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Mary Jane Mucklestone

Hand Knitting Blog & Knitting Patterns

Peru

Knitting in Peru

October 24, 2019 by Mary Jane Leave a Comment

Petra shows Mary Jane Andean Knitting techniques

Today sign ups begin for Knit Stars 4.0: Alpaca My Bag 🌟

It’s the world’s first and only, all-online, multi-star knitting (and crochet) festival! 🙌

  • Learn from some of the most skilled knit designers in the world with Knit Stars 4.0: Alpaca My Bag.
  • Featuring breathtaking videos from Peru, courses from 10 expert knitters and crocheters, and exclusive kits only available when you join the course.
  • Visit Manos del Uruguay in Uruguay.
  • Find out how here!

Those who know me know that I love traveling, especially when I’m traveling to learn new-to-me knitting techniques. I was lucky to visit Peru on a number of occasions where I learned so very much. This new season of Knit Stars should offer some great armchair travel for those of us hankering to visit themselves. I know I want a return visit, and since I can’t go anytime soon I’m looking forward to watching Knit Stars 4.0.

Above, images from my own past trips to Peru, learning from the masters.

You can also sign up for my Knit Stars Workshop from Knit Stars 3.0. I teach stranded knitting and what makes Fair Isle knitting special.

Sign up for Knit Stars 3.0  and all the other seasons!

Mary Jane Mucklestone Knit Stars 3.0

Filed Under: Events, Travel Tagged With: Alpaca, artisinal, color, craft, crochet, fiber, fibre, handknitting, handmade, handmade craft, KAL, knit, Knit Stars 3.0, Knit Stars 4.0, knit-a-long, knitting, knitting pattern, Mary Jane Mucklestone, multi-designer, Peru, South America, women apparel, workshop

New Skills from Peru

June 15, 2010 by Mary Jane 16 Comments

I’ve been practicing my newly learned skills. On the left is the beginnings of a intarsia colorwork hat made with a corded join. We’re viewing it from the public side. It is actually made by purling from the inside. There are practical reasons for this, working from the “wrong side”  it is easier to control all the little bobbins, and make sure they are properly twisted when encountering a new color. It is also easier to wrap every stitch if you’re obsessed enough to desire this elegant interior. I vacillate between making everything super tidy and amazing with every stitch twisted, to the slightly quicker stranding, which is pretty in its own way.

On the right we see a some grutas, or lumps….like you’d find in your oatmeal…only these will be soon be found adorning a sweet and cheerful baby hat.  I’m making strands of grutas, a fairly new development in gruta technique. What at first seems tedious, quickly becomes habit forming. Practice at your niece’s soccer game, and you’ll be surprised how quickly your ribbons of grutas grow!

…now that I wrote that, maybe they were called grumitas, which I have written in my chicken-scratch notes in another place. When I look up in Google translator, I find bultitos for little lumps…any one out there know? In Quechua or Spanish?

Update!

reader Trudy says:

“I just looked up in my big Spanish dictionary – gruta is a “cavern or grotto”, grumo is translated as “lump” – as in a lump in sauce, or a clot 9(of blood), or cluster or bunch (of grapes). So I think it might be grumo – and the diminutive would be grumito(s)”

So you Spanish speakers and Andean textile experts can have a laugh on me…taking about making stranded grottos…which sounds kind of nice, really, like the hotsprings outside of San Miguel de Allende, that are linked pools from deep and cold following streams to warmer, all the way up to the final hot pool that is ….yes!…in a grotto. La Gruta…that must have been the source of my mistake.

Extra! I found I noted down “kurpa” when Phetra from Pitumarca was teaching me the knitted in variety…

Extra! Extra! Cindy found the translation for “kurpa”

Runasimi (Quechua) – English
kurpa
adj. crisp
[Sikllalla Runasimi]

s. a flat clod of earth; clump; clump of earth; sphere; bullet; ball; clod of dirt; dirt clod
[Sikllalla Runasimi, Qosqo]

ta da!

I’m test-driving a workshop in these techniques this week in Boston.

I’ll also be informally demonstrating grutas at the Maine Fiber Arts booth at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens at this weekends Garden Fair: The Maine Gardeners and Artisan’s Festival. The festival will feature garden luminaries Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch, woo hoo! I’ll be there Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

Costal Maine Botanical Gardens
132 Botanical Garden Drive, Boothbay, Maine
GARDEN FAIR     Friday-Sunday • June 18, 19 & 20 • 9-5

Filed Under: Knitting Tagged With: Andean, bobbles, colorwork, corded join, grutas, Peru, technique

3 Chullus

April 29, 2010 by Mary Jane 5 Comments

cuscochullo

I found these scattered across Peru, the one on the far left in Lima, the middle one in Cusco, and the one on the right in Aguas Calientes, by Machu Picchu; they are all typical men’s hats of the Cusco region. There are subtle clues which might let us know where they are from. The two on the left are very similar, notice the earflaps have similar patterning and are constructed the same way, only the one on the far left has been fancied up with buttons. The color arrangement of their top pompoms are identical.

The chullu on the right has a different earflap construction, the  center is knit downwards like the other two, but with a sewn on edging which matches the motifs in the diamonds above. It is perhaps my favorite hat, personalized with the name of the makers village, his own name and even his phone number – a sure way to get the girls!

Notice how many different colors are found in every row, each of them requiring a separate bobbin. I counted 34 colors in one row! The stitch gauge makes traditional fair isle knitting seem positively bulky! The center chullu has teensy tiny stitches-20 to the inch. The other two are 15 and 14 to the inch.

The technique for all three is what Cynthia Le Court Samaké named a “Corded Join”, inevitably there are several ways of doing it. The man I watched, didn’t knit at all, strictly purled…up to the cord, wrap and back around the other way, purling in reverse, never turning the work. The “Knitted Float Intarsia” I mentioned before, achieves the same result in a different manner, without the cord.

I’m practicing and trying to learn, but I feel all thumbs, which is helpful really, you use your thumbs a lot, makes it easier. Some of the people I saw in Peru were not especially fast knitters, but the ones who were – were blindingly fast – little bobbins bobbing along.

diamonds

Screen shot 2010-04-28 at 7.04.16 PM

Read other accounts of “A New Skill”: google knitcroblo4

Filed Under: Knitting Tagged With: colorwork, corded join, intarsia, Peru

Cynthia Le Count Samaké

April 28, 2010 by Mary Jane 2 Comments

CynthiaBanner

As a rule I jump on bandwagons at the last moment…when I learned of today’s topic for Knit and Crochet Blog Week: “One Great Knitter” I knew it was about time I introduced you to Cynthia. You may know her as the author of what is indisputably the greatest book on Andean knitting: Andean Folk Knitting Traditions and Techniques from Peru and Bolivia. The book is so wonderful it boggles the mind, scholarly yet entertaining, it includes history, travelogue, techniques explained in detail, charted motifs, charming patterns – everything I love in a knitting book double-plus! I think its my favorite knitting book of all time, and it was the ONLY book to survive our house fire, crazy, lying atop the coals. Sadly the book is out of print, and perfectionist that she is, Cynthia would like to update it before releasing it again.

My recent trip to Peru was hosted by Cynthia, who’s organization Behind the Scenes Adventures takes small groups of fiber enthusiasts on journeys all over the world – Mali, Mexico, Turkey, Laos, India. The theme of my trip was Textiles and Archeology, an apt combination as Peru has one of the most ancient textile traditions in the world, and a perfect combination for my mom and I, since shes an archeology buff and well…you know about me. It really took touring the archeological sites to grasp the full impact that textiles have on the region, and I thank Cynthia for bringing that understanding into full focus.

Cynthia herself is a delight to be with, eminently knowledgeable, effervescently cheerful with a natural curiosity that knows no bounds. She tirelessly herded us from one fantastic location to another. She’s been to Peru a zillion times, knows everyone everywhere, knows what’s good to eat, where to shop and for what, and is never to busy to pause and describe a complex technique. Oh Lordy, I could write all night and into tomorrow and still not capture how truly inspiring Cynthia is and why I admire her so much. She is beyond a doubt One Great Knitter.

tripCollage

Screen shot 2010-04-28 at 7.04.16 PM
Read others: google knitcroblo3

Filed Under: Knitting Tagged With: knitting, One Great Knitter, Peru

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Happy Fair Isle Friday. The sea brings solace. V Happy Fair Isle Friday.  The sea brings solace.  Veesik from my book Fair Isle Weekend knit with DK weight @jamiesonsofshetland Shetland wool. 
#fairislefriday #fairisleweekend #maryjanemucklestone #shetlandwool #fairisleknitting 📷 @jenireid 💃🏽@ellagordondesigns #fairisle
9 from last year. It was a wonderful year for me i 9 from last year. It was a wonderful year for me in so many ways, despite the strange and scary times. Number one was your number one too, baby Otis!  Thank you for all your support this year and the outpouring if love for my new book Fair Isle Weekend. 🙏 we’ve got some adventure and exploring ahead! Even if it’s in our own neighborhood. 🏡 🏔I’m glad we’ve started a new year. May it be happy and safe for everyone. ✨⭐️✨ 
Now go eat some black eyed peas! 
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#topnine #granny #fairisleweekend #fairisleweekendbook #knitting #norwegianpurl #demo #wearalltheknits
Have a lovely evening! #maine Have a lovely evening!
#maine
Happy Sunday in Maine! Clearing our heads at the b Happy Sunday in Maine! Clearing our heads at the beach.
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Twelve21 hats fresh off the needles ~ still 15%off through tonight. Secret code 1221
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#maine #twelve21hat @hiravelry #knittersofinstagram
Happiest of Holidays! Leelee the Wonder dog, Empre Happiest of Holidays! Leelee the Wonder dog, Empress of the Universe extends her love and benevolence to you all and every being on the planet and in our solar system and all other solar and other systems ✨ blessing on us all. On a personal note, Vogue Knitting Magazine arrived Christmas Eve! Such a gift!!! And and slide 3 The Man from Cebu Borneo is surrounded by special snowflake light!
✨ 
MeRrY mErRy🌟
Twelve21 !! Happy Solstice 🌞New pattern today! Twelve21 !! Happy Solstice 🌞New pattern today! Use code: 1221 for 15% off on @hi.ravelry thru Sunday ~ link in bio. Cozy cozy with super bulky or bulky yarn. Two skeins of @quinceandco Puffin made 2 hats (not including pompous) One already gifted and away! Many thanks to busy mommy Sophie for agreeing to an impromptu photo shoot. Pandemic make do - safety in the backyard! 
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In 3 sizes, shown grey in large, black in small. Medium was absconded with 🤣 I mean...gifted
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Newsletter subscribers check your on box for a special discount✨
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#Twelve21Hat #quickgift #knitgift #strandedknitting #strandedcolorwork #maryjanemucklestone #knittersofinstagram #knittingaddict #newpatternrelease
Happy Fair Isle Friday! Kuvvel is a cowl with a tw Happy Fair Isle Friday! Kuvvel is a cowl with a twist! Knit as a tube, given a turn and grafted together. I love testing out different color combinations. The two swatches on the left are simply rearrangements of the same 5 colors as the original. The monochromatic swatch on the right uses 4 shades of @woolfolk_yarn Tynd. The possibilities are endless! I even have a swatch that used glitter yarn, but it’s so hard to photograph! Which one do you like best? Have a great weekend friends - have some fun! Swipe for an example 😂
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 #fairisleweekend #kuvvel #fairisleweekendbook #fairisleknitting #shetland #fairislebook #knittingbook
#maryjanemucklestone #fairislefriday 
#lainepublishing #lainemagazine #strandedknitting #stickning #tricoter #stricken #neulonta  #編み物  #フェア 📷 photos 2&3: @jenireid
So happy to share with you what I was working on t So happy to share with you what I was working on this summer. Such an honor to work alongside editor and chief Norah Gaughan and art director Emily Jones, and with all the talented  designers, writers and photographers. Teamwork ❤️ 
Photo: @gretarybus 
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Repost from @vogueknittingmagazine
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From pandemics to politics, the world has changed. I think you’ll agree that the next issue of Vogue Knitting has also changed radically. The issue is inclusive and diverse, and represents what Vogue Knitting is known for: solid, painstakingly accurate instruction and our signature fashion-forward designs. I want to thank Norah Gaughan and her team who put together such a uniquely different publication. I truly hope you find enjoyment in this well-crafted collection.⁠
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Art Joinnides⁠
President⁠
SoHo Publishing Company

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