By Julia Horton
For our final project, I have decided to “play Rumpelstiltskin,” imitating as closely as I can Rumpelstiltskin’s act of turning straw into gold. Similar to the straw mentioned in the tale, yarn is commonplace, unimpressive, and inexpensive (mine cost $3). However, through the process of knitting the yarn into a garment (in my case, a hat), it transforms into something remarkable, beautiful, and much more valuable, like gold. Most of the time I spent knitting was between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m., which allowed me to experience the feeling of laboring through the night as Rumpelstiltskin does in the tale. I estimate that overall, this project took approximately 30 hours to complete, similar to the total time that Rumpelstiltskin would have spent spinning the straw over the course of three sleepless nights.
Pattern: “Traveling Cable Hat” from Purl Soho
- I’ve chosen this pattern because the number of cables and crosses creates a very intricate design with a lot of movement, mimicking the motion of the spinning wheel and the thread it produces as Rumpelstiltskin works his magic.
- The pattern is written in child size, representing the child that the queen promises to Rumpelstiltskin in exchange for his help. Conversely, it can also represent Rumpelstiltskin’s dwarfish stature–the hat would probably fit him, too.
- This pattern’s distinctive intertwining of cables also relates to traditional Irish cable knit sweaters, whose distinctive cable patterns were used by family members to identify dead fisherman who washed up on shore. This hat’s cables could be the distinctive pattern that identifies Rumpelstiltskin–a signature that goes beyond the name he so carefully guards.
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft Autumn Maize
- I chose this yarn for its color, which falls somewhere between straw and bright gold. It also has the greatest sheen of widely available yarns of its type, mimicking the shine of Rumpelstiltskin’s golden thread.
Materials: Size 5 & 6 16” circular needles, size 6 double pointed needles, cable needle, stitch markers (3), darning needle, worsted weight yarn (approx. 80 yards)
Stitches used: Cast-on method of choice, knit, purl, k2tog, p2tog, ssk, c6f, c6b, left cross, right cross, bind-off method of choice
Photos of the process:
- I documented the process of knitting the hat in photos because it adds a degree of ambiguity to the process in comparison to taking videos. You can see the hat transforming before your eyes, but without seeing the movement of the yarn and needles, it’s not clear exactly how the yarn works up–we just see that it does, in the same way that it’s a mystery how Rumpelstiltskin spins gold out of straw.
