knitting in history

Wow, what a crackup this is! Back in the good ole days knitting wasn't just a craft, a vice, or a hobby but rather a necessity. I ran across Erica Lee's knitting website that had some really neat historical knitting photos and knitting artwork.

What happened over the past sixty years that changed the need for hand knitting into a want? Industrialization, mass production, cheap, foreign labor have all combined to produce usable goods that obliterated the need to hand create a lot of products including hand knitted socks. Our desire to knit has been transformed into a hobby that we yearn to spend time on rather than a requirement that we must fit into our day. This transformation is sort of mind boggling if you sit and think about it because this change has come about in really only one generation. Technology preserves our observations and recordings of these social changes, allowing us, no doubt, the ability to look back another sixty years from now and see what other changes have occurred. I sure hope those changes are for the better.

knitting in history

How about those groovy hairstyles? Or that Father Knows Best sweater? Or if you look beyond that you've gotta dig the outrageous flower drapes coupled with that boldly striped couch!



Part of the University of Arizona's Photography Special Collection, this knitting photo takes us back a couple of decades to a simpler time.

knitted doll

I've gotta say this is the cutest little knitted doll! I'm usually not into these types of things but she is adorable! Best I can tell her pattern isn't for sale but the doll itself is. Of course I've been meaning to knit those groovy Ramone dolls from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation.

Believe it or not I really have been knitting. I need to line things up to take photos. Janice asked if I was still planning to enter the fair. Well, I am, but not with the original entry. Haven't quite settled on exactly what I want to enter yet though.

Lisa asked how I find all these groovy knitting pictures. Well, a lot of it is image searching in google. I also run across a lot of photograph archives in the course of my day job. These photo archives are truly amazing! Tons of cultural images have been digitized in an effort to preserve history. The trick is to find 'em! These databases are examples of that term you've probably heard, the deep web.

art of knitting

Knitting
Oil on Canvas
Nancy Bea Miller

I promise I haven't forgotten you guys. I've just been busy as sin!

knitting culture

This photo appears in BBC's History Your Photos. This rabbit suit photo is from circa 1940.



Is it just me or do you think that something went horribly wrong here? I'm not quite sure what Auntie Ann was thinking with this outfit but it seems a bit over the top!

knitting culture

Shimon Mednick's Faces Abroard from the October 2002 Baltimore Gallery Exposure to Art through Photography exhibit.

HP6 tiny spoiler

Dumbledore reentered the room [from the bathroom] and Slughorn jumped as though he had forgotten he was in the house.

"Oh, there you are, Albus," he said. "You've been a very long time. Upset stomach?"

"No, I was merely reading the Muggle magazines," said Dumbledore. "I do love knitting patterns."

- from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, page 73

Harry Potter - no spoiler, promise

I finished the book. All I can say is Wow. It is THE best book she has ever written. It is her masterpiece. You will love it.

Harry Potter 6

Things to Watch

• Hermione's incantation of portable fires
• Harry's eyes
• Harry's dreams
• Neville
• Silver instrument in Dumbledore's office: "but in essence divided"
• snakes/socks/scar/mirrors/"split in two"
• Dementors
• Sirius
• Harry's real time connection to Voldemort
• Time
• Blood: Harry & Lilly
• redemption for James
• Wormtail's debt to Harry
• Harry more powerful
• TAPESTRY
• wandless magic
• Goblin wars
• Fountain of Brotheren
• Desires
• reflection; shadow; light; spliting/breaking in two
• Olivander & Luna Lovegood connection
• Department of mysteries: stars, planets, Mars, centaurs
• locked door

Questions

• Potters were Dobby's masters before Malfoys?
• What scars were left in Ron from the brains?
• How did the house elves become enslaved?

Who will fight each other

• Wormtail vs. Lupin
• Dobby vs. Kreature
• Ron vs. Draco
• Snape vs. Bella or Harry (Snape must choose which side)

Predictions

• House elves will be freed at the end of book six.
• Their magic is what will help destroy the Dark Lord in book seven.

knitting culture

Now here is a dream vacation: "Puchka...small-group, hands-on workshops with master spinners, weavers, knitters, embroiderers and gourd engravers from across Perú who come to work with us in our guesthouses."

FOs - easy scarves

What have I been doing? I suppose I've been taking a little break. Sometimes life gets in the way of knitting and the past couple of weeks have certainly been the case for me. Its time for me to get back on board the knitting express.



After a few knitting catastrophes I managed to create a couple of quick FOs. These two scarves are exactly alike and us the raised bar stitch pattern from Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns, page 23. I truly like the simplicity of this pattern and the fact that it is reversible. I believe I used Woolease Thick and Quick and size 10 1/2 needles. Cast on ten stitches, rows 1 and 3, k1, p1, repeat; all even rows work each stitch as it appears; row 5 and 7 p1, k1. This simple pattern can easily be committed to memory and knitted in front of the evening news.