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Jean Moss Handknits, knitters' tours, workshops, patterns, kits and readymade

KNITBITS
If you have any knitting-related songs, poems, stories, paintings
or other textile miscellanies
to share with the rest of the knitting community
I'd be pleased to post them here.



THE NEEDLES AND THE DAMAGE DONE
My daughter. I brought her up. I taught her wrong from right
And black from white and all the grey bits in between,
Know what I mean? So what does she do,
The artless, heartless little moo? Frightens me
Fartless by sodding off to live in Brighton,
The Sussex Sodom & Gomorrah of yesterday, today,
Tomorrow and well into the middle of next week,
Magnet for every freak from John O’Groats to Lands End,
Chock full of gender-benders, boozers, cruisers,
Serial substance abusers - and unusually, I’m not talking muesli!
The stuff they smoke would make Puff the Magic Dragon choke.
The lengths they go to in pursuit of carnal satisfaction
Would put Casanova in traction.
And are all these salacious South Coast groins enough
To gratify the sole feminine fruit of my loins?
Is there no depth of depravity, no unexplored corporeal cavity
With which she is unacquainted? Brace yourselves, people.
Folk have fainted at this disclosure. Strive to maintain
Your composure. My wild, sensation-seeking child,
With a consenting partner, was sitting in a pub
When she was asked to leave - for knitting!
I must confess that when she said "Hold me, daddy,"
And told me, I was in stitches. I laughed so much
I bust my britches, and she looked at them penitently
And whimpered, " Can I sew them for you, ever so gently? "
The poor kid’s crochet-hooked on yarn-based products.
She’s a fool for wool, a pushover for pullover patterns,
A slattern for tatting, an embroidery hoyden - and she’s not alone.
She only has to pick up a phone to unravel a whole skein
Of thread-heads, running a patchwork of internet chat rooms
Where they groom the unwitting into a total dependence
On knitting, an unsustainable greed for tweed.

Mind you, you gotta be hardy to survive in the sordid world of full Fair Isle
Cardy. Not for them the exquisitely stitched hem, the romance of
" Knit one, purl one. " More a frantic clicketty-clack, flat on your back
And not an ounce of 4-ply. Addicts, wasted on worsted, rove Hove,
So bestial and rotten as to fleece old ladies for a single spool of cotton.
And the social cost of these lost souls is incalculable. When
They need a fix of mixed shades they’re reduced to visiting
Rough-trade haberdashers shops who can be relied upon not to call the cops.
Cast off by society, if they commit the impropriety of coming out
And parading their perversion in a pub or club, they risk a snub
From someone like the churl who told my girl, " I don’t allow spitting,
And I don’t allow knitting! I know it’s crewel hard but, YOU’RE BARRED."

© Peter Wyton
For more of Peter's work click here. He has a new book out which features the above poem, as well as 'Not All Men Are From Mars' in support of Women's Aid with all profits going to the charity.


 
More Yarn Will do the Trick More Yarn Will Do The Trick is available together with two other tailor-made songs for textile lovers. Order your copy here. Read the lyrics of the title track below.

MORE YARN WILL DO THE TRICK
Cast off your cares and woes, set your needles free
come with me to doze and dream beneath the knitters' tree.
We'll spin ourselves a yarn that we've got stacks of cash
to fill a gigantic barn with an ever-increasing stash.

Visit a local yarn store, for it's therapy if you're sick
Why pay shrinks and doctors when more yarn will do the trick?


We'll knit ourselves a planet with a gauge of perfect order
every nation will be patterned with a wavy aran border.
We'll twist on moss stitch mountain and climb a cabled tree
swim in the sapphire picot edging of a bobble-patterned sea

Don't listen to trouble, don't give way to fears,
Purl away your problems, knit away your tears.


So if you feel the itch and need to get your fingers going
Just open up that pattern book and get those yarns a-flowing
But if your rows are tight and you want to just hang loose
Always park your needles before you hit the juice

The sky will be fairisle with a big intarsia sun
the flora will be cashmere and the buttonholes will be fun.
Our homes will be rainbow-colored, with yarns hand-painted and dyed
we'll knit spaghetti for our supper and in a cable car we'll ride

Visit a local yarn store, for it's therapy if you're sick
Why pay shrinks and doctors when more yarn will do the trick?


We'll cast on many friendships and we'll knit them up real tight
And get together often and party all the night
We'll lift our glasses joyfully and knit the whole town red
Cos when it comes to the good times, knitting's streets ahead!

Don't listen to trouble, don't give way to fears,
Purl away your problems, knit away your tears.

Visit a local yarn store, for it's therapy if you're sick
Why pay shrinks and doctors when more yarn will do the trick?

Why pay shrinks and doctors when more yarn will do the trick?

© Jean Moss, Rory Motion & Roger Smith. All rights reserved

 

One of my favourite knit songs is Jo Hamilton and Ashley Hutchings' Knitting Song. Recorded by Rainbow Chasers, band members Jo Hamilton and Ruth Angell are both avid knitters. Have a listen here.
 

THE TRICOTEUSE
She has brows like a knitting machine; teeth
grinding, sliding back and forth, hands
tense twitching, like the furies, knitting revenge
into every stitch, like Madame Defarge,
the tricoteuse. Like Nero, she could be knitting
while Rome burned. For each

stitch that drops off the needle,
another head will roll. Stitch on
stitch, she builds a scaffold of reprisal
to shore up her pain and punish her foes,
fatally – clickety-clack. As she watches

the guillotine swing, she never lets go of those
knitting pins, pinning elbows to sides, tight,
pressing breasts together, like a turnkey, pointed,
like knives piercing nooses, tearing at thread
and yarn. She never lets up on the rhythm of plains
and purls and slip stitch over, knitting holes for the holy,
knotting sutures for her bleeding wounds. She knits

her worries into the fabric, repetition relieving her
heart’s terror. She experiences no trauma. The edge
of life is taken off, woven into lacy borders, colours,
a jacquard array, balm for her sorry soul. Falling apart,
she knits to keep herself whole.

©Wendy Freebourne, knit designer and poet.
For more of her work click here.

HOW I DESIGN
I begin with a pen, paper, yarn and knitting needles
I begin with an idea: thoughts on a design that may become reality. I am inspired by nature, current fashion or simply thin air.
I begin with knowledge: the knowledge that I have gleamed from resource books written by other knitwear designers.
Others designers who have cared enough to offer me assistance -- ways and means of recording my design.
I begin with the wish that my efforts yield a design
I begin with the understanding that I may abandon my knitting needles and have nothing to show for the hours I have invested
I begin with knitting needles firmly in my hands and hope in my heart.
© Leanne Dyck, a knitwear designer who's recently become a full-time writer following the success of her first novel, Maynely a Mystery
 

Knitting Daughters
Take fine threads; pure wool,
glossy silk, cotton, chenille.
Work in narrow bands.

Susanna’s a rainbow.
I weave her many coloured
as Joseph’s fine coat.

Isolde is Africa;
tawny as earth, copper, gold,
emerald, amber, brown.

Star’s the tender sky
of early evening; slate, mauves,
blue, pink, turquoise, jade.

Make them long, double;
carefully stitch, press, sew round
bobbles at each end.

My reward : women
who fold auras round them, wound
warm about their necks.

     

Recreation
Being preoccupied,
she failed to notice
her own unravelling in patches -
pieces of her drifting into space.

When finally she did, jutting her fingers
through holes the size of apples,
she sat calmly down to calculate
the yarn necessary
to reconstruct a life.

The yarns arrived in lorries.
There was cashmere (the breath of babies),
mohair a spider might have spun,
chenille soft as a puffy chick,
alpaca and angora: rabbits’ jackets, coats for goats,
worsted and homespun for strength,
heavy aran, thick and twisted
as a sailing rope,
silk, the shine of moon on water.

All were dyed in colours bearing
magical names like legends:-

azure, aquamarine, amethyst, amber,
burgundy, copper, cornelian, cyan,
chartreuse, cerise, cerulean, heliotrope,
indigo, lapiz lazuli, madder, magenta,
saffron, turquoise, topaz, and verdigris.

Enchanted, she sat in their midst
for days, just touching, looking.

Then she picked up her fine
bamboo needles; began to knit
her childhood home, long ago lost.
Building stones the colour of sunshine
she fabricated the mansion, created
simple airy spaces, with scarcely any furniture,
and that there was, old as her ancestors.
She made tall, narrow windows, paned,
arched at the top; sunlight
streaming in bright, wide panels
full of dust motes floating.
With the aran she wove
long floorboards in a long room
for her to dance upon.

 

She fashioned a bed shaped like a boat,
dressed all in white, of the most
luxurious cotton, mohair, cashmere.
At its foot, a corner shelf
on which she placed chinese
ceramic burial musicians
she had remembered, and copied,
to play her awake in the morning.

Now she forgot to feel homesick,
and stitched her new body
bonded lithe, supple, strong
well meshed and interlocked,
so that she might dance.
Her new brain sparked like fire, full
of languages, memories, names
of things she’d loved.
Her new hands, nimble, agile,
continued at her task.

She set her home in fairisle fields
spattered with buttercups;
bluebell woods beneath lime leaves
of embroidered trees;
banks of blackthorn scrub,
wood anemones, primroses,
all ranged above a little river
of spangled threads sparkling.

And now, tiring of being alone
she knit herself a partner,
moved him, and then four children, in.
Her knitting needles flew for them,
her hands full of joy.

Time passed, as it will,
until, alone again, content,
still holeless and complete, one day
she made a fine but simple grave,
a mossy stone
lettered in bright colours,
reading SHE WAS,
which she considered,
being being difficult,
a great achievement,
which not everyone aspires to.

She set aside her needles.
She lay down.

Both poems ©Jane Foley of Cumbria
 
An old-time kitchen, an open door,
Sunshine lying across the floor;
A little maid, feet bare and brown,
Cheeks like roses, a cotton gown,
Rippling masses of shining hair,
And a childish forehead smooth and fair.
  
The child is knitting. The open door
Woo's her, tempts her, more and more.
The sky is cloudless, the air is sweet
And sadly restless the bare brown feet..
Still,' as she wishes her task were done,
She counts the rounds off, one by one.
  
Higher yet mounts the sun or June;
But one round more - a joyous tune
Ripples out from the childish lips,
While swift and swifter the finger-tips
Play out and in, till I hear her say,
"Twenty rounds! I'm going to play!"
  
Up to the hedge where the sweet-brier blows,
Down to the bank where the brooklet flows,
Chasing the butterflies, watching the bees,
Wading in clover up to her knees,
Mocking the bobolinks; oh, what fun
It is to be free when the task is done!
  
Years and years have glided away.
The child is a woman, and threads of gray
One by one creep into her hair,
And I see the prints of the feet of care.
Yet I like to watch tier. To-night she sits
By her household fire, and as then she knits.
Swiftly the needles glance, and the thread
Glides through her fingers, white and red.
'Tis a baby's stocking. To and fro
And out and in as the needles go,
She sings as she sang that day in June,
But the low, soft strain is a nursery tune.
  
Closely beside her the baby lies,
Slowly closing his sleepy eyes.
Forward, backward, the cradle swings,
Touched by her foot as she softly sings.
And now in silence her watch she keeps;
The song is hushed, for the baby sleeps.
  
Up from the green, through the twilight gray,
Comes the shouts of a troop at play.
Blue eyes, black eyes, golden curls -
These are all hers -her boys and girls.
Then wonder not at the prints of care,
Or the silver threads in her braided hair.
 
Does she ever pine for the meadow brook,
The sweet-brier hedge, the clover nook?
When sweet winds blow, when smiles the sun,
Does she ever wish that her task was done?
Would you know? Then watch her where she sits
S
miling dreamily, while she knits.

Submitted by Val Pierce, poet unknown,unless anyone knows more?
 

For those of us blessed to know Dollie
Her knitting was part of her life
She knitted her way through her problems
And cast off her troubles and strife

She was always half way through a jumper,
A teddy or more of those socks !
Or a pile of bright squares for a blanket
From odd bits of wool in a box

There wasn’t a day when her needles
Were idle and cast to one side
In fact we are sure she was knitting
The day we discovered she’d died

Her knitting was there on the arm chair
As if she had just put it down
Then her heart just gave up in an instant
And she passed away all on her own

So we’re sending the knitting with Dollie
We know she’d appreciate that
She’ll need it to keep her self busy
With that regular clickety-clack

So don’t be surprised in the future
if angel turn up in white socks
Or have soft woolly wings that have cables
And are wearing some nice Aran smocks

‘Cause Dollie will be up there knitting
On some fluffy white woollen cloud
She’ll be watching an old tape of Jethro
With a Baileys and laughing aloud

So although Dollie left us quite sudden
There’s no need to feel guilty or cry
That we didn’t have more time to tell her
That we loved her or just say goodbye

She’ll be looking down on us and smiling
And saying she’s just doing fine
And she’s popping off down to the Bingo
When she gets to the end of this line !

So please, when you think about Dollie
Look up to the sky for a while
And think of her knitting in Heaven
And remember her just with a smile

©Angela McGee
Knit on Dollie and God bless.
 

Below are the lyrics of Knitting on my Mind. Written on our tour of the Lake District & Edinburgh, it was given it's first airing at Lathones Restaurant in St Andrews with fellow knitters giving a rousing vocal and spoons backing.

KNITTING ON MY MIND
Knitted last night and the night before
Husband came in and threw me out of the door
Someday I'll stop
But just give me another sock
Knitting is on my mind

When I'm not knitting I shiver and shake
If my needles are clicking, don't care what I make
Sweaters, scarves or throws
Anything goes
Knitting is on my mind

Fairisles are funky and cables are neat
When I cast on my life feels complete
I need needles, yarn and hues
To cast off the blues
Knitting is on my mind

Finished my knitting I've run out of wool
When my needles are empty everything's dull
Though my fingers are sore
Gotta get to the store
Knitting is on my mind


© Jean Moss. All rights reserved
 

 

MORE KNiTBITS...
Sonnet by Kathy Pearson
The Knitters' Prayer
The Prayse of the Needle (poem)

MaryEllen Pogorski's watercolours

Muse in My Yarn
Full of color, yards of magic abound;
In baskets, boxes and trees all around.
Such a feeling I have never enough.
Do I imply that I could need more stuff?
Two or three more cones or skeins wouldn’t hurt,
Not like taking huge helpings of dessert.
Without touching its lingering fine thread
Wonder escapes me in this late, late hour;
My imagination a lifeless flower.
Like a Greek daughter presiding over art,
Morpheus releases my memory,
Spinning my threads like thunderbolts in parts.
But it is not the needles I seek out,
Only the yarn that I have dreamt about.
A sonnet by Kathy Pearson
Cordova, TN. U.S.

Below are watercolours painted by MaryEllen Podgorski (a non-knitter) on our May 2002 tour. We always have a varied and creative group and it was wonderful to see MaryEllen's painterly view of the proceedings.

 
Poppy at Sutton Park
Susan Duckworth's workshop
 
 
Lake Vyrnwy, view from our room
Urn with laburnum
at Sutton Park
Lady Sheffield's
unusual geranium seedhead
 

Edith Bonfanti and Susan Satchwell shared this Knitters' Prayer on our May 2002 tour
If I should knit while I'm asleep
I pray the Lord my gauge doth keep
And if I die before I wake,
I pray I may my knitting take


Penny Pennington recently added two more lines

If I wake to live another day,
You'll see me knitting along the way.

As you can see Russell Crowe is training hard in order to join one of my upcoming tours!
If you have any pictures of other famous trainees, I'd love to see them.

Here's a poem that was sent to me by Sheri Franz, who was on our May 2001 Tour
To all dispersed sorts of arts and trades
I write the needles prayse (that never fades).
So long as children shall be got or borne,
So long as garments shall be made or worne,
So long as hemp or flax, or sheep shall bear
Their linen woolen fleeces yeare by yeare,
So long as silk-wormes, with exhausted spoile,
Of their own entrails for man's gaine shall toyle,
Yea till the world be quite dissolv'd and past,
So long at least, the needles' use shall last.

The Prayse of the Needle. John Taylor, the Water Poet, (1580-1653)

 

Jean Moss Handknits, 17 Clifton Dale, York YO30 6LJ, UK, phone/fax +44 (0)1904 646282 email moss@dircon.co.uk