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Dear Jan,

Did you know that Dr. Yarn has a background in archaeology?  Neither did I, but it is apparently so.  Read on…

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This question recently came in from Cynthia at Arizona State University.

Q. The Sept 12, 2011 Garfield  mentions knitted underwear for the Cro-Magnon man. This seems unlikely to me, but Garfield has never led me astray before.  Did such garments really exist?
A. This surprised even me, but digging in deeper (which is really what you have to do in this field), we find new archeological evidence that this information from Garfield is true.  As you know, the weather was cold in the Cro-Magnon era. Although Cro-Magnon man (…and woman …and child) was hairy, this alone wasn’t enough to keep him or her warm. Necessity is the mother (…or father …not child) of invention, and the Cro-Magnon people discovered a use for the wool they acquired upon killing a Wooly Mammoth.

The Cro-Magnons couldn’t afford to waste a bit of these difficult prey.  Of course, they ate the meat first, but then they tried chewing on some of the hide and fiber (yes, even then the nutritionists were big on fiber).  The wool stuck between their teeth in an irritating way, and when they twisted it to remove it, they discovered spinning.

With knitting needles made from the rib bones and millenia to while away before  TV and board games were invented, they passed the time spinning and knitting undies for themselves. They did not make outer garments - fashion statements had not been invented yet, either.

Early Cro-Magnon had only thong panties at first, but as their skills improved they  advanced to long underwear.
As an unintended consequence, those who play chess are a little put out because they always thought chess was the oldest activity; now they find that knitting is much older. I have it on a reliable source that the United States Chess Federation is trying to raise a million dollars to fund an expedition to see if they can find out that Cro-Magnon actually played chess while wearing their knitted undies.  Now that is something we are all interested in!

Thanks for that good question, and it is nice to hear from college students who are interested in finding out the truth no matter how much it upsets some of our narrow biases and myths.

Dr. Yarn

Dear Jan,

In reality, I have a kitty on my back, but she can sure squirm like a monkey.  Selkie loves sitting right up on my shoulder, which can be either tremendously endearing or tremendously annoying, depending on what you are trying to do.

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She did not sit on my shoulder while I finished plying the singles I spun from Erica’s Corriedale roving.  I am happy, happy,happy with the result. I spun the singles at a high wheel ratio, getting a lot of twist in a semi-woolen draft. I pre-drafted the fiber as described earlier, then did a short forward draw but did not maintain a pinch on the singles (which would have prevented the twist from traveling back to the fiber source, as you would for true worsted spinning).  I plyed 3 singles together, soaked the resulting skein for a good long while, squeezed it out and whacked it on a towel on the bathroom floor, and hung it, unweighted, to dry.

My only problem know is to figure out what to do with 200 yards of fun.  It is feeling a bit like a hat, or maybe mitts.  Maybe gloves?  I would not mind seeing this color on my hands every day this winter, that’s for sure.

Have a lovely weekend.

Love,

Ellen

P.S.  Someday we really need to figure out this blog thing.  I’m experimenting with getting the pictures to appear bigger but not throw off all the text.  Let me know how this shows up on your browser.

Dear Ellen,

Today started cool enough to wear a sweater for most of the morning, but by about 11:00 AM, I had to change to a T-shirt.  It wants to be fall, but it just isn’t quite there.  We are seeing lots of pumpkins and the corn is drying out in the fields, so I know it will be here for real soon.  Allen and Libby arrived on Saturday so he could drop off his car for storage and say his goodbyes before he executes his new orders to Bahrain.  He’ll be gone for five or six months at least before coming back for some leave.  We had the best time with them, Libby is very low maintenance so it is a real pleasure to have them here.  We dropped them off at the Lancaster Amtrak station this morning — only 25 minutes from here and on the Keystone line to New York City.  We’re looking at running into New York to visit the girls one weekend too.  It’s day-trip doable.  You should tell Jenny!

I finished some stuff for Warm Hats, Warm Hearts — the third of the trio of maroon hats in graduated sizes and a few baby knits.  I’m settling in on a pattern for easy worsted weight baby booties that are toe up and feature a few innovations in the toe and heel to make them faster knits.  I can knock out a pair in less than 2 hours.  Add a cap in 2 hours and you’ve got a nice gift for a longer evenings worth of work.  Preemie sizes would be even faster.

I also got moving on Vanessa’s Royal wedding couple and queen (and corgie).  I’ve gotten through about half of the bride’s body and have totally reworked the pattern to the point where I really could call it my own.  The orginal is knit in flat pieces all of which have to be seamed and sewn together.  I don’t mind seaming, but at this scale it would cause a ridiculous amount of bulk!  I adapted to knit in the round up each leg, attach them together with additional stitches in the crotch and some shaping in the body to give a little tush and a waist.  We’ll see what I do with the torso — I won’t get too risque!

I finished these Spring Lace socks last week, but I haven’t found my sock blockers yet.  I figured I’d at least provide you with a peak at them.  The feet should  block out longer than they appear here.  These feel great on.  They’re the ones I cast on out of the Sweet Georgia yarn while we were at Sock Summit.  I’ll put up another picture once they’re blocked.

The dogs and I did some galivanting about the property.  Found some pretty butterflies and admired the sky through the corn stalks.  The dogs agree with me — coming here is like going on vacation.  I know we’ll love it when every day is vacation!

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Love, Jan

Dear Jan,

One does not waste beautiful September days when one lives in Minnesota.  The snow is just around the corner - we make the most of warm autumn afternoons.  Wilson and I spent this one biking at Baker Park Reserve.  Such color!

Plenty of color at home, too, where I plyed that alpaca/silk I was spinning up last week.  I had split the rovings in thirds, matching the dye progression in each. My hope was that as I plyed, the colors in each of the singles would roughly match up with each other.  And they did, at first. The greens ended and faded pretty much at the same time into blue.

The blues merged into dark blue/black, then through an olive and back to the bright green, though at this point that bright green isn’t quite so clear.  A nice long run of blues and blacks merged things up fairly well again.

By the time I got to the end things had gotten pretty out of synch.  No matter, the yarn was gorgeous anyway.

As a comparison, here is the yarn described above, and to the right is a bit of yarn spun from the scrap of roving that didn’t get used.  I chain plyed the singles from that bit, which allows you to ply each color on itself very specifically.  See the clear difference in color purity?  I like both of them, but it is good to know how to get either effect when one wants it.

Poison was head over heels about it all.

Love,

Ellen

Dear Jan,

The changing season brings chilly nights with heavy dew and then bright sunshine early enough to lift a cloud of steam off of the roof.  I looked up and thought the neighborhood was burning down!

The angle of the light was delightful to spin by - it reflected off the alpaca/silk roving (Abstract Fibers in colorway Shady Glade) so nicely.  It also highlighted something I just learned over on Erica’s blog about dyeing and staple length.  See those streaks of yellow pulling out of that black roving?  How’s that happening?

Erica explains that if the section of color isn’t longer than the staple length, then the colors are pulled into each other.  I guess I’d not spun with dyed roving with such long staples before, or just wasn’t alert enough to notice.  It has amused me a great deal as I spun up these 4 ounces.

Another thing that amused me was the impact of pre-drafting on this fiber.  This is when you hold the roving or top with your hands just a bit further apart than the staple length and pull slowly and steadily apart, just getting the fibers to move past each other and fluff up a bit.  Shift hands an inch or so down the roving and repeat.  Mind you, pre-drafting isn’t absolutely necessary with an AF roving which is so nicely prepared, but it certainly makes the spinning go easily.  I find I don’t have to pinch so hard to draw out the  next bit, especially when spinning worsted.  And - it poufs the fiber up into a gorgeous cloud!  On the left is the fiber before pre-drafting, on the right, after.

Here is the after of Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, my finally, finally finished little shell.  I still love the fabric and color, but boy am I glad to be done.  I made so many misjudgments on this one.

1. Knit it flat when a tube would have been so much simpler and eliminated the ends caused by single row stripes.
2. Once I was knitting it flat, why didn’t I slide it back and forth on the circular needle to start the next row on the side that the color I needed was at - eliminating many of aforementioned ends.
3. Midriff length.  Maybe the model was really petite so it looked longer on her, but really, I can measure, and the diagram was pretty clear this was a really short sweater.  Not. A. Good. Look. For. Me.
4. If choosing to modify the edging, go simple and try ribbing, thereby missing the fun of frogging two other edgings.
5. Cap sleeves do not work on a tank with narrow shoulders.  I have proven this.

Ah, well, all good lessons, and now I am done and fairly well satisfied. But did I mention the seasons are changing?  I’m thinking this one won’t get worn until next summer.

Love,
Ellen