A Little Autumn Fashion

This will be the first post with any of my knitting.  I completed this particular sweater earlier in the year, and it has been waiting for cooler weather, which is a long time coming here in the desert!

Technical Notes:

The sweater was worked in Berroco Modern Cotton, a worsted weight pima cotton/rayon blend.  This yarn gave fairly sharp definition to the pattern stitches. 

The design was developed with the idea of creating a layered effect: the cabled section opens to a honeycomb stitch yoke, which is then edged by the ribbed collar.  Sleeves are worked in plain stocking stitch to allow emphasis to remain with the body of the sweater.

Construction details include a satisfactory experiment in working the sleeves directly by casting on at the armhole.  There is a little shaping at armhole and shoulder (this latter done with short rows on the sleeve), but I doubt I would bother with this detail again; I think as good an effect would have been achieved without.  

The piece was knit entirely in the round for convenience, though the pattern would not require this.  I used knitted steeks at armholes and neck.  Again, this was for convenience (dubiously, as I hate stitching steeks down!); the pattern could also have been worked flat.

Each side, front and back, consists of two panels of cables, meeting at a central, chained cable.  In the front, this central cable is twisted and then parted to create the yoke.  Along the edge of the yoke, the divided cable sections continue to be twisted outward.

In back the cables blend into the yoke that runs straight across, which then blends seamlessly into the collar.

The outer cables are carried to the shoulder and worked to form an accent at the armhole.

At the sides a series of ribbing keeps the texture from being too bulky.

One of my favorite discoveries on this project was a way to handle the cuff.  At first I tried a normal ribbed cuff in which the number of stitches was reduced in order to draw the sleeve in at the wrist.  I didn't think this looked good with the rest of the design so I ripped it out and tried a new idea.  I cabled around (two twists) at the beginning of the ribbed section.  This drew the sleeve in naturally with no need for stitch reduction and made a more elegant finish.  If the ribbed section were longer, the cuff would flare back out, which might also be a fun way to work a sleeve design.  But in this case I kept it fairly short.

The ribbing at the hem is simply the rib pattern used for the cables -- not yet cabled and worked on smaller size needles.

Happy Autumn!

A big thank you to my sister Sarah Myers for the photography!

All images in this post are copyright (C) Sarah Myers.  Used by permission.

Breaking the Rules

It is axiomatic among potters that a glaze applied to unfired clay must contain an appreciable amount of clay itself.  It is proverbial that the glaze should be applied before the piece has dried.

However...

In a test-in-progress I have here two free-standing test tiles (cut from a cylinder form) which have been glazed, while bone dry, with a glaze containing no clay whatsoever.  The glaze surface has dried with no cracking and the tiles are very much intact.

I am greatly indebted to John Britt's book The Complete Guide to High-Fire Glazes for explanations which have allowed me to tackle the complexities of once-fire glazing while using my own clay and glazes.  His brief section on once-firing (as opposed to an initial low-temperature fire, followed by a high glost fire) resolved what had been an intractable dilemma in my studio.  Because, for me, the traditional advice was not working!  More on that in a moment...

To expand on Britt's explanation from my own experience, one of the keys to addressing once-fired glazing is to begin, not with the nature of the glaze, but with the nature of the clay body in use.

If the clay is composed primarily of fireclay and is relatively non-plastic in working properties, then it is likely very fragile when bone dry and is most safely glazed when leather-hard -- the standard practice.  However, if the clay runs high on ball clay and is quite plastic, it tends to have a much higher dry strength.  This type of clay may well respond better to bone-dry glazing.

So for once-firing the first question to address is the nature of the clay.  The second is to match the glaze to the selected glazing sequence.

The requirements for the glaze recipe itself, therefore, flow naturally from the clay in use.  The necessary clay content in the glaze will depend on whether one is applying it at the leather-hard stage or after the piece has fully dried.  In this case, the key issue is that of drying shrinkage.  High clay content in the glaze (assuming one is using a slop glaze) makes for significant shrinkage as the glaze dries.  This is desirable when the glaze is being applied to a piece that still has considerable moisture in it as it will allow both clay and glaze to shrink together.  The important thing is to remember that the shrinkage rate of clay and glaze must be compatible -- whatever that rate may be.

Glazing a bone-dry piece, despite the fact it inevitably absorbs moisture and expands during the process, requires a glaze shrinkage closer to that normal for bisqued ware.  Glazing a leather-hard piece will require considerably greater shrinkage in the glaze to avoid cracking during drying.

As I make not only my own glaze recipes, but also my own clay recipes, it has been very helpful to understand these details.  My stoneware clay is highly plastic, with around 11% OM4 ball clay.  It has phenomenal dry strength, of the sort that almost allows one to drop it on the floor without damage!  Strength at leather-hard stage, however, is not high at all.  For these reasons it makes much better sense to glaze it when fully dried, and I have been using a simple Tenmoku glaze (about 7 % kaolin) that would probably work well on bisque also.

The test tiles shown above are a more extreme test, revisiting my favorite white glaze.  This is a high-feldspar type, containing plenty of Custer Feldspar as well as spodumene (to minimize crazing).  At .52 by formula, it is already very high in alumina from the feldspars alone, and there is no reason to add any clay!  I had always bisque fired before using it, but decided this time to test it on raw clay.  As you can see, there was no problem applying it to my bone dry stoneware; no cracking has developed at all.

These tiles are part of a larger test to check behavior of my glazes in a slow cooling cycle following firing.  I must go glaze the rest of the test pieces now...

This pot is glazed in my white feldspathic glaze using a normal cooling cycle.

The Pot

Here is the completed pot, partially dried.  It should be ready for firing soon.  Now if only temperatures will drop low enough to allow us to heat the kiln!  Anything over 95 F (35 C) makes for difficulties, and the heat has spiked into the lower 100s again here in the desert.

I've always judged my work partly by the shadow that falls across the interior (when applicable!).  I'm fairly happy with this one.  Now for more...

Hands at Work!

Building the pot

Shaping the interior

Smoothing and refining the surface

All photos Copyright (C) Sarah Myers, used by permission

Handbuilding in earthenware clay, using traditional coiling techniques.  A big thank you to Sarah Myers for taking the photos!