W W M M K ?

The latest issue of "Piecework" arrived today. That would make it a Red Letter day around here even if they didn't print the name in Red Letters!

I've only had time to quickly page through it, but it is another wonderful issue (of course!).

The theme is discovering needlework in literature and you can see the cover asks "What Would Miss Marple Knit?"*

It includes an article about knitting gloves as depicted in the play "Dancing at Lughnasa" set in County Donegal, Ireland in 1936 and loosely based on the playwright's family.

In November 2004, my daughter played the character of Agnes Mundy in a college production of the play and thanked me in the program for being the pinch knitter.

She asked me to knit a pair of gloves to be used in the production and to teach her to knit in the round (which she went on to do while delivering lines).

I had never knit gloves and hadn't been knitting all that long, but it seemed like a good idea. Once again, Interweave came to the rescue. The Winter 2003 issue of Knits magazine had a comprehensive article on basic glove knitting. [available in the CD collection if you're interested.]

The set of 5 dpns used by the actress playing Rose came back to me as a set of 4. I still use them and they always remind me of that play.

Agnes and her sister Rose knit mittens to earn money for the family. It is a hard life depicted and the students gave such a remarkable performance that I found it somewhat difficult to experience, especially the sad outcome for the character Agnes. It felt like it was actually happening but to my real daughter.


*WWMMK? A shawl, naturally! A knitted square shawl pattern reprinted from Weldon's Practical Needlework Shawls in Knitting and Crochet from 1930 accompanies the article.