Ellen Knitting Page

At age 11 or 12, Ellen probably learned to knit from her Aunt Minnie. Early projects were likely cothing for her dolls. But before long, Ellen went on to other things, and did not do much knitting until moving to New Hampshire. The early projects were sweaters. Both Ellen and Gene knit many "Icelandic" pattern sweaters using the Lopi yarn popular at the time. We even sold a few.

Once we added sheep to the farming and started to trade fleece for yarn at Bartlett Yarns, we both started to knit more and soon were selling the Bartlett yarn from our kitchen. The story of Ellen's yarn shop, Andes Yarns, is told on the New Hampshire Page and on the Weaving Page. But Ellen soon was teaching knitting at the shop as well as continuing to make sweaters. The yarn shop mooved first into the second story above the woodshed, workshops, and garage in the long "ell" connecting the house to the barn, and later into the south-facing side of the barn itself when we converted the space in the late 1970s.

Elite sweaters

After the first expansion, we began doing the mail order for the fledgling Elite Yarns, and thereby had access to multiple lines of mohair yarn. The mail order business grew slowly and the yarn shop continued to expand. We designed some sweaters for Elite and published a pattern booklet for them. Above is a photo of that pattern booklet. The photos for the booklet were taken at a "mohair ranch" in Texas, which state was the largest producer of mohair in the U.S. at the time. The "out takes" from the photos were especially entertaining, as they showed the typically dressed Texas "cowboys" on horseback herding the small mohair goats. Those photos did not make it into print.

Ellen did a great deal of knitting during the yarn shop years, both to try out new yarns for the business and to teach others how to knit. Almost all of her knitting has been and continues to be using natural fiber yarns, often in lighter weights and often in complex patterns.

Through all the moves and many locations, Ellen has continued to knit. Unlike weaving or spinning or needlework, knitting is very portable and requires minimal equipment. The two of us spent many hours knitting while traveling by air and especially when relaxing at coffee shops during our many daily walks.

There are few negatives to knitting. One is that family members and friends end up with lots of knitted garments and another is that we end up with an accumulation of knitted sweaters, shawls, hats, and mittens. All useful in places with cold winters, less so in New Orleans.

Samples of Knitting

Here are pictures of a few of the many knitted projects Ellen has done through the years.

Sweaters

sweater

2 sweater

sweater

Vests

sweater vest

Shawls and Scarves, Hats and Mittens

shawl

shawl lace

shawl

scarf

Socks

And socks. Many, many socks. This picture shows a few, but there were dozens more. So many socks, in fact, it led to the series of shawls that Gene knit from the left over sock yarn in Ellen's stash.

socks

And finally, an in process photo of one of the pieces of "chain mail" armor that Ellen and Gene knit from nylon seine twine for the Santa Fe Opera costume shop. A photo of the finished costume is also here.

chain mail