Cowichan Style Sweater Class In Progress

Claire showing off her work to date. She comes over every Wednesday afternoon on the ferry from the Island. So far, no delays, no problems! And Claire definitely gets an A for Effort.

Claire's sweater taking even more shape.  We think this is the cheekiest Raven and totally in character with his trickster reputation.  We need more cold weather so Claire can wear this soon.

This whale design is being knit with Briggs & Little by Shirley.  She knit the same one for her grandson for Christmas, and now Grandpa gets his own! 

Joan will be finished pretty quick with this one for a special daughter. It's a great looking sweater, using Prairie Sea Fusion 6 strand twisted wool.  Nice work!

This whale will be swimming pretty soon on Texada Island.  Bonny has already ripped this all the way back once, don't think that will happen again. It will be very special sweater when finished.

And this one is Samuel's - a wonderful 18 yr old knitter!  The motifs are all his own. We can't wait to see this finished too. We're hugely impressed with his knitting.

Many Slippers

Almost the whole family of slippers from the most recent class--we've still got a few more to finish up.  Join the next Class which will start on Wednesday October 26 at 10:30 am to 12:30 pm.  You too can WOW!!  your family this holiday season.  We're all very proud of our accomplishments.

Jacket For The Salmon

Olga is strutting her stuff!  Roisin's latest creation, and her contribution to the live auction at the Pacific Salmon Foundation dinner on October 24 (which is sold out). .  She's calling it Coast Couture Combo Jacket.  Honouring the thousands of years of Coast Salish wool workers (and salmon protectors) in this region,  the jacket is a Jude Skeers design and Roisin's own choices in wool and patterns. Very Special!

Julie's Moebius

Julie finally finished her Moebius, started last Oct with Jude Skeers. She brilliantly chose the hottest day of the year to model it. Someone is going to be wishing for cold weather soon.

G'day- Off To Oz

Roisin is off to Australia for April but she will be checking in now and then and sending photos, we hope.

Here's her finished Coast Salish style sweater, noting she experimented with colours and yarns (what a surprise...) You can see Roisin's sweater at the store.

Her students are close behind. Here's Petra's lovely traditional design....sleeves still to come. 

Claire's grey whale is floating in/over the ocean waves, on the back of her sweater.  Claire has a story with this, but you'll have to ask her when you see her wearing it.  Next winter!  Not finished yet, but looking wonderful.

Laura's classic traditional beauty - everyone has produced something different and special.  

Val's EZ Sweater

Valerie's sheep have never looked so good.  See what you can do with gorgeous handspun?

Valerie is knitting this Elizabeth Zimmermann Adult Surprise Jacket with her own wool, raised, carded, dyed, spun by Valerie.  Looking forward to the finished product; you'll see it at her Farmer's Market table this summer I'm sure.

Coast Salish Sweater Class

Roisin's Coast Salish Sweater Class is winding up-- or down. Such great work here. These sweaters are all knit in the new twisted 6 ply yarn from Custom Woolen Mills AND available at the store. Sooooo much easier to knit with than the roving
Laura's work in progress. This one Laura has chosen to do in a traditional style of design. Looking good.

Jeannie's work in progress. She has chosen these cute birds for the back and vine design on the fronts. We're impressed and I think Jeannie is a little bit too.

This is Claire's with one BIG whale on the back, two smaller ones on the front.

Salish Fusion Sweater Class Starts Next Week

Starting next Wednesday! Salish Fusion Sweater Class with Roisin. 

We'll be knitting this style sweater in one piece to the armholes (more photos below), then separating, for fronts and backs..sleeves knit in in the round.

The yarn is new, from Custom Woolen Mills, called Prairie Sea Fusion -

Twisted Yarn, making it easier to knit with.  Drop by the store and check it out or order it on the website.

The yarn was developed especially for Sylvia Olsen and her Salish Fusion KnitWear. Sylvia will be coming to Powell River but won't be able to visit us until either late summer or early fall, so in the meantime, we'll practice. You'll want to plan on getting the sweater knit during the class because Roisin is off to Oz for a month in April!

Details

Start Date:  Wed. March 9th  1-3 pm.

$75.00 for 5 weeks of classes, plus yarn purchase.

Sweater will be constructed in one piece using tricks Roisin learned from Sylvia Olsen and Jude Skeers (plus some of her own creative methods) to make for easier knitting. 

Please pre-register, maximum 6 participants.

This is Roisin's latest in-progress. As you can see from the middle photo, the yarn is not stranded. It is woven as you go, and that's one thing that makes this style of colour work unique. 

Sosan Switches

Sosan switched to continental style knitting and loves it.  She's knitting a hat in  Extra Stampato Merino. Such vibrant colours.

Zooming Through Zimmermann Class

Are you wondering how the Elizabeth Zimmermann Jacket class is going? Well, "zooming" isn't quite the term, but here's the results of the first week of lots of knitting.

Shirley's wonderfully coloured creation is really taking shape.  Shirley is a veteran of the Baby Surprise Jacket Class and the Adult Jacket is similar, but different.  But perhaps gives Shirley a slight "knowledge edge". 

Valerie is utilizing her own handspun yarns for this totally classic wear-with-anything style.  It's going to be truly one-of-a-kind and a great example of Val's yarns. We can't wait to see this evolve.

Alane's is quite different as you can see...using up a variegated stash yarn and a solid together...making its own subtle stripes.

Janet's EZ Jacket

This is Janet's Elizabeth Zimmermann style Jacket which she started in the class she took with Jude Skeers while he was here.

Isn't it gorgeous??  Janet is such a skilled knitter she was able to juggle her #'s and swatches and and... and turned it all into this!  Congrats Janet, it's fabulous.

Lois's Finished Jude Jacket

From angst to joy best describes Lois's journey through Jude Skeers Jacket workshop. And....she almost gave up at one point.  We're all glad she didn't.  Her finished masterpiece is gorgeous.  
Not only did she complete this jacket but she also finished a beautiful Jude fuzzy mohair Wrap which we showed you here.
We're impressed, Lois. 

Gillian's Finished Jude Jacket

 At the end of October we showed you several "Jude Jackets" in progress. Well, here are two finished ones, combined with some "during" photos. First, Gillian's...

Gillian turned out a beautifully fitted and styling cotton/acrylic Jude Jacket with only minimal pain.  A few new brain cells were sparked in the process, for sure. Beautiful work Gillian.

Tech Talk With Jude Skeers #9 - Intarsia

Here is the last Tech Talk from Jude Skeers who will be our Knitter-In-Residence in one week! So exciting.

As noted in the first Tech Talk article (posted January 15, 2015) he has sent these articles to Roisin to be shared with us. 

The article was first published in the Australian magazine Yarn which you can see at the store.

Intarsia Knitting

By Jude Skeers

What we know today as Intarsia knitting became hugely popular in the 1980’s. When the Princess of Wales was photographed wearing Jenny Kee’s Koala motif jumper hand knitters flocked to create what at the time was commonly referred to as picture knitting. Before this popularity, Intarsia technique in hand knitting was used in limited styles as in Argyle and a feature in children’s garments. It took someone very famous to launch intarsia as a ‘must-have’ adult knitting fashion.

The word Intarsia is derived from Italian, which according to Wikipedia is “an elaborate form of marquetry using inlays in wood, especially as practised in 15th-century Italy.” Richard Rutt, in the Historical Glossary appendix in A History of Hand Knitting, (1987), writes, “Intarsia 1863. An Italian term for decorative wood inlay; 1957 applied to multicoloured flat knitting in which a separate strand is used for each colour area, the fabric being held together by twisting the two yarns at every colour change, without stranding or weaving on the wrong side of the fabric.” 1957 is the year referenced  in the Oxford English Dictionary. However, the term wasn’t used widely in publication until the 1980’s.

An intriguing aspect when researching Intarsia hand knitting is the lack of reference to it among the major knitting book writers. Mary Thomas who wrote, two reference books, in the 1930’s makes no reference to Intarsia technique. Barbara Walker in the 1960’s and 1970’s wrote seven books on hand knitting including three in her ‘Treasury of Knitting Patterns’ series without including Intarsia.

Authors writing after 1980 began to include the term, Intarsia. Montse Stanley Knitter’s Handbook (2001), originally published as The Handknitter’s Handbook (1986) gave a detailed description, “Intarsia. Also called geometric, tartan, collage or patchwork knitting. A technique used for working totally independent blocks of colour, as in large geometrical arrangements and ‘picture knitting’”. A more detailed description of the technique came with Kaffe Fassett in his first knitting book, Glorious Knitting, (1985). He distinguished the technique of Intarsia from stranded knitting: “Intarsia, where colours are knitted in place and knitting-in where they are carried across the back of the work and either stranded or woven in. Intarsia method creates a single thickness fabric whereas knitting-in creates a double or triple thickness depending on the number of colours in the row.”

Liz Gemmell was one of the Australian knitwear designers who created Intarsia patterned garments in the 1980’s. In her book Knitting for the home (1991), she uses the title Picture Knitting when detailing the technique, but writing in the description “... this method, also called intarsia.” This suggests that term Intarsia wasn’t being widely used in Australia. Liz was one of a group of Australian designers including Jenny Kee, Ruth Fitzpatrick, Michael Glover, Jenni Dudley, Robyn Malcom, Ken Killeen and Yolanda Chommley Smith. They were known for their use of brightly coloured motifs, many of them with a distinctive Australian flavour.

Tech Talk With Jude Skeers #8 - Slip Stitch & Mosaic Knitting

Yes, the Tech Talks by Jude Skeers are coming faster...because his time with us is coming close fast!
Here is #8 in the series...As noted in the first Tech Talk article (posted January 15, 2015) he has sent these articles to Roisin to be shared with us. 

The article was first published in the Australian magazine Yarn which you can see at the store.

Slip-Stitch and Mosaic Knitting

By Jude Skeers

Slip-Stitch knitting is usually grouped with stranded knitting, Fair Isle, Intarsia and other techniques of colour stitch manipulation. While coloured Slip-Stitch designs have a similar appearance to stranded knitting, which uses two or more yarns in each row, Slip-Stitch has only one yarn in each row and could be seen as the lazy knitters approach to coloured knitting.

Along with ribs and moss stitch, Slip-Stitch is one of the basic knitting patterns. The technique requires slipping one or more stitches between knit and purl stitches. Slip-Stitch motifs are not attributed to any particular knitting tradition. Writing in her 1943 book of knitting patterns, Mary Thomas describes the technique:

“Slip-Stitch Motifs are very simple, but they make the most effective patterns, and permit of a pretty ply in yarn movements. The method consists of slipping a stitch from the left to right needle without knitting it, while carrying the yarn either behind or before the stitch so slipped.”

Mary Thomas uses the term ‘Slip-Stitch Motif’ when the stitch is slipped to the back of the fabric creating a vertical pattern; when the stitch is slipped to the front of the fabric a horizontal pattern is generated which she calls ‘Stranded-Slip Motifs’.

The simple technique of slipping stitches opens the way for a multitude of possible variations and permutations. Many patterns have been published with this uncomplicated concept. Stitches can be slipped to the back or front of the work. The number of stitches to be slipped can vary as can the number of rows that a stitch is slipped over.

Single coloured Slip-Stitch motifs are used where the design is about texture, for example to create a ladder or herringbone effect; using more than one coloured yarn puts the emphasis on the variations in colour. Montse Stanley in her 1982 book Creating & Knitting Your Own Design for a Perfect Fit emphasises that slipping stitches is always done purlwise. She points out that a woven look is achieved when the strands are slipped on the right side.

When working with slip-stitch it is good to remember that the technique will tighten the fabric, although the knitted fabric is not as dense as a fabric knitted with stranded knitting using two or more yarns in a single row.

The use of the term Mosiac Knitting for Slip-Stitch motifs can be attributed to Barbara Walker, first used in her ‘Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns’ published in 1970.  Most authors, although not all, have credited the title to her. In her first book, ‘Treasury of Knitting Patterns’ (1986), Walker had a stack of single and multiple colour Slip-Stitch patterns with no particular name. In her Second Treasury, she calls “sophisticated designs in slip-stitch color knitting” Mosaic knitting. In the introduction to the chapter, Mosaic Patterns, which included over forty patterns, she points out that once the slip-stitch technique has been mastered any number of patterns can be created. “Mosaic knitting features a technique of the utmost simplicity and an application as broad as human ingenuity itself.”

Barbara Walker’s 1972 ‘Charted Knitting Designs’ also has a chapter titled “Mosaic Patterns” consisting of over fifty multiple two coloured slip-stitch designs, predominately geometric. In each of her book Walker increased the number and variety of her Slip-Stitch patterns leading to the publishing in 1986 of her definitive book ‘Mosaic Knitting’.

In the introduction to ‘Mosaic Knitting’ Walker writes “Mosaic knitting is a new term in the knitting vocabulary. It describes a novel development in color-knitting techniques and a whole new class of patterns, each different from any pattern that has ever been used before. The term was coined, and the patterns of this class have been invented by the author of this book.”

Most wide-ranging books on knitting, whether they be encyclopaedias, treasuries, essential guides or handbooks, include a section on slip-stitch and mosaic knitting. There are many excellent recent publications with coloured slip-stitch motifs, including ‘Colorwork for the Adventurous Knitter’ (2012), by Lori Ihnen, which is excellent for the knitters wanting to start experimenting with this technique. For the more experienced knitter, ‘Pop Knitting’ (2012) by Britt-Marie Christoffersson is recommended. ‘The Essential Guide to Color Knitting Techniques’ (2008) by Margaret Radcliffe has an extensive range of slip-stitch patterns.

Tech Talk With Jude Skeers #7 - Fair Isle

Here's another fascinating "Tech Talk" article from Jude. He doesn't mention this, but Fair Isle is a real place, an island in the Shetland group, way off the north coast of Scotland. If you're a mystery fan, you may have read Ann Cleeves excellent Shetland series in which her main character, Jimmy Perez, is from Fair Isle.

Fair Isle: What’s in a Name

Jude Skeers

Knitting with two or more colour yarns dates to the earliest times of hand knitting. An example of this was a child’s sock from between 400-600 AD, that was found on a site in Egypt. Coloured knitting comes in a variety of techniques, including stripes, slipped stitch, intarsia, double knitting, embroidery and coloured stranded knitting.

While Fair Isle and Scandinavian are the best known of the coloured traditions, most knitting cultures have developed their own style and patterns. They can be found in regions around the world: the Andes in South America, the Cowichan/Salish in Canada, Albania and Bulgaria in the Balkans, Arabia, Egypt and most European countries.

Fair Isle patterns and garments were popularised in the 1920’s after the Prince of Wales played golf at St Andrews wearing a Fair Isle jumper. According to Richard Rutt in A History of Hand Knitting (1987) Fair Isle become part of the Jazz age. He wrote, “Since then Fair Isle has never gone out of fashion. Today almost any multicoloured knitting is called Fair Isle.”  The practice of using Fair Isle as a generic term was well established by 1938 when the American author Mary Thomas wrote  “Colour knitting in spite of its long and glorious past has become universally known as Fair Isle."

The English author James Norbury wrote in 1962, “...although there is a tendency to call all forms of colour knitting ‘Fair Isle Knitting’, to do so is quite fallacious.” American author Barbara Walker wrote in 1968, “This type of knitting is generically termed Fair Isle knitting, although such a general application of the term is decidedly inaccurate.” The use of Fair Isle as a generic term is the reality, despite the best efforts of writers such as Norbury and Walker, the main problem being that many knitting writers perpetuate the fallacy.

Another interesting aspect of the shift in meaning has been the use of terms such as Mock Fair Isle and Fair Isle Technique. Pam Dawson in The Encyclopedia of Knitting (1984) writes “Mock Fair Isle knitting, on the other hand, is as new as the technology which made random-dyed yarn possible. The use of one random-coloured yarn to replace several yarns in contrasting colours is an exciting way of adapting old methods to create new efforts.” Mock Fair Isle is more accurately titled Jacquard knitting.  In his recent book, Knitting with the Color Guys, Kaffe Fassett writes that all his two coloured stranded patterns can be knitted with ‘Fair Isle technique’. Many of Fassett’s patterns use this random-coloured yarn technique.

The clearest and most detailed description of traditional Fair Isle patterning came in A History of Hand Knitting by Richard Rutt (1987) “....the early patterns were all strictly horizontal bands of motifs, rarely each more than 15 rows deep. Bands of large motifs were divided by bands of smaller motifs, half or less the depth of the larger one. The separation of approximately circular motifs by four diagonal corners produced the familiar so-called OXO designs. (The X mostly had a vertical line through its centre.)  A second early style of small geometrically patches covering the whole fabric has been called ‘diced’.”

Problems and confusion can result from common use of the title Fair Isle for coloured stranded knitted. Until 2011 in the knitting section of the Sydney Royal Easter Show, Jacquard garments were entered in the Traditional Fair Isle class. This resulted in garments being disqualified and removed from the class. A group of knitters approached the organisers in an effort to find a solution to this problem. In 2012 a new class, Jacquard, was added by the Royal Agricultural Society hand knitting section. The Fair Isle Class being described as, “Traditional Fair Isle should be as elastic as a single strand knitted fabric. No more than two colours in one row. Stranding method plus occasional weaving for long floats. Traditional small border and large patterns (horizontal or vertical), or all over patterns.” The Jacquard Class being described as, “Worked similarly to Fair Isle with yarns stranded or woven at the base of the work. Designs can be geometric or stylised natural forms e.g. flowers, animals. Some of the stitches can be in pattern rather than flat stocking stitch.”

Traditionally patterns were not written, but were taught orally and through working samples. The advent of the publication of knitting patterns threw up the challenge of having to give traditional patterns a title. This was not a problem when patterns were handed down by word of mouth. This problem with language has been a real challenge when it came to coloured knitting.

Can all coloured stranded knitting be accurately described as Fair Isle or Fair Style? Obviously not, to do so is to devalue all the other traditions of coloured stranded knitting. As a result of the way the English language evolves, for some knitters and publishers in the English speaking world the meaning/usage of the title, Fair Isle, has shifted. Through common usage the title has become the generic name for coloured stranded knitting. It is a good indication of the slippage of the term in the language.

Why has this misnomer continued? Blame it on the evolution of the English Language. The question remains, do we attempt to re-educate knitters on the correct titles for coloured or just accept the easy way out and call all stranded coloured knitting Fair Isle.

Hairy Wrap

Jude Skeers' Moebius shoulder wrap pattern - knit by Roisin in Baby Alpaca Sport yarn, with a strand of ribbon yarn, modeled by Olga (she could use some lippy, don't you think?).  

This is one of the Moebius patterns Jude will be teaching when he's here. 

Jude's E-Longated Wrap

Jude Skeers emailed Roisin and said, "I am starting to work on patterns for my trip to Canada.The first one to get completed is the circular wrap."

And here are some photos of this lovely piece.  (He used 1 hank of Lara Downs Kool Kid Brushed Mohair).

Tech Talk With Jude Skeers #6 - His Medallion Journey

This Tech Talk is a fascinating view on the evolution of Jude Skeers' knitted circles.

“How to knit a flat circle?” was the assignment that I set myself in the late 1970’s. For the next thirty years this undertaking and its resolution that dominated my art knitting.  Medallion knitting was the title of Tech Talk in ‘Yarn #27’, it investigated the background and process of this knitting technique. This tech talk looks at my adventures and misadventures with Medallion knitting.

The first framed wall hangings that I knitted, when I set out to turn my skills in garment knitting into creating knitted art pieces, were squares, octagons and dodecagons. Framing these cornered pieces proved to be very unstable process as multi sided frames were only as strong as their weakest joint. It was the collapse of these frames that lead me to endeavour to knit a circle. Knitting, framed in a circle had to be more stable. I calculated that I needed to start at the circumference and decrease at the rate of four stitches a round, then decreasing  faster as the centre of the circle approached. After much trial and error, the formula was mastered. All my early medallions were knitted in this technique from the outside to the centre. My knitting of lace medallions pieces from the centre to the outside didn’t happen until the mid 1980’s. Many years after mastering flat circle knitting I read the chapter on Medallion Knitting in Mary Thomas’s Book of Knitting Patterns which sets out a similar mathematical formula to the one I use.

During the first six years of Medallion knitting I created a wide range of different sized circular art pieces from 60 to 180 centimetres in diameter. Each piece was stretched around a 2.5 centimetre thick circular hoop. I played with using jacquard and cable techniques, separately or together. The works included geometrical shapes, floral images and all white pieces with cabled tree motifs.

In 1982, I completed my most adventurous work circular medallion work - three pieces each 180 centimetres in diameter. Based on an image of the Western Australian Scarlet Banksia, they represented three stages in the life cycle of the flower. This work involved the intertwining of jacquard and coloured cabling techniques including reverse cabling. The work was commissioned for a church in Melbourne.

In the process of knitting a surface cabled piece I created The Echidna.

I made numerous attempts at getting the cables to flatten. My original formula for flat circles just didn’t work. Regardless of how many times I unpicked and reknitted the centre I could not get it to flatten. Finally, as you may recognise in the picture, I placed a broom handle needle in the centre of the framed piece and gave The Echidna a nose. From this failed exercise came my sculptural installation knitting. Ten free standing trees and mushrooms were created over the period from 1984 to 1986. The largest trees were 3 metres high with a span at the top of 180 centimetres.

Reverse cabling in my medallion knitting wasn’t perfected until the late 1980’s with the four pieces that formed the Sunset series. One of this series is pictured. With this technique it was necessary to carry three coloured yarn as the rounds were knitted. By cabling one of the yarns behind the others it was possible to create a different colour sky and horizon.

The most delicate creation of my medallion knitting came in 1986 when my first web was knitted. It is a sixteen or eight sided medallion, which although knitted with over 100 stitches are displayed with only 16 stitches. The other stitches are dropped to create the spaces. Web medallion knitting forms the structure of my environmental installation art works, ranging in size from 25cm to 5 metres in diameter and using materials as diverse as lurex sewing thread to 1 cm diameter rope.

The Black and White patterned piece pictured is my most recent medallion. It perfectly exemplifies a circular medallion knitted by decreasing, even down to the segmentation and the octagon and square at its centre. In the early part of the 1990’s I put a square and a circle together in one medallion. I knitted 15 rounds of a normal medallion square using mitre corners, then changed the decreases process to knit a circle in the centre. In the last three years I have returned to this technique to knit a cabled tree in a circle within a square. I plan to expand on this to move into what I am calling my heirloom period, calculating that it will take 20 squares to create a single panel. At that rate I will need to knit 80 squares to knit counterpanes for my grand children. Thirty years and counting I am still loving knitting medallions.

Tech Talk With Jude Skeers #5 - Medallion Knitting

Here is the fifth "Tech Talk" from Jude Skeers, our esteemed guest in October 2015. As noted in the first Tech Talk article (posted January 15) he has sent these articles to Roisin to be shared with us. 

The article was first published in the Australian magazine Yarn which you can see at the store.
It seems fitting to post this on a day when Roisin posted a photo of an amazing 2 dimensional medallion on Facebook, part of the Men@Work exhibition in Australia.

Medallion Knitting - Jude Skeers

Medallion Knitting has been part of the knitting genre for many centuries. It includes flat knitting as diverse as doilies, table clothes and counterpanes. Mary Thomas’ Book of Knitting Patterns  (1943), divides medallion knitting into three sections and calls them Medallions in round knitting, Medallions in flat knitting and Circular medallion in sections. Mary Thomas wrote, “Medallion knitting enjoyed a tremendous vogue in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, when cotton-knitting was at its best, with bonnets the fashion for everyone, and knitted bedspreads the treasured heirlooms of every family”. Rae Compton in The Illustrated Dictionary of Knitting (1988) supports Thomas, “At its height medallion knitting was responsible for many hand-knitted heirlooms – the small, often lacy patterns joined into bedspreads. But medallions were used on their own for many other items, such as endless variations for bonnet back section, lace mats, doileys, table mats and traycloths.” It is interesting that medallion knitting could be  used to make a ‘fabric’ then to fabricate something else.

Medallions in round knitting form flat circles and symmetrical polygons. They are knitted by using the technique of increasing from the centre or decreasing from the outer edge.

'Just Red’ 110cm diameter

                                   Knitted from the outside to the centre.

The feature of this knitting is a mathematical calculation that is required to construct a fabric that by nature is three dimensional into a two dimensional surface. “There are two methods of knitting them in rounds. 

The more usual method is to knit from the centre, gradually increasing until you reach the right size. The second method is to begin with a fixed outer measurement, then decrease as you knit until you finish at the centre.” Pam Dawson, The Encyclopedia of Knitting (1984). If increases or decreases are not in a perfect ratio to the radius either puckering (caused by too many stitches), or cupping (too few stitches) will result. A formula for knitting lace, stocking or garter stitch with a single yarn may not work for multicoloured or cable knitting. Tension, yarn fibre and ply and needle gauge need to be taken into consideration, in addition to the characteristics of the stitch pattern being used.

Patterns knitted from the centre predominate. Research has revealed a single decrease pattern. “Acanthus Leaf”, from Weldon’s Practical Knitter, Nineteenth Series, reproduced in Mary Walker Phillips’ Knitting Counterpanes (1989). The Weldon’s publications and other 19^th century publications are a good source for medallion patterns, though they are not cross-referenced as medallions.

Medallions in flat knitting is the process by which separate geometrical shapes are knitted and then combined to create a larger piece.  Mary Walker Phillips’s in Knitting Counterpanes has wonderful examples of this type of medallion knitting, some dating back to the early 19^th Century. Her patterns combine a variety of geometric shapes to form bedspreads. Medallions in flat knitting are usually knitted on two needles. Mary Thomas writes “This work is small and easily carried about, so squares can be made in odd moments and big articles created.” She also subtitles her section on medallions in flat knitting with the text “also known as Gossip Knitting and Community Knitting”. This is no doubt a reference to the social activity when several knitters created the medallions to be joined into a single large item such as a counterpane.

Knitter’s Handbook (2001 – first published in 1986) by Montse Stanley writes, “Medallions, individual geometric shapes. Many small ones can be sewn together into large patchwork projects.” She details triangle, square, diamond, and other polygonal shapes.

Circular Medallions in sections is the third type of medallion detailed by Mary Thomas. “A circle, is made on two knitting-pins achieved by ‘Turning’.” Short row shaping is the least common technique to knit medallions. How to improve your Knitting technique (1984), edited by Pam Dawson has a pattern for circular medallions. “This technique, worked on 2 needles, form wedge-shaped sections by means of turning at a given point in a row and leaving some stitches unworked......When sections are worked in this way, a seam is required to join the last section to the first section.” 

These both describe what is now commonly known as short row shaping, it is the least common technique to knit medallions.

Multiple variations of medallion knitting patterns have been passed down, in most, if not all knitting cultures and traditions. Medallion patterns can be found in the earliest published patterns, with lace patterns dominating. These patterns were written to be knitted from the centre out, which makes sense when lace knitting, as ‘yarn over’ and ‘yarn forward’, naturally lend themselves to lace. 

Compton, The Illustrated Dictionary of Knitting (1988), has published twelve patterns for a variety of medallion shapes including, windmill, target, hexagonal and swirl centre. She recommends knitting from the centre out as she writes: “The benefit of working from the centre out, even for a square, is to be found, not only in the growth of the pattern which repeats in each quarter, but in the fact that the edge can be patterned and fluted or shaped and cast off with a loop or picot edge, so completing the lace effect.”

A quick search of Ravelry supports Rae Compton’s  further comment that “medallion knitting is no longer in fashion as it was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” Ravelry has only a small number of medallion patterns. Research for this article has only thrown up two coloured quite large medallion patterns, knitted from the centre to the outside, Chinese Fish and Kaleidoscope from Knitting for the Home (1991), by Liz Gemmell.

Norah Gaughan, Knitting Nature (2006), has hexagonal and pentagonal medallions within garments and wraps. Claire Crompton, The Knitter’s Bible, Knitted Afghans and Pillows (2008), has medallion patterns for rugs, cushions, and a knitted square.  Knit Noro (2012), has a pattern for a Modular Afghan, which is 61 small hexagonal medallions knitted from the outside to the centre. Who does medallion knitting? You do, but you were never told what it was.