The Wallingford Center (where Bad Woman Yarn is located) has a tidal rhythm: people come in, people go out. Often they come in to get cupcakes. And then they need to get yarn. And then they go out. It's a reliable tide-- whatever little moon is orbiting privately around the building, it's locked in a regular orbit.
So, there are times when there are people in the store. This is most of the time. But this isn't about that time: this is about when there isn't.
The time when I've stocked everything that's come in. The time when I've combed out and re-wound every messy hank, chased down all the stray skeins and returned them to their cubby holes, straightened all the needle racks, moved everything we want to move, checked to see if we're low on anything and when we can get it in. The time where I sit there, with whatever store sample I'm busy working through (hint: current WIP involves one skein Keltic. Last WIP: mini-sock for the tree that's part of the holiday decor), and knit uninterrupted.
Today in particular, I was flipping through the lace volume of the reissued Harmony Guide. It's a good reference; I'm probably going to buy one of these days. But that's not what got my attention today, really.
Catherine Wheel is what got my attention.
Catherine Wheel, for the uninitiated, is a lace pattern. Basically an organic circle. Like a one-dimensional knit tumbleweed. A little bit different.
It is also -this is what made me drop my dpns- a torture device. Used in medieval Europe and Russia. The executioner would tie a person to the spokes, break their limbs with a blunt object, and then either a)leave them to die slowly of dehydration, etc, or b)kill them quickly. It's called a Catherine wheel because a Christian saint (not clear on details, just iconography from an art history class) named Catherine was, well, predictably martyred on one. My response:
a) grotesque.
b) a knitter from a bygone era just reached through time and smacked me with a stitch pattern from an era when it was acceptable to name day-to-day motifs after torture devices (admittedly, probably with religious and not macabre intentions in mind).
Still grotesque, but much more historically interesting.
But now I'm curious about how many other knitters have picked up on that. I mean, not everyone has read Geoffrey Abbott's "Execution." And not everyone should, either, especially if they're squeamish.
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3 comments:
Do you have a picture of the knit item? There are so damn many St. Catherines, it's hard to know that they're referring to Catherine of Alexandria
Nah, I don't, I'm afraid. But the Harmony Guide: Lace version has a clear picture of it.
To my knowledge, only one Catherine was killed on the wheel? And for it to be in Alexandria makes sense, since the wheel was invented there.
I am familiar with St. Catherine because of her mention in a YA book Catherine called Birdy. On her name day, the family makes a cake or something with St. Catherine on the wheel out of marzipan and they aren't certain how she was attached to the wheel and wing it.
It's a weird thing.
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