Shelda's Adventures with Lace

Of duks and løpers

I sent the url of my blog to Kari and Mona (the women who have been helping with Norwegian translations) and got some additional help with the title translations, and some clarity about s-pinner.

Kari wrote: løper means runner and duk means cloth or tablecloth, and doily is normally called a "brikke."

She also cleared up my confusion about s-pinner, writing, “S-pinner means sock needles, i.e. a set of 5 short, double-pointed needles. R-pinner could mean either straight needles, normally a set of 2 longer needles, or a rundpinne, i.e. a circular needle. It would depend on the context of the pattern. 2 straight needles aren't used much in Norwegian knitting, we prefer to use a circular for back and forth knitting as well as in the round.”

Mona's take on it was a little different. For her, Duk means doily, and løper is an oval or "a long square" (rectangular) doily.

It probably doesn't matter much what we call them, really, but I'm glad to have these clarifications.

Mona also cleared up a question I'd been having about some of the other oval doily patterns I had been wondering about. They appear to have a long horizontal join down the middle, and I assumed that you were somehow knitting on both sides of a provisional cast-on, but the directions that I had been able to understand were not clear on this point. They seemed to start with a large number of stitches cast on (the doily I think I may knit next starts with 64 stitches cast-on), and then the rounds are given to knit in all of these stitches. I just couldn't understand how this made that neat line down the middle of the doily. But Mona explained that you knit the doily, leaving the big hole in the middle, and then when it is finished, you fold in half and join the cast on row by seaming the edges together. Ah-hah!

I might try to figure out something with a provisional cast on to avoid that, as I hate sewing seams in knitting, but at least the mystery is solved! Thanks again, Mona and Kari!

Posted by Shelda at May 20, 2003 11:26 AM