Again with the aran knitting.

One of the ways I amused myself during my convalescence was with stitch patterns.  Barbara Walker, Katarina Buss, Elizabeth Lavold, Alice S., Harmony Guides, Twists & Turns, Patterns for Guernseys etc, Nicky Epstein and more, more, more, including the Book of Kells and Celtic Art: Methods of Construction.

And I've been reading Aran Knitting, a few pages a night before bed, making it last.  You have no idea how out of character this is.

It really is fascinating.  All the stuff - the history, the patterns themselves, the mythology, the explosion of the mythology...and the idea of this all coming essentially out of the hands of a particularly gifted woman who made a leap.  I don't know if it true - it certainly plausible enough to convince me; the goofy sentimentality of the scientists come to gawk at the noble savages of the Aran Isles and the misguided romanticism that springs from it rings particularly, horribly, hilariously true to life.

But I find the idea of it intensely freeing.  I think I was intimidated by the traditionalism of it all.  I don't like the drop shoulder that many Aran type sweaters use - because they look hideous on me.  Can I mess with it?  Doesn't that make it not a real Aran? Isn't it disrespectful?  I always think of the way my mother used to say Irish Fisherman's Sweater - in a very firm way, like it was the platonic ideal of sweaters.  And anything that departed from it - in color, style, structure might be very nice in its way, but not real.  I guess that's velveteen rabbit real.

But this is stood on it's head now - and the process becomes about design, the challenge of making something beautiful, growing as a technician, discovering artistry, bound only by the limits of a designer's imagination - or even someday perhaps your own imagination - your own taste, your own skill. 

And these pattern books -what I have learned about the possibilities!  You can  chart anything that you can imagine, from the least ripple of shallow water on sand to the complexity of DNA. 

Do you ever get that feeling that you've thought you were looking out a window, but it turns out to have been a wall - all four of which just collapsed outward and left you staring at an infinite world.  (It must have been a roofless room, because nothing hit me on the head.  Just go with the imagery, OK?)

Comments

[Norma]

Ooh, I like Julia's idea - that would work for me. The math part confounds me, but I seem to be able to work completely on intuition and instinct -- at least so far as I've tried.

[julia fc]

I always wanted to know where I could buy full-size knitter's graph paper so I could just draw the sweater I wanted full size, and then knit it. Arans, intarsia, all that, just drawn it the way I want it to fall, no stupid math, (bust shaping aside) nothing.

[Cassie]

You made me laugh - a friend of mine says Irish Fisherman's Sweater in probably an identical way to your mother. It becomes something buttoned up, straightlaced, and utterly ... proper.

Have you ever seen Rae Compton's Complete Book of Guernseys, Jerseys, and Arans? Many cute 19th c. fishermen photos. And they look grubby - not at all proper.