing as much "fun" (i.e. not school related) writing as I want to, but I did edit four chapters yesterday and since I've got a nice chunk of the thesis done, I feel like I can take a little time to work on other things.
Mostly though, I've been working on this:
Which will eventually look like this, only at a smaller gauge (and pink):
Which is based on this:
Which is a close up of these.
All of this is for my thesis, which is about the conservation of knits, and you can't talk about the conservation of knits without talking about their history, and you can't talk about the history without mentioning those stockings which, according to Richard Rutt's History of Handknitting, the only accurate source on the history of knitting to my knowledge, are the first examples of purl stitches as decorative elements, and are very possibly our earliest example of flat knitting.
I find these stockings fascinating for several reasons, not the least of which is the woman who owned them, but I want to know more about how they were made, so I'm reconstructing them with modern materials. So far I've got everything charted out and I'm about halfway through knitting the lattice pattern on the cuff (still need to update the pictures, though). I'm keeping a journal of everything I'm doing for my thesis, and I'll be posting some of the info on my Ravelry page. They're being knit on size 2 mm (US 0) needles, which is really, really hard on my hands. I can get about ten rows a day in, max. I suppose that's respectable, but I need to have them as finished as possible by April 3. I'm still fiddling with the pattern. Once I'm done with my thesis and everything, I'd like to adapt the pattern for a slightly thicker yarn and make them in the round, which I feel would solve a lot of the problems I'm having with the math.
But for now, I've still got 20 pages to write and at least 12 inches of knitting to do.
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