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Estonian Lace Part 1 - S1E3
334 Plays5 years ago
In the first half of this episode we delve into the rich and interesting history of Estonian Lace knitting. Then, we’ll discuss the next couple sections of the Zetland shawl, including the wings where you’ll do most of the knitting!
Links
- Cocoknits foam stitch stoppers
- The art of Shetland lace by Sarah Don (out of print)
- To get your copy of the pattern, and knit-a-long head over to Rachel’s pattern store on Ravelry (https://www.ravelry.com/designers/rachel-roden)
- To get the yarn Rachel recommends, head over to Jimmy Beans Wool (https://www.jimmybeanswool.com/knitting/yarn/BichesetBuches/LePetitLambswool.asp?showLarge=true&specPCVID=91487)
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
You're
Introduction to Historical Yarns
00:00:01
Speaker
listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Welcome to the Historical Yarns podcast, the show where we talk about knitting from the past and bring it into the present. Welcome to episode three of season one of the Historical Yarns podcast. I'm Rachel Rodden. And I'm Heather Boyd. And today we're talking about the Estonian tradition of lace knitting.
00:00:36
Speaker
So in episodes one and two, we talked about Shetland knitting. So feel free to go back and grab those episodes if you missed them.
Exploring Estonian Lace Knitting
00:00:42
Speaker
And then now we are going to start talking about Estonian lays, which is a little bit different. It comes from a different area of Europe, and it's got some really cool techniques. So in this first part, we're going to talk about geography, the early development, the materials that they use, and things like that. And then there'll be a second part that talks about the specific knitting stitches and the construction and all of that.
00:01:05
Speaker
type of stuff. So jumping right into it, geography wise, Estonia, of course, is where Estonian listening comes from. It is located in far northern Europe and you've got Finland to the north and the Baltic Sea and Sweden to the west, Latvia to the south and Russia to the east. So that's your sort of arrangement of countries around it. It's a pretty small country.
00:01:30
Speaker
You may have to pull out a globe. Does anyone still own a globe? Well, a map. Google map it. Go find you a map on one of those millions of devices you probably have around you right now.
00:01:45
Speaker
Um, but yeah, it's way, it's way up there. If you've got where Finland is in your head right now, then it's just a little bit south of that. And that'll kind of place it for you. I'm starting to see a pattern here in these knitting, uh, cultures, cold places, isolated places. Exactly.
00:02:03
Speaker
Estonia has an interesting history, like a lot of those Eastern European countries. They have been ruled by many different... Larger countries. Larger countries over the years. Yeah, Germany had its hands in there, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and of course, most recently Russia. So Estonia is definitely a mix of
00:02:25
Speaker
influences from all these different cultures. But currently, they are an independent nation, and they are part of the EU. And from what I understand, you can take some really awesome cruises up in that area, and get off of your cruise boat, and go see beautiful, old architecture, and apparently native shawls. Because I guess they're all over there, which is really cool. I had a friend who did that for her honeymoon. She did that, yeah, like a Baltic Sea cruise. And you know, she went to Estonia, and she was so pleased to report to me.
Cultural Insights from Estonia
00:02:56
Speaker
She was like, there's so many knitted things there. And I was like, yeah. Did you buy any? She was like, no. Why not? Why did you buy me anything on your honeymoon? So funny. Yeah, I was watching a video. And the funniest part of it was the instructor was seeing how she goes on these Baltic cruises. And you get off in Estonia, and you see all these beautiful shawls in the market. And she's like, and just go ahead and buy one. Because the alternative is spending a year or more knitting your own.
00:03:25
Speaker
Just get one to knit now or to wear now. That's my plan. That's my plan. When we finally go on our knitting tour of the world, Rachel, which that's going to be a future podcast, by the way. Oh, OK. Got it. When we actually have the money to actually go to all of these places and my children are older, then we will make a podcast about it. But when we finally do that, that's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to buy an example of the traditional knitting from every place we go.
00:03:54
Speaker
because as we've seen, I have a hard time finishing things. Yeah. Finishing is, it's rough. I hear you. Oh man, I do have a yarn for it though. Oh, do you for an Estonian shawl? Yeah. I, well, I, okay. So technically I have knit one Estonian shawl kind of, I mean, my wedding shawl was all Estonian techniques anyway. So I guess you can call that an Estonian shawl, right? Even though it wasn't really like the traditional shape or anything like that, but there's noops all over that thing. And we will tell you all about noops.
00:04:24
Speaker
in a little bit. But they are unique to Estonian knitting. They are very unique. All right.
Hapsalu Shawls and Community Impact
00:04:29
Speaker
So Hapsalu is a city on the Estonian coast, and that is kind of where the tradition of the shawls really started. That's why you see Hapsalu shawls as kind of like a catch-all for all of the shawls in that area. Not to be confused with Hap shawls from Shetland. Yeah, I know. It's a very confusing name.
00:04:50
Speaker
weird coincidence there. It's been meaning. It is super weird. But Hapslu is spelled H-A-A-P-S-A-L-U. And Hap is H-A-P. So you can see the difference there. But anyway, yeah, it started in Hapslu. And it was a vacation spot for wealthy Russians, Germans, Swedes, any northern Europeans that were looking to take a vacation. Apparently, they have some killer mud baths there. Or they did. I'm not sure if they still do. Why don't we all just move to Estonia?
00:05:17
Speaker
I know, right? Like mud baths sounds amazing. I hope it's warm, though. I don't want it to be a cold mud bath. It would suck. That's why you have the shawls. Oh, that's true. Oh my god. You're terrible. I'm awful. Sorry. Enough. Yeah, anyway, we're so silly. So yeah, they'd go there for the mud baths. And then the shawl knitting tradition kind of became a cottage industry, selling their beautiful shawls to the rich Europeans that were coming for a visit.
00:05:46
Speaker
That's where it came from. They were, of course, extremely popular by the end of the 19th century. That was like the height of shawl wearing time. And the finally shawls were sold to all these people on vacation. And it really started like spreading across Europe to some extent. And from what I understand, like when they would get together to knit shawls, it was almost like a quilting bee.
00:06:07
Speaker
like everyone together, working on their shawls together, doing all of the finishing, blocking all of that stuff as a group, which I feel like that just adds to the whole experience, right? And makes it such a community endeavor. Yeah, I think that's why I'm so interested in these subjects because I love that like community of women coming together and doing something like this together and making a living off of it and learning from each other.
Materials and Techniques in Estonian Knitting
00:06:34
Speaker
It's just very, it's very cool. So I love that.
00:06:37
Speaker
So as far as like what kind of fiber they were using, sheep are not really indigenous to Estonia, so they were importing it. Already spun, of course, from mills. Earlier days, it would come from Russia, and then also they would get some from Australia or New Zealand. So I think it mostly came from Russia while the Soviet Union was still producing a lot of yarn. And then later on, and I think this is a lot later, like well into the 20th century, they started getting like merino and such.
00:07:07
Speaker
from Australia and New Zealand. And because it's still an industry today, you can still go to Estonia and buy an Estonian lace shawl at the markets and stuff there. They're still doing their thing over there as far as I know. So it's still a thriving-ish industry for the tourists anyway, which is neat.
00:07:26
Speaker
It was typical to it just to come undied and naturally colored wool. And then they would bleach it and do all the stuff to make it whatever color was popular at the moment, usually white. So that's the yarn that they would use. As far as needles, they apparently were very particular about needles in Estonia. They did not like metal. They were not interested in working with metal needles at all. They almost always used straight hardwood needles. I think I read lilac.
00:07:55
Speaker
was one type of hardwood and birch maybe. And they made their own. And they made them themselves and they would even like smooth them with the like the wool itself because wool has so much lanolin in it. They could use that to smooth out the needles. So they have pretty rounded points rather than the super sharp points that you would see on other metal or wood needles. So that was their their preferred material as far as needles go.
00:08:21
Speaker
And also, I thought this was really interesting. You can buy all kinds of shawls and knitted stuff when you're there, but you can't buy needles anywhere. And it's because they have their favorite needles and they treasure them. And it's not the kind of thing where they're buying them all that often. I can't imagine they're still making them. Or have a bunch of different sets or anything like that. I mean, I probably have four sets of needles at home right now, which makes me feel a little bit ridiculous. Don't be embarrassed.
00:08:45
Speaker
I'm sure I have the same number. I may have put multiple sets in the same case so that my husband won't see how many needle sets I have. I just hide them all away in boxes, not visible. They're not there.
00:09:00
Speaker
Actually, half of them are in projects, which is a different problem entirely. Well, that's why you have so many in the first place. Well, not these ladies. They had their treasured sets of needles, and it sounds like they're kind of like a one project on the needles at a time kind of people, which is definitely not my style, but I kind of wish it was sometimes. I do too. Maybe that way we'd actually finish stuff, Rachel.
00:09:24
Speaker
But you know, they still don't, even though circular needles are a thing now, they still stick to their straight ones for whatever. That's what they like. Don't mess with a good thing. Yeah. Right.
Marketing Efforts of Estonian Knitters
00:09:35
Speaker
So the other thing I learned about Estonian knitters, which I thought was really awesome, is that they were like, they were marketers. They were back in the day before marketing was a thing. Right. So in the 1930s, they created a stitch.
00:09:49
Speaker
for Greta Garbo, essentially. They created a flower-shaped stitch made out of noops and made her a shawl just to get her to wear it, to like get some fame, you know? That's smart. Yeah, and they did the same for the Crown Prince of Sweden when he was visiting. I don't know why they made the Prince a shawl. Maybe it was like a receiving
00:10:09
Speaker
or something like that. But they made him a shawl as well in 1932. So they were definitely trying to get their work into the hands of people that are internationally known so that they could become more famous, I guess. And it seems to have worked because everybody has heard of absolute shawls and Estonian lace knitting. And people who aren't even knitters buy them when they go visit. So I think that's really neat.
00:10:34
Speaker
Well, it's something that when you see it, you know that it's really special. I mean, it's not something you would necessarily see everywhere. It looks like an heirloom. Yeah, it really does. And given that it still remains a popular place to go visit, the shawls get sold to tourists from all over the world at this point. So they really have achieved a bit of fame in the accessory world anyway. Not to mention the specific knitting vacations that you can
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, like those cruises we're going to take, right? Specifically a knitting-centered cruise. But I want to sit down with one of those ladies and have them teach me some techniques or something. I feel like there's a lot to learn from that much heritage and history. Definitely. Well, that's how they passed everything down, right? I mean, just person to person.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it was like the kind of thing you just learned when you were a kid, standing there and probably a toddler even. Like you had needles in your hands and you learned early, very early. So yeah. All right. Well, that is it for the history of the Hapsulew shawls and the Stoney and Lace knitting. We're going to take a short break and then we will be back to talk about the next section of the Zetlyn shawl.
00:11:51
Speaker
Welcome back to episode 3. In this segment, we are going to be talking about the next couple sections of the shawl pattern. And that
Technical Aspects of Zetlin Shawl
00:11:59
Speaker
is the Zetlin shawl, Z-E-T-L-A-N-D. You can search for that on Ravelry and you'll be able to find it there. And if you are just joining us, you might want to listen back to the first couple episodes where we have broken down the first part of the pattern for you there. So check that out and then come on back in.
00:12:16
Speaker
Last time we talked about how we had a center out construction. And now we are at the point where we are splitting to the two sides. And what I want to talk about today is sections two and three of the pattern are basically constructing the wings, if you want to call them that, of the shell. So this is where we go from knitting in the round to knitting flat. Exactly. And it's not as hard as it sounds. Don't be afraid of it. It's one of those things you're going to do and you're like, oh, that's perfect.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yeah, like I think the biggest thing you have to worry about when you go from round to flat is making sure you don't reverse the right and wrong side of your work by accident. That would be the biggest concern. And actually with the center panel, it's not quite reversible, but that stitch pattern is built on a garter stitch foundation. So it does kind of look the same on front and back. So if you are worried that you are going to get confused as to which is which when you're doing this switch from flat or from circular to flat, you might want to just stick a locking stitch marker on the front side of it.
00:13:12
Speaker
so that you always know, that's always your marker of this is the front and you don't. The right side. Yeah, this is the right side. And also there's lines of making an X on it too, on the right side, which you wouldn't see on the wrong side. So that's another way to keep track of which side you're on.
00:13:28
Speaker
That's all that section two is, is basically getting you from in the round to flatten. And then it's a very short section, but that will get your wing separated. So how do you store the stitches for the second side when you're not working on them? Yeah, that's a good question. So what I have recommended in the materials is that you have a second needle in the same size that you're working with. And you can just store those stitches right on that needle and they'll be ready to go for you.
00:13:52
Speaker
You could even just use a separate cord. If you have an interchangeable set, you could put the tip, one of your needle tips on a spare cord and just thread it through and then take the needle tip off and put stoppers on, right? Yeah, in fact, I couldn't even find my stoppers for my interchangeable cord, so I actually took those cool little Cocoa Knits foam
00:14:12
Speaker
stopper things. Have you seen those? We'll link to them in the show notes, but they're really cool. They're meant for putting on circular needles. You like slide them on the needle and then all the way onto the cord. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, they're basically just pieces of foam, but they are so darn handy. And they stay on.
00:14:27
Speaker
And I just popped them right onto the end and I took the needle off and the metal connector is enough to keep them from falling off and it worked as a stopper. So if you've lost that one set of stoppers that they give you with your interchangeable sets or if it's on a different thing that might be in your UFO pile, never to be finished.
00:14:50
Speaker
You know how things go. Yup. Anyway, and you can also just use waste yarn, too. So if you're not using interchangeables or you don't have a spare cord around, you could just take some waste yarn. And then tie it in a circle. Yup, just thread it right on using a darning needle and tie it there. But the easiest way, I found, was definitely to have a cord or a second needle. Because then, once you secure those ends and get them out of your way, there's no more picking up of stitches at all. It's just ready to go for you.
00:15:17
Speaker
So that is what I would recommend for that. And then after you get the two sides separated, you're going to just start on your stitches that make up the two wings. And I did write down the names of the stitches because the one is just delightful. So there's a center panel on it that you can see in the picture. And it's called the print of the wave stitch. And I just love that so much. That's a very traditional stitch.
00:15:39
Speaker
It is. It's super traditional. And I didn't mess with it at all. The chart, the stitch pattern, everything, I really pulled it right from the stitch dictionary that I was using. Ooh, which I can't remember what is the name of it. The information is in the pattern because I want to make sure and give credit to where these stitch patterns are coming from. I think it's really important to link back to where you get this kind of stuff. So I will link to the stitch dictionary that I used both in the show notes and it's in the pattern too. But yeah, it's just like a book with all the traditional Shetland stitches in it.
00:16:08
Speaker
When I have to do increasing and decreasing, of course, I'm messing with the stitch pattern to get the increases and decreases to work to also construct the shawl in the way I want it to. But because this is a center panel, it's just the stitch, just as if it would have been knitted 100 years ago, which I love that traditional connection. So it's cool.
00:16:28
Speaker
It really does look like waves. It does, yeah. There's separations in between each because I wanted it to have that kind of sampler look. Well, you're also bringing back the garter stitch from the center that is, you know, echoing, repeating that and echoing it back in the sides is really bringing it all together.
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think we discussed in our history part, the Shetland stitches, a lot of them are built on the garter stitch foundation, but then there were some newer stitches that were built on the stockinette foundation, and I've got a mix of them going on here. The one for the middle is garter stitch, and then the wing stitches are on a stockinette foundation. So you get a little bit of both. You know, bringing in both traditional, modern, what was probably way modern to them back then, just put it both into the shawl, so it was fun.
00:17:14
Speaker
On the sides of the panel down the center are just the leaf, leaf stitch, which is exactly as it sounds. It looks like a leaf. It's very pretty. And that's on a stocking it background too. It is. Yep. Yeah, both of them are. It's a really like puffy texture stitch when you're knitting it, the leaf stitches. So expect to see like a lot of almost puckering in your fabric.
00:17:36
Speaker
which will then block out, of course. But depending on how strongly you want to block it, you can leave some of that texture in there, too. If you like the look of it, I think it looks really neat. It almost looks like smocking, kind of. It's fun how it adds that texture to it. Yeah, don't let it concern you, though, because it's just from the increasing and decreasing that you do. But it's in a very regular way, so it looks almost quilted. Yeah, and it relaxes with blocking, depending on how aggressively you choose to block it.
00:18:03
Speaker
I also wanted to mention too that because I brought the garter in to separate the sections and I kind of did this very specifically because I love two color shawls and while I did design this in one color just because I wanted to maintain that like sort of traditional look
00:18:19
Speaker
I think this would look amazing in two colors. And what I would suggest doing if somebody wanted to do two colors is all the stuff that's garter and on a gartery foundation, do that in one color, and then all the stuff that's on a stockinette foundation, do that in a contrast color. And I think that that would look really cool. And the way that that would work out then is that you'd have a center section in one color and then stripes of that same color in between the other panels. Yeah. Because we've got these garter stitch stripes here.
00:18:47
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. I definitely designed it with that option in mind. And maybe one of these days I'll knit one and two colors too. Yeah. Or even in just one color, those garter stitches are a nice rest. Oh, they are. But this is just single-sided lace, right? Like you're not. Yeah.
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, I wasn't going to go into, what is it? When you pattern on both sides, it's knitted lace or lace knitting. Oh, man, I can never remember which one is this. It's hard, is what it is. I know, it is real hard.
00:19:19
Speaker
Anyway, yeah. So I think that that is all you need to know about sections two and three. You're just going to be kind of cruising through there. It's a little bit of a slog sometimes, not going to lie. Like you just kind of got to power through and know you've got those garter restros coming up that you can, you know, take a break from the lace a little bit. But the overall effect is beautiful though, so don't give up.
00:19:43
Speaker
Yeah, I know. And what did you say? If people have extra yarn, is this the place where they would be adding more length? Yep. So if you want a more generously sized shawl, then feel free to do extra repeats here. You can do as many as you want, really. It would get
00:20:00
Speaker
incredibly long. Obviously each repeat is going to add, oh gosh, probably what, four and five inches of length. So just keep that in mind when you're deciding to add extra. So can you repeat just the section between the garter bands, like the whole section, or could you repeat just a portion of that?
00:20:18
Speaker
I would do the whole thing. So rather than adding one leaf lace repeat to each section, it'd be better to just add a whole separate section on to the end of what you're knitting, because that way you stay in the same spot with your printed the wave and your leaf pattern.
00:20:36
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. You're welcome to do whatever you want, obviously. But if you start changing up the number of rows within the repeat, you might end up having to do some math to figure out the increases and decreases. Whereas if you follow the repeats the way I wrote them and just do more of them, then you don't have to do any math. Your stitch count won't change or anything. So yeah, that would be my recommendation for making it longer. It won't be wider, but it will be longer for sure.
00:21:02
Speaker
All right, so that is our recap of sections two and three of the shawl. If you haven't grabbed a copy yet, it's the Zetlin Shawl. You can find that on Ravelry, Z-E-T-L-A-N-D. And then next week, we're going to go on to the next section in the shawl, which is section four. So tune back in for that. Thanks for listening and happy knitting.
00:21:30
Speaker
Thanks
Podcast Promotion and Credits
00:21:30
Speaker
so much for listening. You can find me on Ravelry and on all the socials as Rachel Unraveled. And you can find Heather on Ravelry as HeatherBoyd84. Be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast wherever you found it, and we'll see you next time. Happy knitting!
00:21:47
Speaker
This show is produced and recorded by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle, in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.