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Tri-Counties Genealogy &
History by Joyce M. Tice
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A Very Brief History of
Knitting
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Bradford County PA
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Chemung County NY
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Tioga County PA
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Looking Back
For Mountain Home Magazine
January 2008
Joyce M. Tice
On these cold wintry evenings, warm knit sweaters and afghans are among
our greatest comforts. Knitting is not the most ancient of textile crafts,
but its history goes back to at least 500 A. D. Knitting is a technique
of winding yarn around rods called needles to create a fabric of interlocking
loops.
Photo Caption: Amos, a one of a kind dog, endures a fitting
for his one of a kind sweater.
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Joyce's Search Tip - November 2008
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Do You Know that you can search just the
articles on the site by using the Articles button in the Partitioned
search engine at the bottom of the Current
What's New Page? |
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Historians of knitting disagree about the most ancient origins of the craft,
but most of the controversy is in identifying what is really knitting and
what is something else. A much earlier craft called nalbinding produced
fabric that looked very much like the knitted stockinette stich.
[See more on nalbinding] In any case, by the Middle Ages cottage
industries produced knit garments in large quantity. Silk stockings and
gloves were among their most appreciated products, and woolen caps, probably
not much different than some we knit today, were also popular. Trade guilds
developed to manage the production and marketing of knit garments.
During the Industrial Revolution, the invention of knitting machines
made mass production of knit garments possible. Almost certainly you are
wearing some knit garment right now. Your socks, your undershirt, are almost
exclusively knit garments. In fact socks made for Roman soldiers by the
nailbinding technique look very much like ours. The turning of the heel
was the same technique.
The sweater, as we know it, was not developed until the 1700s. The British
call them jumpers, but it is the same thing. The garment is ever popular
and a staple of today’s wardrobes. Different techniques, such as the beautifully
cabled Irish Fisherman patterns, developed throughout the world.
The wool yarn was left with the sheep lanolin still in it and knit tightly
for waterproofing. Irish women knit unique and intricate patterns into
the sweaters of their husbands and sons so that they would be recognizable
in case of a drowning accident that left them to wash up on shore in damaged
condition. Not a pretty story, to be sure, but the garments and patterns
are exquisite.
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I taught myself to knit from a book at the age of ten. I wound that
Red Heart yarn so tightly around those little size 2 needles, which I still
have but never use, that it could not be moved. My mother called in a neighbor
to diagnose the problem. She told me to wrap more loosely and recommended
a razor blade to cut what I had done so far off the needles.
Charles Dickens, my all time favorite author, was obviously not a knitter.
In A Tale of Two Cities, he seats Madam DeFarge at the foot of the guillotine
knitting codes about who was executed into her fabric. Now, unless Madame
DeFarge had some kind of binary code, such as our computers use, I can’t
see how she did that. There’s knit and there’s purl and that’s all there
is although the combinations are endless.
| At left is the book I learned from. It is my museum now and almost
every woman who comes in says she has it, too. It must have been on the
market for decades and sold by the millions. |
| Visit Joyce's Knit Shop - Elk
Run Purls |
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In our earlier rural communities knitting was a family activity. Adults
and children spent winter evenings knitting their own socks, hats, mittens
and other garments. It was not exclusively a craft for women. My Grandfather
Tice was a knitter. I never saw him knit, but I have letters from his three
month hospitalization at Blossburg in 1921, the result of a farm accident.
He had his knitting with him and apparently that amused some of the other
men on his ward. I don’t think that bothered him much. He just kept on
knitting.
Knitting is as popular today as ever. Many new yarns are available,
and the merging of techniques from all over the world has given us an endless
variety of ideas to develop. Knitting can turn otherwise wasted time
watching TV or waiting for something into productive time. Whatever you
make will be one of a kind.
For Further Reading:
No Idle Hands, the Social History of American Knitting, Anne L. Macdonald,
Ballantine Books, 1990
A History of Hand Knitting, Richard Rutt, Interweave Press, 1987
http://knittinghistory.typepad.com/historic_knitting_pattern/
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| Stockings I [Joyce} recently knit for neighbors |
Hi Joyce,
My father, Robert Newell, was an accomplished knitter.
He made these gloves about 1975 for my mother, Ida CARR Newell, who had
very arthritic hands. My Dad also knitted mittens, hats, scarves, sweaters,
and slippers for our entire family.
Pat NEWELL Smith, Pennsylvania |
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Space for your recent knitting project. Or your favorite knitting project
or even an heirloom item can be included. Send photos and caption to JoyceTice@aol.com
with your name and state you live in. |
| Sophia's sweater by Joyce - Seamless on circular needle |
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Bradford County PA
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Chemung County NY
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Tioga County PA
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