Widdershins Purled I, Stringing It Low

I may not have mentioned this before (if I have, I can’t find where), but some years ago I discovered that I purl backwards – which is to say, clockwise, or Eastern Style.

I don’t know how long I’ve been doing it – if that was the way my mother taught me, being simpler, or if I just found it easier than the anti-clockwise way and decided in my youthful innocence that it didn’t make any difference.

Revelation: it does. When one knits continental style – the way I do – the yarn goes round the needle anti-clockwise. Like so:Continue & Comment

Working Through It

Once upon a time there was a woman called Anna Margaretta Brereton, and she had ten children.
One by one, five of her children died. After the loss of her fifth child, she withdrew to her chamber and began to sew. She cut, she basted, she pieced, she appliquéd, she embroidered.
She hand-sewed not only a full, sweeping bedspread for a four-poster bed, but all the drapes and hangings to go with it.

Bedsead, Boston area, 1760-1780, mahogany, maple, white pine, reproduction hangings - Concord Museum - Concord, MA - DSC05712
This is not Mrs Brereton’s work, but you can see the quantity involved.
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