Knitted Beowulf

February 9th, 2011Blog;

Excellent knitting pattern for socks, reproducing the first page of Beowulf in MS Cotton Vitellius 15. The pattern can be bought here.

3 Responses to “Knitted Beowulf”

  1. Sebastiaan Verweij Says:
    February 9th, 2011 at 16:39

    This is wonderful! What I love about this most of all, is that upon visiting said website, this material text cum keeper-warmer of cold feet had been sadly subject to the vagaries of the pattern writing business. Some errata were posted. First I suspected this was in relation to the Old English (hard to write, but fiendishly difficult to knit!) but now I am not so sure. Here it is:

    ERRATA

    The following corrections have been made to the directions on page 2:
    Gusset and Heel
    Gusset Increases
    Increase rnd: M1R, PM, k0 (3, 6, 9) work chart to end, k0 (3, 6, 9), PM, M1L.
    Work 2 rnds even.
    Increase rnd: M1R, k to marker, SLM, k0 (3, 6, 9) work chart to end, k0 (3, 6, 9), PM, M1L, SLM, k to end, MIL.
    Work 2 rnds even.
    Repeat these three rnds 7 more times, knitting all newly created sts in MC and being sure to catch the CC every few sts. On the last even round, work only to the second marker, leaving the 9 newly created sts unworked. 90 (96, 102, 108) sts.

    And so on. This is a whole new language to me! This makes Beowulf’s Old English seem simple. How extraordinary.

  2. Katie Birkwood Says:
    February 10th, 2011 at 12:16

    What gorgeous socks! Well knitted, that girl.

  3. Lucy Razzall Says:
    February 10th, 2011 at 15:01

    Yes! Strange though it may seem, I think there are some very interesting comparisons to be made between knitting patterns and other texts in the evolving world of digital editions and digital resources. The internet has helped to ‘popularise’ knitting, to make it appealing and accessible to many different sorts of people in a way that it has never been before. Furthermore, the internet has allowed forms of collaborative editing of knitting patterns that weren’t previously possible. This website in particular, https://www.ravelry.com/account/login (available for free to anyone who registers), is a remarkably sophisticated yet superficially simple arena in which users with a common interest can share texts and continually adapt and improve them. I think that those interested in ‘user-generated content’ editing projects would actually find the way that Ravelry works fascinating, so if you’d like to see more (only registered users can access it), please get in touch!

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