Sunday, August 02, 2015

Eastern Cross Stitch

Somebody asked about Eastern Cross Stitch, but that sample does not seem to photograph well, so I dug through my swatches for on one of gansey yarn knit on 3.75 needles.


Pix includes pages from Mary Thomas's Knitting Book

At that gauge, the knitting is easy enough.  Knit tight, ECS is much harder.  I did have a very good technique for doing it with blunt needles, but I seem to have forgotten the method and am back to doing ECS by brute force with pointy needles.  I need to re-un-vent the technique, and document it better.

The question to test is: " ECS provides cushion and ventilation which are good for socks. Do the virtues of ECS make it worthwhile for other objects considering the extra effort of production?  Or,  are there much easier ways to produce the fabric? We know that in old times ECS was much favored.  Was it much favored for all objects or just socks?  Why was it much favored?

You can see that I have been going round and round on this for some time.  Picking it up and dropping it in fits and starts.


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