Monday, January 21, 2008

Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee

Remember Lewis Carroll's battling twins? The original illustrations for the book reveal nothing tweedy about them.

"Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee
agreed to have a battle,
for Tweedle Dum said Tweedle Dee
had spoilt his brand new rattle."

Or would that be "raddle"? The wooden rake for separating bunches of warp yarns during the loom dressing process could well be the term. Who knows?

I am choosing yarns for a foray into tweediest cabledom: the twists and turns of classic knitting patterns interpreted for modern tastes, with modern yarns and shapings. Working on a shrug right now, I've combined a variegated wool from Australia, all soft midtones of blues to purples to reds to golds with a black Merino 4-ply. The work goes quickly on 10.5 needles, the cables running along in streams of cascading color. Relaxing work, this is. In my wintertime house of wood fire and fiercely bubbling stews, drowsing felines draped in odd nooks, dogs ever in pursuit of tall does in the forest, I am enthralled by inwardness of growing patterns.

1 comment:

Karen said...

As a writer and knitter, I am always looking for ways to transcribe into words that near indescribable feeling of sitting in my home at evening with knitting in my hands. You captured it perfectly in this post. Lovely.