A peek into the past

Day 2 of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2012.  3KCBWDAY2  The theme for today is photography.  Since I'm not such a creative photographer, I decided to look in an old photo album for some knitting-related photos.

Here's a lovely photo I found of Miss Lily Pearl and Miss Ophelia Rose having tea and knitting.  It's a bit hard to see in the photo, but Miss Lily Pearl is just weaving in the ends of a pair of mittens.  The finished one is on the table.  I remember those mittens. They were light blue with white and dark blue designs.  My mom was very strict with me any time she let me wear them and made sure I knew I was NOT to lose them. I don't think I ever did.  I wonder what happened to them.

I used to love it when these two ladies came to visit Grandma.  Miss Ophelia had the fanciest hats and jewelry.  I was a little in awe of her, but Miss Lily was so kind. I was too young to learn to knit from them.  My grandmother taught me years later, but Miss Lily would let me play with some of the things she had in her basket--balls of yarn or buttons.  I so wanted to be big enough to knit with them.

 

And here's one my dad took in the 60's of an old woman we saw in Provence.  She's working on a sock on dpns. She didn't speak any English and our French was pretty weak then, so we didn't learn anything about her. I was just learning to knit on dpns myself, so I was fascinated to see her doing it.  She barely looked down at her needles. I was impressed.

 

[note:  The dolls in the top photo are by doll artist Joan Rydberg of St. Cloud, Minnesota. As far as I know she doesn't have a website, but I have an address and phone number for her. I added the knitting and took the photo for this post. The doll in the lower photo was a gift to my mother from friends in France. She has been added to my collection and I treasure her. I did nothing to alter her.]

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I went to Angora

Clearly, the process we started in Michael's back yard is going to take a very long time to produce wearable results.  (See previous post)

 

So I decided to go to the source and skip the part where I do it myself.  I went to Angora.  You may or may not be aware that Angora is the old name for Ankara, the capital of Turkey. The Angora goats, cats and rabbits all originally came from this part of Turkey.

 

I went there with my husband and have some pictures I plan to put on the web, but that part hasn't been done yet.  You can see some of them on my other blog. Ceci's Travel blog 

 

Our hostess took us to a village about an hour and a half outside of Ankara. It's called Bey Pazari and resembles an Alpine village. We did lots of shopping there buying things made right there in the shops by the people selling them. I took pictures and even a video of weavers operating looms. We also saw hand-made jewelry. And in one shop there were some dolls. Since I collect dolls I had to take a look and bought one more. This one is helping to wind a ball of yarn from a skein of Angora.  I think she needs a partner. She is wearing a shalwar, a loose fitting baggy pant.  I was told this was a traditional costume and later saw some women demonstrating in a restaurant wearing this type of garment.

And in the same shop I found this beautiful shawl made of Angora.

It's not knitted, but I'm not sure what the technique is. I need to do some research.

 

And I finished the sweater that I started in September.

This was a free Ravelry download. It's called Mystique and was written by Patrizia Steadman.  I had to shorten the sleeves, as I would have run out of yarn, but I think the shorter sleeves work fine with this sweater, which is designed to be worn by itself.