Introducing the Lamassu Shawl

What is a Lamassu?

1. A winged, human headed bull frequently seen in ancient Mesopotamian (modern Iraq & Syria) myth and art - most frequently as looming sentinels at the gates of major cities.
2. My latest shawl design for Quince & Co. yarns

How does one morph into the other? Where that's where the fun of designing comes in!

Back when I was in college, I was a Theatre major and the midst of my Senior year, I decided to swap my English minor for one in Classical Studies, following my increasing interest in the topic. I had an excellent Latin professor (Ortwin Knorr), who got me interested in the subject beyond the language and introduced me to Roman Cookery and the Archaeological Institute of America (of which there are sadly, no Maine chapters).

I had taken a lot of Latin courses, but to complete my minor I took two additional classes: Introduction to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and Introduction to Ancient and Medieval Art History.

My textbook for the Art History class is the only one I regret selling back, but it was the Old Testament course that has had one of the longest lasting impacts of any of my school courses. Taught by professor and archaeologist David W. McCreery, this 100-level course was the hardest course I took in my college career. But, as they say, nothing worthwhile is easy.

One day while discussing Noah's flood in Genesis, Professor McCreery mentioned that there was an much earlier, but very similar, version of a Great Flood story that appeared in the Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2100–2000 BCE). Following class that day, I stayed late to express my interest in the Gilgamesh tale, but as the professor was busy with another student at the time, I merely stated my interest and left conversation for another time.  It was to my surprise then, when at the next class session, he handed me one of his personal copies of the tale (Herbert Mason's verse narrative), with the following inscription:

October 2004 Dear Leah There is a lot to learn from this "oldest story ever told." Enjoy! Dave McCreery

I fell in love with the Gilgamesh story, particularly his adventures with the wild-man Enkidu, so much so that I wrote and produced a play about it. It's a story that's stuck with me ever since. So when I was talking to Quince about doing a new shawl design, it was Gilgamesh, and his Mesopotamian brethren that sprung to mind.

As is the way nowadays, I started collecting some images on Pinterest and I kept coming back to two things, the lamassu and king's beards. There was a distinct texture and style of the beards that the more I looked at it, the more knitterly they seemed. A stitch dictionary provided the trinity stitch that mirrored the curly portion of the beard by the mouth, and some time with swatches and graph paper yielded the banded columns and feathery bits I call Gilgamesh's Beard and Lamassu Feathers.

Since Mesopotamia was part of the fertile crescent, a gentle crescent shape  for the shawl seemed only natural and of course, when given the option to pick my yarn, I had to go with that ancient near-eastern fiber: linen.

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And that is a long story behind a fairly simple shawl.

If you'd like to knit one for yourself, the pattern is available now in the shop or you can queue it up on Ravelry.

And to make the long stretches of trinity stitch go faster, I suggest you listen to the following while you knit (I did!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVcvGxEZZwc

Photo Credits:

1. Quince & Co.
2. Lamassu  by Jasmine Ramig
3. Quince & Co.
4. Iran 2007 Persepolis Gate of all Nations by David Holt
5. Quince & Co.
6. Untitled by E.N.K

Sunny Days and Strawberries

Oh sweet summer, you are officially here and I waffle between trying to cram three days of activity into one weekend day and being completely lazy and just soaking it all in. Being lazy should win an awful lot more than it actually does.

I am amazed at how rapidly a garden can grow once you get your plants in. Some of my leaf lettuce is almost ready to start picking, I’ll likely be making some fresh basil pesto soon, and we’ve sampled the first sweet, sweet strawberries warm off the vine. This little girl of mine loves fruit. Any kind, all the time. So it was such a joy to see her eat that first strawberry and point at the plants looking for more and the heartbreak of having to wait another day for some more to be ripe. As these plants are young and small, I’ll be surprised if we get even two dozen berries off of them this year, but each one is worth it, so long as we can beat the critters to them.

Early last week, we had a visitor to the garden beds. My guess is either a woodchuck, which we’ve spotted in the neighborhood, or a skunk that our neighbors saw. Either way it gnawed the leaves off of three of my six broccoli plants. So it was off to the home improvement store and some quick installation of fencing. I’m using that green plastic hex mesh (chicken wire) and thus far we’ve had no additional midnight-snackers.  One of the broccolis seems to be recovering nicely, but I’ll likely have to swap out the other two. Live and learn.

In my efforts to supply LMC with some appropriate play clothes I sewed two pairs of the new Oliver + S freebie pattern, the Sunny Day Shorts. One in some Birch Fabrics Jay-Cyn fishy print I had in my stash and a second pair in some blue twill leftover from my Beignet skirt. I didn’t do anything fancy other than add top-stitching to both pairs. It’s a freebie pattern, so there’s not a lot to it and the drafting is a teensy bit off (one side of the legs seem to have a sharp point where you turn the hem, the other side is more of a curve, so it doesn’t exactly line up). Also, the rise isn’t quite long enough to cover the whole diapered bum, but for nice looking shorts that whip up quickly? They get the job done. Next up, I’ve got another t-shirt cut out and ready to go, after which I’ll probably take another selfish sewing break to try a go at making my first swimsuit. Because we just got LMC a kiddie pool and I’m gonna need something fabulous for splashing around in that! ;)

Minoru Jacket and Cargo Pocket Tutorial

I finally made something for myself and it's a doozy! I loved the Minoru Jacket pattern from the moment it came out (back in late 2011), so much so that I bought the pattern, the fabric, the lining, and special ordered the zippers shortly after it came out.

Three years of sitting in my stash and five weekends of sewing later, I have a bright and beautiful new jacket that does some much-needed filling of a long-outstanding hole in my wardrobe. Of course I finished it just in time for summer, but being as I live in Maine with it's often cool nights and mornings, I'm sure it'll still get plenty of wear before getting a real workout in the Fall and Spring.

The jacket is a spring green twill of forgotten origins, lined with some silky polka dots purchased at JoAnn's, and riri metal zippers. I made the pattern in a straight size 14, which is a little bit roomy, but it means I can wear it over sweaters come Fall. It's comfy and the right amount of warm for the in-between seasons.  I found the instructions clear and concise (though missing a few metric to imperial measurement conversions in the text and there's something funky about the placket length/hem length). I pretty much made it exactly as described, with the exception of the following modifications:

• Flat felled all the seams noted as top-stitched in the pattern - seam finishing and top-stitching in one!
• Lined the hood
• Moved the waist elastic up 1"/2.5 cm from pattern marking
• Removed the cuffs
• Made the hood zipper opening shorter
• Added cargo pockets
• Accidentally placed the interior pockets about 5/8 inch too low

One of the great things about sewing a pattern three years after it came out is that by then, a ton of other people have made it and you can steal their ideas and learn from their problems. About half these mods were inspired by other blogger. Case in point, I can no longer remember the blogger who mentioned it, but the hood zipper opening was indeed too long for my zipper, which I was able to check, before cutting it out. I do wish  I had headed the warnings to reduce the hood, as it is overly large. Some more direct copy-cats include borrowing Lladybird's idea to lose the cuffs (which were way long, even on me) and after I flat-felled my side seams before I inserted the side seam pockets I had planned on, I stole cutcutsew's cargo pockets idea.

The cargo pockets were a happy accident, as I love the way they turned out and they really make the jacket. I constructed my pockets largely based on this tutorial by 21 Wale. Should anyone want to copy me in my copy-catting, I've made up a PDF Cargo Pocket Pattern and Instruction Sheet  (tiled for US Letter-sized printing).

As with any coat/jacket, this was a time-consuming project. All said, it probably took me somewhere in the realm of 16 or so  hours to complete, but I love the outcome and consider it time well-spent as I can see myself wearing this coat all the time.

Speaking of wearing me-made things, I've completely missed Me-Made May, but I realized after I took the photos that everything in my outfit in these shots (not including underthings) was handmade either by me (cardigan, skirt, tank) or someone else (necklace, shoes). The fact that I didn't realize it until I took the photos is a nice nod to how the right handmade items can really become an intrinsic part of our wardrobes.

Continuing on the theme of handmade wardrobes, there's a neat little story behind the striped sweater LMC's wearing. When we first moved back to Maine, my mother-in-law gave me a bag with some random knitting stuff in it: a few sets of straight needles, some old yarn, and all the pieces to a blue and white striped baby sweater.  When I was pregnant, one of the first things I did was seam the otherwise complete sweater together, so now LMC has a Memere-made sweater, even though her Memere hasn't knit in years. The original yarn and ball bands (Reynolds Giselle) came with the sweater, but I've been unable to definitively date them and my MIL has no recollection of making the thing, so my best guess is that it was originally made for either one of her three sons, or my nephew - meaning it could be anywhere from 20 to 50 years old (quite the range, I know).  The best my google-fu can find is that the yarn was at a minimum available from 1981-1984. Doesn't look too shabby for some never-worn 30 year old yarn, does it?