Snowed In

You know that song in White Christmas, Snow. It is one of my favorite scenes in my favorite Christmas movie. If you haven't seen it, Bing Crosby,  Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen are all sitting on the train to Vermont excited for snow. They start singing about the fluffy white stuff. Well that is how I feel about the stuff. I love it, ok I don't like shoveling and really who does, but I love the look of it. There are snowman and snowballs to make. I love sledding down a big hill and then ice skating on an open lake. I enjoy going snowmobiling through the fresh powder and snow shoeing in the woods. There is nothing like it. When done you go inside, warming your bones by the fire and drink hot chocolate.

Pieter Bruegel the younger 1601

Now through history there has been ice and snow, after all there is an entire age called the Ice Age.  My family hails from Northern Europe so we have been dealing with the snow and cold for centuries. We like the cold and while not everyone does we almost thrive on it. Here is the thing many act like it is something new but for centuries we do the same with snow storms. First you batten down the hatches. Stock up on necessary needs. Farmers will tie ropes between the house and barn to make it easier to get from one to the other and safer. You stock up on wood, water, and food. In the past the stocking up of food started with the harvest. Than you sit by the fire and wait it out.  On occasion you might go out and shovel enough to get ahead of it if you can. Then you shovel yourself out and then you get to play in it.

Evening Skate - Charlotte Joan Sternberg

Since the invention of cars it had gotten easier to get out after I will admit but people still did, skis were created to help and snowshoes. Sleds for horses too. Ice skating too but sometimes more for fun. So enjoy the snow, make a snowman, or an angel. Then take you favorite mug and have some hot chocolate,  cider or tea, grab a good book or your latest project and enjoy being snowed in. Maybe I will finish knitting my next sweater in time for the next blizzard.

My dad, brother and I snowmobiling in NH.

Spun from the distaff

Proverbs 31:19 - In her hands she holds a distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers.

A depiction of Saint Gertrude of the 7th century using a spindle and a free standing distaff.

So I have very expensive hobbies, they seem inexpensive when you start, then you get into it and oops. You have $5,000 in materials. At first I thought spinning would be the cheapest. (Tatting is so far). But a five dollar spindle turned into a two hundred dollar spinning wheel and then my mom bought me the raw wool of an entire sheep. And I spent money on combs and card to process said sheep. Now I am on the hunt for a distaff for my wool but also so I can spin flax.

A Distaff is used mostly in flax spinning, and holds your fibers as you spin. They vary in shape and size depending on the fiber, culture and spinners preferences and sit under the spinners arm, stand on the floor or attach to the spinning wheel itself. I have even seen paintings of them attached to the walls. The purpose is to help keep the fibers from knotting and to hold your fiber as to free another hand. Most useful in flax spinning because the fibers can be very long, but also you need one hand free to wet the fibers as you spin. This gives you a softer, finer and more polished linen. Of course you can do it without wetting the fibers but you get a rough material.

A woman with an attached distaff, and two examples of hand held ones. Note the different positions.

To dress a distaff you flatten out the material and wrap it around the distaff. One wrapped you tie a ribbon or string around it to hold it in place. Wool can be placed in or on the distaff. Wool distaffs appear to be more pronged or hook shaped where flax distaffs are more rounded or squared better for wrapping. As for how long they have been in use, since they are mentioned in the bible and helpful in spinning probably nearly as old as spinning.

1. A distaff in a rounded shape.
2. A Puritan girl multitasking like a pro.
3. Women spinning flax by wetting it with their mouth.

So off I go in search of a distaff or maybe I will make one. Maybe not an adventure but at least it is useful.

Queen Victoria spinning, your argument that it is a hipsters hobby is invalid. 

Second sock syndrome

There is an illness among crafters. It is the unending pile of unfinished projects.  These symptoms of the disease can be caused by a difficult pattern or project, boredom, and life. We hide them too, all to forget about our defeat. All artists in this right are left forever working on their PhDs (Projects half done). For sock makers we call this disease Second Sock Syndrome.  You see when making socks, or mittens there is a trick the project plays on your mind. You finish one and you go yippy, finished, next project. Then you look at your feet and you think evil words. This happens after a very tedious pattern.  When I started knitting socks 3 years ago, I made myself a promise, I shall not suffer from second sock syndrome.

It isn't that socks are tricky. Once you figure out the math, designing and altering patterns is easier then other knitting projects. In fact the last 14 pairs of socks I made were patterns I designed. I actually find them my knitting candy. They fit perfectly in my purse so I can knit during my lunch break at work, on the train, at the doctors, and you get the idea. Sweaters, blankets,  some hats, and (once you get past a point) scarves don't fit in your purse as nice.

Today you can knit anything but at one point socks, hats, mittens and sweaters were the most common knitted items. They are also the most documented. We still find unfinished projects on the needles. Of the finished garments found the oldest item is believed to be socks. Who made them, we may never know. You see  knitting is a strange art, it has been seen as something only women do in the last two hundred years (that is changing again, as more men knit including Ryan Gossling, Christpher Walken and more). During times of war women were asked to knit socks for soldiers At that time of the American Civil War it was thought they made about ten socks a year. By the end of the war the average went up to three a week.  Before that it was seen as a task for the poor and mentality disabled. Fine lace knitting was a task for the weathy. At one time it was a man's trade in the cities. While in the country many could be found at the task from age five to ninty-five. Shepherds were even known to keep a knitting project at their side as they watch over the flock. I wonder if any of these people suffered from second sock syndrom or thier PhD.

So do you suffer from PhD syndrome? Was finishing them your New Years resolution? If so tell us what you are working on in the comments.