Purlwise

Found!

I guess if you have patience and look hard enough you'll eventually find what you've been seeking.

I was very lucky to find this Woolly Board II for the bargain basement price of $10. However, shipping from the East coast was another $35.

It's made of finished poplar wood. All the pieces come apart and are stored in a handy cloth bag. It came with instructions but didn't include any indication of who made it. My guess would be that it was made in the early or mid 90's when Ms. Starmore's books were still in circulation. The instructions refer to the woolly board shown in Stillwater.

Knitter ISO jumper board

Last week I must have run across some bad karma because my tension didn't seem to be up to snuff so mid week I rip out a whole lengthwise repeat. So, even though I anticipated finishing the neck shaping this week, it didn't happen. Today, I'm just now at that point.

Traditionally, knitted items such as this one are dressed on some type of frame. I did a bit of searching and came up with these pictures.

• Here's a Japanese website called Shaela that shows the two most common frames,  "Woollie Horse" and Jumper board. I can just make out from one photo that the Woollie Horse is from Tulloch of Shetland.
• The Shetland Museum's website had several old photos of jumper boards.
• Knitting Beyond the Hebrides has instructions to make one.
• There's a website with the URL www.jumperboard.com that appears to be located in Shetland that is selling them.

There's several online yarn suppliers that are offering some version of this frame with the cheapest around $90. That seems like a lot of money to plunk down on a knitting device that can only be used for sweaters with drop shoulders. Generally, I don't like sweaters with drop shoulders but overlooked that fact when choosing Firebirds. The colors and pattern was just irresistible.