Learning from mysteries

It's interesting how trains of thought proceed. I often get pushed to look something up, or read something, based on something else I've seen.

Last night, I was flipping through a back issue (Sept./Oct. 2010) of Piecework. This is one of those magazines that varies for me in interest from issue to issue; it seems just as I've decided after a run of one or two where the main focus is on (say) bridalwear through the ages that I'm going to drop it, then an issue comes that has an article on one of my personal areas of interest. (The most recent issue has an article on Herdwick sheep and the Beatrix Potter connection).

This issue (you can see the cover and contents here) had some interesting things - a pair of Irish-style gloves, the pattern for which could be adapted so that an actor could knit on them on stage (the gloves in question being originally developed for a production of "Dancing at Lughnasa").

(Actually, I should sit down and re-read the whole issue; I think it came at a time when I was busy and didn't really give it much attention. There's also an article on needlework in Jane Austen's time)

But what attracted my attention this time was something I had flipped past previously: the question of "What would Miss Marple knit?"

And it included a shawl pattern - actually, a reprint from Weldon's.

I had kind of bypassed it before - I bought a couple of the old Weldon's Magazine reprints when Interweave had them on a very good closeout, but never made anything from them, in fact, mainly intended to keep them just to look at. They don't work that well as pattern books for modern knitters for several reasons: first and foremost, many of the garments are styles we would not wear now, unless as part of a play or re-enactment. And second, there is no gauge specified, the needle sizes are the "old British" sizing, which is both different from modern US and metric sizing (though there are conversion charts somewhere), and there are usually only weights, and not yardages, of yarn specified. (And I think much better in terms of yardage than in weight). And of course, the yarns are all ones that haven't been made for 70-100 years, so you have to try to suss out equivalents. (Again, there are places online that can help). Finally, the terminology used in the patterns is often different than modern terminology.

I think the first time I saw the pattern I just bypassed it as "another somewhat incomprehensible old Weldon's pattern." But when I looked at the article again last night, I realized: hey, this pattern DOES make sense to me. I see how it works. It would be fun to knit.

I love "historic" patterns. One of my favorite knitting books is Nancy Bush's "Knitting Vintage Socks," because of the tie-in with Weldon. I love the feeling of reaching back over the years, and as I've said before, sort of "shaking hands" with some (usually unknown) knitter from the past who either developed the pattern, or at least wrote it down.

And then I realized: wait, that Noro Silk Garden sock yarn you have? That you don't have a pattern in mind for? It would work here. Even better, because it's a fairly simple shawl pattern (it's knit corner-to-corner, and is mainly stockinette with regularly spaced eyelet bands). And I'm guessing the original pattern was written for a sportweight, but it doesn't matter as much with a shawl, it's just a bit bigger or smaller or you block it up to the size you want.

And I liked the idea. The Weldon's pattern is ca. 1930, which would mean Miss Marple COULD have knit it (if she were, you know, a real person). I don't know that Miss Marple would have used a stripey variegated yarn (all I seem to remember reading of her knitting was that it was either "soft, cream-coloured wool" or "pale blue wool").

I also realized that most of what I knew of Miss Marple was from seeing the (admittedly excellent) PBS adaptations of the stories. And so this is where the trail begins.

I pulled my copy of "Miss Marple Stories" (I think it was free from Folio when I bought something else - maybe the Poirot short stories three-book set). And I started reading. And it started with some of the earliest appearances of Miss Marple; the "Tuesday Night Club" stories, where a group of people gather and share "unsolved" crimes (and, of course, Miss Marple figures them out).

There was one that contained two new concepts to me. One of the women in the story was described as "stout" and it was said she was "banting" to try to reduce. Well, from context, I assumed "banting" was some form of diet.

And here's where my mind went: I knew that Frederick Banting (along with Charles Best) was the discoverer of insulin, so maybe there was a diet named after him, and maybe it was a special diet for diabetics but that made other people lose weight. (My great-grandfather - my dad's mom's father - had been a diabetic late in his life and people tell me he had to eat a very restricted diet, this being the years before medications were available).

But no - it's still a very low-carbohydrate diet, sort of a Ur-Atkins plan, but it's named for a different Banting. William Banting (who actually was related to Frederick), was a formerly-fat man who lost a great deal of weight on a low carbohydrate diet, and apparently wrote a Letter to the public promoting it.

(I will observe, that the woman who was ultimately the victim in the case told her friend: "If the good Lord meant you to be stout, you should not worry about it" and proposed that banting would ruin her friend's health. I guess that's kind of how I feel: I mean, there are steps you can take to safeguard your health. But if being "slim" according to current fashion means eating egg-white omelettes and never getting to taste bread, I think I'll opt for being stout. Which is actually a more comforting descriptive term to me than "fat" is; "stout" seems to carry with it - to me at least - the connotation of robust good health, which I do, in fact, enjoy. Beatrix Potter was also described as "stout" later on in her life)

The other thing I was unfamiliar with was the concept of drinking "A bowl of corn-flour" before bed. I assume corn flour is what we in the U.S. call cornstarch - I've seen some British cookbooks note that similarity. I am guessing "a bowl of corn-flour" is kind of akin to what's called "atole" or "maizena" in Mexico: a beverage made from corn. (I've never had it so I don't know what it's like). It seems a strange thing to drink to settle an upset stomach (that was the context given), but who knows.

It surprises me how much you can learn from even a 'simple' detective story. I'm sure Christie, when she was writing it, had no intention of capturing all these small odd bits of Life Between the Wars in Britain...I suppose a lot of writers like that, especially those who wrote for the magazines (I assume that's how Christie's stories were originally published) intended for them to be largely ephemeral, a source of income for the writer and entertainment for the readers and little more. But I do find those old stories fascinating for the "background" or the settings as much as for the stories,just as I look hard at the dresses and interiors in old movies that were made during (and set in what was then "contemporary" times) the 1930s and 1940s.

So, anyway, at some point I want to knit the Weldon's shawl. I have too many other projects going to think of it now, but perhaps that will be my take-along-over-Thanksgiving-break project, as it would be fairly portable and fairly simple.