March 16, 2016 • 35 mins
Because of its functionality in providing needed clothing for humans, knitting has been around for a long time. Exactly how long isn't entirely clear, but we do know a good bit about how knitting has traveled with us humans through time.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from dot com. Hello,
and welcome the podcast. I'm Molly Frying, and we're finally
going to hit on a topic that has been requested
by a lot of people, A lot a lot of people, uh,
(00:21):
including Alexis and Seagreed and many others too many two
lists and count Tracy do uknit? Well? I mean the
short answer is yes, but I don't need anything fancy.
I basically knit things that can be constructed from rectangles.
(00:41):
I don't fair that count well. Yeah, Like I know,
I know folks who are really really into knitting, and
they know all kinds of fancy stitches, and they know
how to knit cables, and they know how to do
all this other stuff. I know how to knit in
pearl and add one and make one and cast on
and bind off, and I can make lots of scarfs
and shawls and the occasional hat. But like I don't
(01:04):
make anything fancy. We're on similar levels at that point.
Like I I, um, I know how to knit the basics,
it's not for me, Like in the creative realm, the
yard arts are not my thing. I'm really more of
a dressmaker at heart. Part of it is that probably
because I have not practice knitting. I always feel like
in the time it takes me to make a scarf,
(01:26):
I can make six or seven dresses. So it's hard
for me to get really married to the idea of knitting.
But lots of people knit, and some people do absolutely
beautiful things knitting. Uh And because of its functionality and
providing needed clothing and covering in accessories for humans, knitting
has been around for quite a long time. Exactly how
(01:46):
long is not entirely clear, but we do know a
decent amount about how it is kind of traveled with
us humans through time once it came about. And our
colleagues at Stuff Mom Never Told You did a knitting
episode in January of this year, and as you may expect,
their focus is some history and then a lot on
how knitting has been commonly associated with one sex or
(02:07):
the other throughout history. And they also talk a lot
in that episode about how the invention of mechanized knitting
machines really shifted things and how gender roles were affected
by that invention. Uh So, for us, we're going to
focus more on the earlier years of knitting and similar
techniques to knitting and sort of their place in history,
(02:27):
and then we're going to talk a little bit about
the vast variety of network that developed in just one
small part of the world, just to kind of give
you a sense of of how things can kind of
blossom in different locations. So if you want to know
more about mechanized knitting and even some fun spy related
knitting tales, you should check out Kristen and Caroline's knitting episode.
But we're going to focus, like I said, more on
(02:48):
the history of particularly the early part of knitting. The
first known use of the word knit as a noun,
as in this fabric, is a nit. It was in
the late fiftdred but the words roots as a verb
go back a lot farther. The first known use as
a verb was prior to the twelfth century, and it's
possibly derived from the Middle English knitting, which uh descends
(03:12):
from the Old English word conn't, which is spelled with C.
The root of that word is the Old English word
for not, which is naa, and it also maybe like
to the Dutch word commuting. I now that I have
access to the Oxford English Dictionary, I love to look
things up, and the Oxford English Dictionary and the first
(03:32):
thing I did was plucked knit in there and I
found the most liful thing, which is actually from an
English uh like a French book for English speakers, um
and and and it's descriptions of how to say things
about knitting. Was the sentence I nnit bonnets or hosen
(03:53):
from from thirty and knit is spelled k and y
t and I, just like it was in hoos In.
In general, one of the problems with tracing the history
of knitting is that there were similar techniques in use
throughout history that have caused some artifacts to be misidentified.
So to someone who knits or knows about knitting, the
(04:15):
difference would be fairly apparent, but to researchers that maybe
aren't textile specialists, it's really easy to attribute a creation
technique of an object to knitting when it might not be,
and there are even cases where experts have been fooled
a definitely. A lot of the ancient knitting examples are
of course made out of natural fibers, and a lot
of them have decomposed over time, so we have very
(04:36):
very few actual samples to study. Most of the work
looking at knitting's origins has been pieced together from cultural
cues rather than actual samples of knit items. And to
complicate matters even further, in the early history of knitting,
there was not standardized vocabulary for it. So even in
texts where it seems like knitting is being referenced, it
(04:58):
may not be what we think of as knitting today,
and vice versa. There are instances where some form of
needlework or fiber arts is mentioned and it could be knitting,
but we really don't have a way to know for
certain because knitting and it's spread or closely linked to
trade routes. We also don't know with certainty that the
few historic samples that we have of knitting that have
(05:19):
you know, that we've discovered are even from the place
that they were found. They could have been made somewhere
else then carried along a trade route. In terms of
the earliest knitting artifacts so far, they also all exist
on their own. There aren't additional contemporary samples to look
at to contextualize them. So, for example, we've never found
a cache of knitted items all together in one space,
(05:42):
which I don't in my imagination, that means that there
was like no no twelfth century cat lady needed a million,
a million pairs of mittens and little cat beauties. It
appears now it's always like one sock, one fragment one.
You know, there's not there's not a lot. So keep
(06:02):
all of that in mind as we're talking about knitting's
history and origins. A lot of this um is based
on some some kind of moving parts. As we try
to figure out more and more about it, and before
we dig into finding knitting's genesis, let's first talk a
little bit more in detail about the various techniques for
turning yarn or thread into textiles, how the ones that
(06:23):
aren't knitting differ from knitting, and kind of where they
all fit into the bigger picture. Of course, we'll start
with knitting. Knitting uh manipulates the yarn or thread to
create a textile by using two needles. That's important to
create loops within loops, and that results in a textile
that has some elasticity. So for our listeners who might
not be familiar with knitting needles, their long, smooth, relatively
(06:45):
thin metal or wood or plastic sticks. Their sticks are
pointed at one end and a lot of times they
have a blunt stop around the other end. There are
variations on this basic idea for specialty knitting. But that's
the basic style. To knit in the round, Needles that
have two pointed ends are used and the work can
be passed around them in circles to create two lun
It's like stockings some hat patterns used knitting in the round.
(07:09):
That'll become pretty important to the expansion of knitting as
a trade. Yes, Stockings in particular are a big driver,
and as a person knits, they're looping one continuous piece
of fiber over and over, so you'll see I mean
you've seen pictures likely with someone knitting and they have
a large skein or a large ball of yarn that
they're pulling from, so it's it's not like little piece
(07:31):
after little piece. It's usually one big thing. And then
if they get to the end, they nodded so that
it continues to the next ball of yarn or skein.
And the stretchiness of a knitted item varies based on
the size of the needles used, the thickness and the
weight of the fiber being knitted, and the tension of
the knitter. That's how tightly or loosely he or she
tends to pull the fiber. And one thing that I
left out of the notes that I should mention when
(07:52):
Tracy was talking about the different items that knitting needles
can be made out of. They have been made out
of many other things in history, like bone, just basic sticks.
But like, if you were to go buy knitting needles today,
you're looking at metal, wood or plastics. I can't think
of any alternates bamboo, which is technically would yeah grass really,
(08:15):
but people would violent underwood. Um yeah, I mean you
can get like double pointed needles that are that you
would use to make little tubular things, and like ones
in the round that are connected with a piece of
flexible tube stuff. Like, there's a lot of different things
you can fine, but yeah, there's the big ones. I
(08:39):
personally tend to be a very tight knitter. When I
knit things, they come out smaller than you would expect.
I used to be, and I've loosened up over the years.
So No, all binding looks very very similar to knitting,
and it has in fact been falsely identified as knitting before.
But unlike hitting, which as we said, uses two needles,
(09:02):
no binding uses just one needle with an eye that
the fiber is threaded through. Also Unlike knitting, the end
of the fiber is drawn all the way through each loop,
so it's worked and cut pieces better than as one
long continuous piece, so it doesn't create this loop within
a loop within a loop chain that knitting does. A
fragment of fiber textile from the ruins of ancient town
(09:26):
Dura Europos, which is in present day eastern Syria, was
long identified as possibly the earliest example of knitting, and
it was from around two fifty to twenty somewhere in
that window. But nope, that was no bending, which dates
back to fourteen BC based on artifacts found at Danish sites. Um.
Sometimes if you look at YouTube videos about no mending,
(09:46):
they call it like Viking knitting. Yes, uh, and it's
very fascinating to watch. It's um, you know, there are
still people doing it today. That's kind of one of
the things that I love about all of these there's
things that go on on and on and on. They
haven't died out, uh, predating even not all bending is
a textile creation technique called sprang uh. Spring has been
(10:07):
dated back as far as fifteen hundred to eleven hundred BC,
and while it also can look very similar to knitting,
it actually requires a loom. It's not something that can
be done portable on a couple of needles. The thread
used for sprying is stretched to a high tension and
secured at both ends during weaving, so you kind of
create a grid of that, and then when the tension
(10:28):
is released after all the wet the weaving is done,
it kind of pops into its smaller shape and then
you have a stretchy net like textile as a result.
Just for the sake of yarn arts inclusivity, we're also
gonna mention crochet. So we know that crochet came along
a lot later in the eighteenth century, that it was
an evolution of an embroidery tech echnique that was called tamburing.
(10:50):
So crochet, which has worked with a single hook instead
of needles, arose from the stitches being worked separately away
from the backing cloth. And it doesn't usually get confused
with itting when we're looking at historical pieces. Yeah, I
don't think I've ever stumbled across any that are like
this is knitting. I mean, certainly layman will do that.
In day to day modern life, they'll go so and
(11:11):
so knit me this scarf. I was like no, that's crochet.
But in terms of historical artifacts we don't usually run
into that problem. And knitting start though, like so many
other things, uh likely came from the cradle of civilization,
with some estimates placing its development around the eighth or
ninth century, and it's possible that knitting is a direct
descendant of not work fishing nets used by sailors from
(11:34):
Arabic countries during that time. But the first known examples
of knitting are from Egypt, and they're from around one
thousand to fourteen hundred. These are blue and white cotton
socks with an intricate pattern that indicates that they're almost
definitely not the first knitted thing. They're kind of too advanced.
They're simply the oldest knitted thing that we have left.
You've ever knit something for the first time, it would
(11:55):
not look like this fock from Egypt and Islamic countries
around the Mediterranean, knitting spread to Europe and then it's
spread out throughout that continent, and then from trade it
kind of went globally from there, and knitting's rapid spread
when you think about it, makes a lot of sense
compared to other textile creation options. It was fast and
(12:17):
relatively cheap. And I'm sure any modern knitters listening may
have laughed at that one, because good yarn can get
really expensive in a hurry. Knitting a sweater is very
rarely going to save you any money, and in many
cases will cost you a great deal more than purchasing
one at a store, but you will have a custom
work of art at the end. Uh. There was also
no need for a loom with knitting, and it was
(12:37):
relatively easy to learn. It was also portable. You just
needed too thin stiff items to act as needle and
to act as needles, and then a thread or the
threat of the yarn that you were going to use,
and the variety of items that could be created with
knitting was incredibly diverse. So by varying the weight and
thread or yarn used, or the size of the needles
(12:58):
and the stitches rething from heavyweight nits that were like
protective items, two delicate laces could be created using the
basic same handheld technology. Another cool thing about knitting that
I think is less true at least than my experience
of a lot of other textiles that you might make
for utility purposes, is that you can learn pretty easily
(13:19):
to knit in the dark like that. That's true. The
women who taught me to knit grew up in Germany
during World War two and they had a lot of
times when they would have to be in blackout conditions, um,
and so they all look knew how to knit by feel,
which it's a lot easier, I think to knit by feel,
especially if you're nitting something pretty simple than to sow
(13:39):
a garment by feel or too embroidered by feel. That's
just my guest. I kind of want to do an
art project where I make things in the dark and
see what they look. So the first known examples of
knitting in Europe or pillow covers made of silk fiber,
and they were found in Spain and their dated circle
(14:00):
its twelve. In addition to the pillow covers which are
found in a princess to, most of the knitting examples
from Spain were around the same time we're pretty or nate,
and a lot of them were liturgical items that were
for use in the Catholic Church. And coming up, we're
gonna talk about an alternate though unsubstantiated origin point for knitting.
But first we're gonna pause for a word from one
(14:21):
of ours. So we mentioned before the break that there
is an alternate story of where knitting came from. They're
actually several, but these are the kind of big ones. Uh.
This is an apocryphal story about the origin of knitting
that kind of slots it before any of these known
(14:42):
examples that we've talked about. And this tale claims that
Saint Fiacra, who is an Irish abbot, invented knitting and
then passed it on to France and that it's spread
from there. So this kind of is the exact opposite
direction of spread that we actually have archaeological evidence of,
and this would shift dates really significantly. Though, as safi
(15:02):
Acra died in the year six seventy, there's no real
evidence to back the claim that he invented knitting, although
he is claimed by some as the patron Saint of knitting,
and there does not appear to be an official patron
saint of knitters that I could find, but there are
several that are claimed by various different ideologies and groups.
So in addition to Saint Fiacra, St Lucy, St Ursula,
(15:23):
Saint Sebastian, and St. Rebecca have all been claimed by
knitters at some point in time. But none of these
stories really holds the key to the history of knitting
in the technique. Outside of Spain, the majority of knitted
items in Europe between the late thirteenth century right up
to the early fifteenth century we're not perhaps what you
might think of when you imagine knitting today. They weren't sweaters,
(15:43):
sweaters or scarves or other weighty garments, but they were
the sort of fine work that had been found in
that prince's tomb from earlier. They were accessory items. They
were delicate and fine, and items that had to do
more with adornment and decoration than utility. By late fourteenth century,
knitting had finitely made its way to Germany and Italy,
and we know that because the Virgin Mary is actually
(16:04):
depicted in art from this time period. Knitting, yeah uh.
And you know that wonderful feeling when you change clothes
from a fitted garment made from a woven fabric i e.
One that has no stretch to a comfy knitt that's
got some give. Well, so did Europe during the fifteenth
and sixteen centuries, because this is when knitted stockings became
(16:25):
very very popular as trade exploded and more and more
people had access to knit wears and learned to knit.
According to an article in an eighteen thirty two printing
of The Ladies Penny Gazette, UH, there's a story that
says that once Queen Elizabeth was given a pair of
black knitted stockings from her silk woman, allegedly in the
third year of her reign, she then refused to go
(16:47):
back to woven cloth stockings. One of the Oxford English
Dictionaries examples of the word knit was about Queen Elizabeth's clothes. Yeah,
she became a big fan once. She was like way
Fabrican stretch. Excuse me, she was all in. Their popularity
became so great that knitting basically became huge business at
(17:08):
this time. This is when knitting guilds in Europe really
surged in popularity. And while there is mentioned of what
may have been some sort of knitting guild in France
as early as twelve sixty eight, uh really had to
do with milliners of gloves and hats. We don't really
have additional confirmation of this until thirteen sixties six. That's
when actual documents are there. It's entirely possible that they
(17:33):
were more like standard attilier for accessories and then adopted knitting.
As the arts popularity rose and demand for knitted items
skyrocket in and by the fourteen hundreds we know that
there were knitting guilds in the Netherlands and Italy, and
by the early fifteen hundreds the knitting Guild was one
of the most important guilds in Paris, and there were
guilds spread throughout Europe. By the mid sixteenth century, knitting
(17:56):
was a prominent trade throughout the continent. Knitting in Russia
became so commonplace that by the sixteen forties knitted stockings
were considered a standard part of military gear. The point
of a guild was to maintain an improved quality in
the craft, to teach new tradesmen, and to help market
the goods of its members. To join the guild as
a master knitter, a tradesman, and this was an all
(18:19):
male profession at the time, would have to devote six
years of his life to study, three as an apprentice,
and three traveling to learn new techniques. After the six
year training period, a guild candidate would have approximately three
months to produce a prescribed assortment of knitted items, ranging
from delicate gloves to a full knitted carpet, and then
(18:39):
these would be reviewed for quality. If the work was worthy,
the applicant would then be granted guild membership. And up
to this point, for the most part, it appears that
there was really just one primary knitting stitch in use,
so the basic one that you would start with if
you learned today like Tracy and I talked about, we
can knit and we can pearle. That means that if
(18:59):
you're doing that with the right side showing, it's smooth
stitches that are created by the loops, and the backside,
which is considered the pearl side, shows those stitches as bumps.
There's a little more texture, and up to this point
any variation in the design of a knitted item was
created by changing the yarn color. But in the mid
sixteenth century, somewhere right in there we see textured knitting
(19:22):
beginning where some of the stitches are knitted in effect backward,
so that the bumps those pearl stitches appear on the
otherwise smooth right side to create patterns and designs would
also mean that you could change the stitch at the end,
though your stuff wouldn't curl up at the bottom. Yeah,
is what irritates me about that stitch. Today, I think
(19:43):
we call stockinet. Maybe that's why. Of course, once this started,
it never stopped. People are still manipulating stitches to create
new texture designs all the time. The latter half of
the fifteen hundreds is also this time period where people
figured out how to skip stitches to leave empty spaces
and network as part of the sign, creating little islets
and then progressively two more intricate laces. And this is
(20:05):
where my knitting knowledge stopped. Because I had this beautiful
pattern that involved doing exactly this thing to make us
a lazy looking shawl, and because as I said earlier,
I am a very tight knitter, I realized about three
quarters of the way through that I was making a
(20:25):
doll shawl and not a human shawl, because I had
been knitting the whole thing way too tightly. Yeah, it's
interesting to me. I had not thought of islet fabrics
sort of beating. I hadn't thought of it in that way,
but that's they were creating islets. Um. It just kind
of fascinates me. Uh So, when the stocking frame knitting
(20:46):
machine was invented in fifty nine, so this is not
long after people really started to to play with design,
style and knitting. It was the first step in a
dramatic shift for knitting. Knitting. My hand did not vanish
at this point. That came up it later, and it
never vanished, But this didn't cause its immediate uh drop off,
and we'll talk about why in a moment. But the
(21:06):
inventor of the stocking frame was an English gentleman by
the name of William Lee. And there is a rather
fanciful story that claims that Lee invented his knitting frame
because the woman he was enamored with was always very
preoccupied with her knitting and thus had no time or
attention for him. So he decided he would free up
her time by inventing a contraption that would take all
(21:27):
the work out of her hands, and he spent the
next three years working on it. It doesn't seem like
he ever did win the love of his news, though,
but it did change his career path from ministry to industry,
as he turned his stocking production into his full time job.
Once again, we will go back to Queen Elizabeth the
First because it was known that she was fond of stockings.
(21:48):
There's a reason that that a reference to her came
up when Tracy looked up knit in the Oxtrad English Dictionary.
Lee went to her and presented his invention and petitioned
for a patent, but the monarch refused to issue him,
and she was very fearful that this invention was going
to put too many people out of work. We talked
about that in our episode about the Luodites, which also
relates to knitting. Now that I think about it, knitting
(22:11):
is everywhere, It is everywhere. So Francis King Henry the Fourth, however,
was completely happy to form a partnership with Lee and
his brother, and so the siblings moved to Paris to
produce frames and train knitters there to use them. It
seemed like a really good setup. But five years later,
in sixteen ten, King Henry the Fourth was fascinated and
Lee's agreement with the monarchy was no longer valid. When
(22:33):
the inventor tried to pursue the matter with France's legal system,
he met with obstacle after obstacle, and then he died
in sixteen fourteen. And that sounds very sad, but there's
actually something of a happy ending to this tale. Uh
William Lee's brother then went back to England, and when
he did, he smuggled some of their remaining knitting frames
with him, and allegedly some of the people that have
(22:56):
been trained to use them went as well. He set
up a production of partnership which would eventually become the
Worshipful Company of Framework Knitters, which started as a guild
with a royal charter in sixteen sixty three. It existed
before that, but that's when it became a royal charter,
and this actually still exists today as a livery company
with numerous charitable projects as well as education and outreach.
(23:21):
Once the Industrial Revolution arrived, knitting became even more mechanized
and hand knitting was no longer needed to keep up
with supply demands. There continued to be people who did
handknit items for sale, but it became a much smaller
cottage industry, and hand knitting was also freed up to
be a hobby instead of the way you made you're living.
You want to learn more about the whole economic ramifications
(23:42):
of all that. That's our previously mentioned episode about the floodites. Yeah,
Like I said, Kristen and Caroline really talk a lot
about kind of what happens after industrialization and and how
it changed things. So next we are going to talk
about some of the specific design styles of knitting in
various locations. But before we do, let's take a quick
break have a word from a fabulous sponsor. As knitting
(24:13):
spread throughout the world, different areas became known for specific
styles or designs of knitting. Austria and Germany became known
for heavily cable designs. In the traditional knitting style found
in Turkey, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan features chain stitch, embroidery and
really fine patterns, and those have been passed down through centuries.
In South America developed uniquely shaped accessories, those fantastic pointed
(24:36):
caps that we still see made today, uh and chunky
textiles that are made with thick wolf fibers. We're going
to focus a little on the notable styles that have
developed through the British Isles and Ireland because for such
a relatively small area, there's just a lot of variety
and a lot of specificity to each region's individual knitting styles.
(24:58):
Uh So fair asle it's that's probably a phrase that
you have heard before, whether you knit or not. If
you have just shopped, you have probably seen something advertised
this way. That name has been leveraged by clothing companies
for years in advertising to convey quality and fair Isle
is a relatively remote island to the north of Scotland,
and it's become known for a knitting style that really
echo Scandinavian designs. The modern version of a fair Isle sweater,
(25:21):
which really hit its developmental stride in the nineteen teens,
features horizontal stripes of repeating designs worked in multiple colors.
Fair Isle is near to the islands that make up Shetland,
and it's the region known for its wool. That wool,
which is multi colored, both because of the wide range
of sheep colors and because some are dyed with natural
color in such as lichen and matter, has been a
(25:44):
key component in fair Isle knitting since the eighteen hundreds
and the modern era. Some synthetic dies have been used
in fair Ale knitting, but it's really at a minimum,
with natural dies still holding a lot of favor. During
the nineteen twenties, in particular, fair Isles were incredibly popular
with the fashion set, particularly in more muted color ways.
(26:05):
If you look at fashion plates, particularly for gentlemen of
the ninet twenties, you will see exactly what we're talking
about with the fair Isle sweater, particularly like with a
golfing outfit that like really unique, beautiful banded design repeats.
The Channel Islands off the French West Coast have a
knitting tradition that dates back to the late Tutor era,
(26:25):
and this reason made very fine stockings favored by the
likes of Mary, Queen of Scotts, and the location close
to the European continent made it a natural place for
exporting knitting to other countries. Because the islands became somewhat
isolated as revolutions and wars kept neighboring countries busy. Uh,
the export business lagged, but the knitting continued and the
(26:47):
drop off an influence from trading countries actually cemented the
style of sweater that's considered the Channel Islands signature. It's
a very squared off, boxy shape with knotted edges. It's
sort of a decorative nodding along the edge is that's
they're kind of finishing. And there's also normally a slit
on either side of a sweater. And as I say
sweater over and over, I feel compelled to mention that
(27:10):
in some countries they call it a jumper. Yep, I'm
referring specifically to like a pull over sweater, even though
sweater also gets used to reference things like cardigans and whatnot,
at least in the US. But a pull over setter
sweater or what some people would call a jumper. So uh,
that slit that I was mentioning is normally on either
side of the bottom edge like at the hip of
(27:30):
these sweaters for range of movement, and these were particularly
in dark colors, very popular with fishermen for decades. North
of the Scottish Mainland, as we alluded to earlier, are
the Shetland Islands, and one of the hallmarks of the
Shetland knitting tradition is its variety. Goods, ranging from record
blankets and socks all the way to the most delicate
(27:52):
lace have all been refined to perfection there and as
early as the beginning of the seventeen hundreds there was
trade between the Shetland Islands and merchants from Germany and
the Netherlands, but it wasn't really until at eighteen forties
that lay started to be an export focus. Up to
that point, all of that trade was more in like
the heavier goods. And one of the really lovely characteristics
(28:15):
of the fine laces of Shetland is that they're knitted
on the bias, so they start with a single stitch
which forms the corner, rather than casting on a row
of stitches and knitting a square. Like Tracy said at
the top of the show, she can knit things that
are made from rectangles. Uh. Usually that involves casting on
you know, X number of stitches and then you knit
all your rows. But this casts on one stitch and
(28:36):
then expands slowly in this beautiful bias. Knit a lace
scarf or a shawl from Shetland during its lace heyday
was considered so fine and light that you could pass
an entire full size piece through a wedding ring easily.
This was part of like how they would show the
quality to merchants. And as the chunkier fair Isle network
(28:56):
became vogue in the nineteen twenties, as we mentioned, it
became kind of part of the fashionable set. Shetland kind
of followed that trend and moved a little bit away
from lace and into heavier wool garments. I think that
thing that I abandoned that was turning into a doll.
Shall started with one stitch. It's hard, I don't My
grandmother used ended on the bias and I would just
(29:18):
sit there a dog like I couldn't really grasp how
she kept the tension right. And again it's years and
years of experience, but who could not do it? And
the pattern will tell you to begin by knitting a
gauge swatch to make sure that what unit turned out
the correct size. And I lazily have never done that,
(29:39):
which hasn't really mattered when I've been making scarves right,
but it mattered a lot when trying to make that shall.
The story of knitting in the Arran Islands in Galway
Bay off Ireland's west coast is tied to a previous
podcast topic, the Irish potato famine. In the congested district's
board was formed to address the issue poverty, and the
(30:00):
plan was to train people to knit exportable goods. This
became a local industry and it grew to the point
of the government agency's training program like a more and
more intricate designs. The hallmark of these styles that were
developed there in this time was the use of thick
wool yarn that was left in its natural color. And
the last of the regions of Great Britain and Ireland
that we're going to talk about today is the Yorkshire
(30:22):
Dale's and this rural region is unique in that industrialization
really did not impact it to the degree that it
did other areas in terms of knitting. It remained a
farming area as it always had with knitting is sort
of a secondary industry and one of the most interesting
characteristics that I just fell in love when I read
this of the knitting style associated with Yorkshire Dale's isn't
(30:43):
a pattern or a type of wool, but the actual
physical way that knitting continued there for many decades. Knitting
was not, as it is for many people, to sit
down activity, but it was something literally done on the
go while walking about with the yarn secured in a
pouch or basket at the waist. Love this so much.
Knitting also developed as a social activity in the communities
(31:05):
of the region, with large group gatherings and parties for
all ages that focused on the same things. It would
happen at any gathering plus knitting so kind of like
a quilting bee or a candle making but when knitting. Yeah,
but you would be doing those the knitting while you
stood there and chatted or you know, perhaps even danced
a little bit. I'm just I'm really wowed and delighted
(31:27):
by the idea of knitting while you do other things,
while you perambulate about. Uh. We also have a little
bit of late breaking news because we mentioned briefly South
America UM, which presumably either got knitting through trade or
they were developing their own yard arts. But there was
a really interesting discovery very very recently in January, so
(31:49):
just a few months ago, and at a four thousand
year old dig site in Lima, Peru. UH. There researchers
they're turned up what we're described as knitting implements in
a woman's tomb. And whether or not these were actually
knitting implements or tools for some other fiber art isn't
clear to us just yet. I have only seen them
(32:10):
listed as knitting implements. But if they are knitting implements,
this really changes the narrative of knitting's history significantly. If
they can find evidence that this was actual knitting, that
completely changes the timeline. So these items were found with
with numerous other artifacts that will no doubt I'll be studied,
so hopefully we will eventually get some news about what
(32:31):
all of that is, but right now we don't know,
so that could make all of this podcast completely incorrect
in terms of its historical accuracy. It's timeline will still exist,
but there will be things that predate all of it,
which would be cool, and we can do an update
at that point. Do you have some listener mail? I do,
and I almost feel guilty because we've read several pieces
(32:52):
of listener mail about this, but this has a neat
reference for people if they wanted to learn more, so
I wanted to include it. It's about our our episodes
on various holiday characters and traditions, and it is from
Nikki and she is referencing specifically Befauna, and she says
there are many variations to this story, but the one
thing that holds true is that all of the children
get coal, and Beffauna always sweeps your house. Carbon dulce,
(33:16):
which is sweet coal, is a candy similar to rock
candy that's given to Italian children. Is a reminder that
none of us are perfect and that we may have
our bad moments, they're still sweet. Also, the Italian folklore
behind her is that she is like a proper Italian woman.
She keeps a clean home. Uh so she types L
O L and she says, so if you leave a
broom out at night, she will also sweep your floors.
(33:37):
She has definitely evolved over the years, making her far
more sincere and approachable. And my children their generation American
both celebrate Baffuna's arrival every year. It's a great holiday
and for those with young children that want to take
on one of our most beloved traditions. Told me to Paula,
who is a children's author, and that is spelled t
O M I E and then de Paula looks like
(33:57):
one last name d E capital p A O l
A in case you want to look it up. Is
a children's author that has a great book that explains
Bafana to kids. My son brings it into his class
every year, so I don't get any calls from his
school about the which that visits our house. Thank you, Nikki.
That was awesome. Um, it's good to have something to
refer people to, especially because some of those traditions are
(34:20):
really fun and I know people would love to kind
of explore and incorporate some of those possibly, uh, for
their tiny historians and their homes, and that's a I
always like having a good reference for people, so thank
you for that. If you would like to write to
us about your knitting, or your holiday traditions or anything else,
you can do so at History Podcast at how stuff
works dot com. We're also at Facebook dot com, slash
(34:42):
mist in History, on Twitter at miss in History, at
pinterest dot com, slash mist in History at miss in
history dot combler dot com. We're on Instagram and miss
new history. UH. If you would like to toy a
little bit with what we've talked about today, you can
go to our parents site, how stuff Works. Type the
word knitting into the search bar and you'll get a
quiz called the Ultimate Knitting Quiz. Your confession. I haven't
(35:02):
taken it, so I don't know how hard it is,
and I don't know if I would past it, because well,
I know how to knit the basics, I'm not an
ultimate knit or by any stretch of the imagination. Uh.
You can also visit us at our home on the web,
which is a mist in history dot com, for an
archive of every episode of the show ever of all time,
as well as show notes for any of the ones
since Tracy and I have been doing the show as
(35:25):
well as occasional blog posts, and we encourage you to
come and visit us at Miston history dot com and
how stubwords dot com for lare on this and thousands
of other topics. Because it has to works dot com
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from dot com. Hello,
and welcome the podcast. I'm Molly Frying, and we're finally
going to hit on a topic that has been requested
by a lot of people, A lot a lot of people, uh,
(00:21):
including Alexis and Seagreed and many others too many two
lists and count Tracy do uknit? Well? I mean the
short answer is yes, but I don't need anything fancy.
I basically knit things that can be constructed from rectangles.
(00:41):
I don't fair that count well. Yeah, Like I know,
I know folks who are really really into knitting, and
they know all kinds of fancy stitches, and they know
how to knit cables, and they know how to do
all this other stuff. I know how to knit in
pearl and add one and make one and cast on
and bind off, and I can make lots of scarfs
and shawls and the occasional hat. But like I don't
(01:04):
make anything fancy. We're on similar levels at that point.
Like I I, um, I know how to knit the basics,
it's not for me, Like in the creative realm, the
yard arts are not my thing. I'm really more of
a dressmaker at heart. Part of it is that probably
because I have not practice knitting. I always feel like
in the time it takes me to make a scarf,
(01:26):
I can make six or seven dresses. So it's hard
for me to get really married to the idea of knitting.
But lots of people knit, and some people do absolutely
beautiful things knitting. Uh And because of its functionality and
providing needed clothing and covering in accessories for humans, knitting
has been around for quite a long time. Exactly how
(01:46):
long is not entirely clear, but we do know a
decent amount about how it is kind of traveled with
us humans through time once it came about. And our
colleagues at Stuff Mom Never Told You did a knitting
episode in January of this year, and as you may expect,
their focus is some history and then a lot on
how knitting has been commonly associated with one sex or
(02:07):
the other throughout history. And they also talk a lot
in that episode about how the invention of mechanized knitting
machines really shifted things and how gender roles were affected
by that invention. Uh So, for us, we're going to
focus more on the earlier years of knitting and similar
techniques to knitting and sort of their place in history,
(02:27):
and then we're going to talk a little bit about
the vast variety of network that developed in just one
small part of the world, just to kind of give
you a sense of of how things can kind of
blossom in different locations. So if you want to know
more about mechanized knitting and even some fun spy related
knitting tales, you should check out Kristen and Caroline's knitting episode.
But we're going to focus, like I said, more on
(02:48):
the history of particularly the early part of knitting. The
first known use of the word knit as a noun,
as in this fabric, is a nit. It was in
the late fiftdred but the words roots as a verb
go back a lot farther. The first known use as
a verb was prior to the twelfth century, and it's
possibly derived from the Middle English knitting, which uh descends
(03:12):
from the Old English word conn't, which is spelled with C.
The root of that word is the Old English word
for not, which is naa, and it also maybe like
to the Dutch word commuting. I now that I have
access to the Oxford English Dictionary, I love to look
things up, and the Oxford English Dictionary and the first
(03:32):
thing I did was plucked knit in there and I
found the most liful thing, which is actually from an
English uh like a French book for English speakers, um
and and and it's descriptions of how to say things
about knitting. Was the sentence I nnit bonnets or hosen
(03:53):
from from thirty and knit is spelled k and y
t and I, just like it was in hoos In.
In general, one of the problems with tracing the history
of knitting is that there were similar techniques in use
throughout history that have caused some artifacts to be misidentified.
So to someone who knits or knows about knitting, the
(04:15):
difference would be fairly apparent, but to researchers that maybe
aren't textile specialists, it's really easy to attribute a creation
technique of an object to knitting when it might not be,
and there are even cases where experts have been fooled
a definitely. A lot of the ancient knitting examples are
of course made out of natural fibers, and a lot
of them have decomposed over time, so we have very
(04:36):
very few actual samples to study. Most of the work
looking at knitting's origins has been pieced together from cultural
cues rather than actual samples of knit items. And to
complicate matters even further, in the early history of knitting,
there was not standardized vocabulary for it. So even in
texts where it seems like knitting is being referenced, it
(04:58):
may not be what we think of as knitting today,
and vice versa. There are instances where some form of
needlework or fiber arts is mentioned and it could be knitting,
but we really don't have a way to know for
certain because knitting and it's spread or closely linked to
trade routes. We also don't know with certainty that the
few historic samples that we have of knitting that have
(05:19):
you know, that we've discovered are even from the place
that they were found. They could have been made somewhere
else then carried along a trade route. In terms of
the earliest knitting artifacts so far, they also all exist
on their own. There aren't additional contemporary samples to look
at to contextualize them. So, for example, we've never found
a cache of knitted items all together in one space,
(05:42):
which I don't in my imagination, that means that there
was like no no twelfth century cat lady needed a million,
a million pairs of mittens and little cat beauties. It
appears now it's always like one sock, one fragment one.
You know, there's not there's not a lot. So keep
(06:02):
all of that in mind as we're talking about knitting's
history and origins. A lot of this um is based
on some some kind of moving parts. As we try
to figure out more and more about it, and before
we dig into finding knitting's genesis, let's first talk a
little bit more in detail about the various techniques for
turning yarn or thread into textiles, how the ones that
(06:23):
aren't knitting differ from knitting, and kind of where they
all fit into the bigger picture. Of course, we'll start
with knitting. Knitting uh manipulates the yarn or thread to
create a textile by using two needles. That's important to
create loops within loops, and that results in a textile
that has some elasticity. So for our listeners who might
not be familiar with knitting needles, their long, smooth, relatively
(06:45):
thin metal or wood or plastic sticks. Their sticks are
pointed at one end and a lot of times they
have a blunt stop around the other end. There are
variations on this basic idea for specialty knitting. But that's
the basic style. To knit in the round, Needles that
have two pointed ends are used and the work can
be passed around them in circles to create two lun
It's like stockings some hat patterns used knitting in the round.
(07:09):
That'll become pretty important to the expansion of knitting as
a trade. Yes, Stockings in particular are a big driver,
and as a person knits, they're looping one continuous piece
of fiber over and over, so you'll see I mean
you've seen pictures likely with someone knitting and they have
a large skein or a large ball of yarn that
they're pulling from, so it's it's not like little piece
(07:31):
after little piece. It's usually one big thing. And then
if they get to the end, they nodded so that
it continues to the next ball of yarn or skein.
And the stretchiness of a knitted item varies based on
the size of the needles used, the thickness and the
weight of the fiber being knitted, and the tension of
the knitter. That's how tightly or loosely he or she
tends to pull the fiber. And one thing that I
left out of the notes that I should mention when
(07:52):
Tracy was talking about the different items that knitting needles
can be made out of. They have been made out
of many other things in history, like bone, just basic sticks.
But like, if you were to go buy knitting needles today,
you're looking at metal, wood or plastics. I can't think
of any alternates bamboo, which is technically would yeah grass really,
(08:15):
but people would violent underwood. Um yeah, I mean you
can get like double pointed needles that are that you
would use to make little tubular things, and like ones
in the round that are connected with a piece of
flexible tube stuff. Like, there's a lot of different things
you can fine, but yeah, there's the big ones. I
(08:39):
personally tend to be a very tight knitter. When I
knit things, they come out smaller than you would expect.
I used to be, and I've loosened up over the years.
So No, all binding looks very very similar to knitting,
and it has in fact been falsely identified as knitting before.
But unlike hitting, which as we said, uses two needles,
(09:02):
no binding uses just one needle with an eye that
the fiber is threaded through. Also Unlike knitting, the end
of the fiber is drawn all the way through each loop,
so it's worked and cut pieces better than as one
long continuous piece, so it doesn't create this loop within
a loop within a loop chain that knitting does. A
fragment of fiber textile from the ruins of ancient town
(09:26):
Dura Europos, which is in present day eastern Syria, was
long identified as possibly the earliest example of knitting, and
it was from around two fifty to twenty somewhere in
that window. But nope, that was no bending, which dates
back to fourteen BC based on artifacts found at Danish sites. Um.
Sometimes if you look at YouTube videos about no mending,
(09:46):
they call it like Viking knitting. Yes, uh, and it's
very fascinating to watch. It's um, you know, there are
still people doing it today. That's kind of one of
the things that I love about all of these there's
things that go on on and on and on. They
haven't died out, uh, predating even not all bending is
a textile creation technique called sprang uh. Spring has been
(10:07):
dated back as far as fifteen hundred to eleven hundred BC,
and while it also can look very similar to knitting,
it actually requires a loom. It's not something that can
be done portable on a couple of needles. The thread
used for sprying is stretched to a high tension and
secured at both ends during weaving, so you kind of
create a grid of that, and then when the tension
(10:28):
is released after all the wet the weaving is done,
it kind of pops into its smaller shape and then
you have a stretchy net like textile as a result.
Just for the sake of yarn arts inclusivity, we're also
gonna mention crochet. So we know that crochet came along
a lot later in the eighteenth century, that it was
an evolution of an embroidery tech echnique that was called tamburing.
(10:50):
So crochet, which has worked with a single hook instead
of needles, arose from the stitches being worked separately away
from the backing cloth. And it doesn't usually get confused
with itting when we're looking at historical pieces. Yeah, I
don't think I've ever stumbled across any that are like
this is knitting. I mean, certainly layman will do that.
In day to day modern life, they'll go so and
(11:11):
so knit me this scarf. I was like no, that's crochet.
But in terms of historical artifacts we don't usually run
into that problem. And knitting start though, like so many
other things, uh likely came from the cradle of civilization,
with some estimates placing its development around the eighth or
ninth century, and it's possible that knitting is a direct
descendant of not work fishing nets used by sailors from
(11:34):
Arabic countries during that time. But the first known examples
of knitting are from Egypt, and they're from around one
thousand to fourteen hundred. These are blue and white cotton
socks with an intricate pattern that indicates that they're almost
definitely not the first knitted thing. They're kind of too advanced.
They're simply the oldest knitted thing that we have left.
You've ever knit something for the first time, it would
(11:55):
not look like this fock from Egypt and Islamic countries
around the Mediterranean, knitting spread to Europe and then it's
spread out throughout that continent, and then from trade it
kind of went globally from there, and knitting's rapid spread
when you think about it, makes a lot of sense
compared to other textile creation options. It was fast and
(12:17):
relatively cheap. And I'm sure any modern knitters listening may
have laughed at that one, because good yarn can get
really expensive in a hurry. Knitting a sweater is very
rarely going to save you any money, and in many
cases will cost you a great deal more than purchasing
one at a store, but you will have a custom
work of art at the end. Uh. There was also
no need for a loom with knitting, and it was
(12:37):
relatively easy to learn. It was also portable. You just
needed too thin stiff items to act as needle and
to act as needles, and then a thread or the
threat of the yarn that you were going to use,
and the variety of items that could be created with
knitting was incredibly diverse. So by varying the weight and
thread or yarn used, or the size of the needles
(12:58):
and the stitches rething from heavyweight nits that were like
protective items, two delicate laces could be created using the
basic same handheld technology. Another cool thing about knitting that
I think is less true at least than my experience
of a lot of other textiles that you might make
for utility purposes, is that you can learn pretty easily
(13:19):
to knit in the dark like that. That's true. The
women who taught me to knit grew up in Germany
during World War two and they had a lot of
times when they would have to be in blackout conditions, um,
and so they all look knew how to knit by feel,
which it's a lot easier, I think to knit by feel,
especially if you're nitting something pretty simple than to sow
(13:39):
a garment by feel or too embroidered by feel. That's
just my guest. I kind of want to do an
art project where I make things in the dark and
see what they look. So the first known examples of
knitting in Europe or pillow covers made of silk fiber,
and they were found in Spain and their dated circle
(14:00):
its twelve. In addition to the pillow covers which are
found in a princess to, most of the knitting examples
from Spain were around the same time we're pretty or nate,
and a lot of them were liturgical items that were
for use in the Catholic Church. And coming up, we're
gonna talk about an alternate though unsubstantiated origin point for knitting.
But first we're gonna pause for a word from one
(14:21):
of ours. So we mentioned before the break that there
is an alternate story of where knitting came from. They're
actually several, but these are the kind of big ones. Uh.
This is an apocryphal story about the origin of knitting
that kind of slots it before any of these known
(14:42):
examples that we've talked about. And this tale claims that
Saint Fiacra, who is an Irish abbot, invented knitting and
then passed it on to France and that it's spread
from there. So this kind of is the exact opposite
direction of spread that we actually have archaeological evidence of,
and this would shift dates really significantly. Though, as safi
(15:02):
Acra died in the year six seventy, there's no real
evidence to back the claim that he invented knitting, although
he is claimed by some as the patron Saint of knitting,
and there does not appear to be an official patron
saint of knitters that I could find, but there are
several that are claimed by various different ideologies and groups.
So in addition to Saint Fiacra, St Lucy, St Ursula,
(15:23):
Saint Sebastian, and St. Rebecca have all been claimed by
knitters at some point in time. But none of these
stories really holds the key to the history of knitting
in the technique. Outside of Spain, the majority of knitted
items in Europe between the late thirteenth century right up
to the early fifteenth century we're not perhaps what you
might think of when you imagine knitting today. They weren't sweaters,
(15:43):
sweaters or scarves or other weighty garments, but they were
the sort of fine work that had been found in
that prince's tomb from earlier. They were accessory items. They
were delicate and fine, and items that had to do
more with adornment and decoration than utility. By late fourteenth century,
knitting had finitely made its way to Germany and Italy,
and we know that because the Virgin Mary is actually
(16:04):
depicted in art from this time period. Knitting, yeah uh.
And you know that wonderful feeling when you change clothes
from a fitted garment made from a woven fabric i e.
One that has no stretch to a comfy knitt that's
got some give. Well, so did Europe during the fifteenth
and sixteen centuries, because this is when knitted stockings became
(16:25):
very very popular as trade exploded and more and more
people had access to knit wears and learned to knit.
According to an article in an eighteen thirty two printing
of The Ladies Penny Gazette, UH, there's a story that
says that once Queen Elizabeth was given a pair of
black knitted stockings from her silk woman, allegedly in the
third year of her reign, she then refused to go
(16:47):
back to woven cloth stockings. One of the Oxford English
Dictionaries examples of the word knit was about Queen Elizabeth's clothes. Yeah,
she became a big fan once. She was like way
Fabrican stretch. Excuse me, she was all in. Their popularity
became so great that knitting basically became huge business at
(17:08):
this time. This is when knitting guilds in Europe really
surged in popularity. And while there is mentioned of what
may have been some sort of knitting guild in France
as early as twelve sixty eight, uh really had to
do with milliners of gloves and hats. We don't really
have additional confirmation of this until thirteen sixties six. That's
when actual documents are there. It's entirely possible that they
(17:33):
were more like standard attilier for accessories and then adopted knitting.
As the arts popularity rose and demand for knitted items
skyrocket in and by the fourteen hundreds we know that
there were knitting guilds in the Netherlands and Italy, and
by the early fifteen hundreds the knitting Guild was one
of the most important guilds in Paris, and there were
guilds spread throughout Europe. By the mid sixteenth century, knitting
(17:56):
was a prominent trade throughout the continent. Knitting in Russia
became so commonplace that by the sixteen forties knitted stockings
were considered a standard part of military gear. The point
of a guild was to maintain an improved quality in
the craft, to teach new tradesmen, and to help market
the goods of its members. To join the guild as
a master knitter, a tradesman, and this was an all
(18:19):
male profession at the time, would have to devote six
years of his life to study, three as an apprentice,
and three traveling to learn new techniques. After the six
year training period, a guild candidate would have approximately three
months to produce a prescribed assortment of knitted items, ranging
from delicate gloves to a full knitted carpet, and then
(18:39):
these would be reviewed for quality. If the work was worthy,
the applicant would then be granted guild membership. And up
to this point, for the most part, it appears that
there was really just one primary knitting stitch in use,
so the basic one that you would start with if
you learned today like Tracy and I talked about, we
can knit and we can pearle. That means that if
(18:59):
you're doing that with the right side showing, it's smooth
stitches that are created by the loops, and the backside,
which is considered the pearl side, shows those stitches as bumps.
There's a little more texture, and up to this point
any variation in the design of a knitted item was
created by changing the yarn color. But in the mid
sixteenth century, somewhere right in there we see textured knitting
(19:22):
beginning where some of the stitches are knitted in effect backward,
so that the bumps those pearl stitches appear on the
otherwise smooth right side to create patterns and designs would
also mean that you could change the stitch at the end,
though your stuff wouldn't curl up at the bottom. Yeah,
is what irritates me about that stitch. Today, I think
(19:43):
we call stockinet. Maybe that's why. Of course, once this started,
it never stopped. People are still manipulating stitches to create
new texture designs all the time. The latter half of
the fifteen hundreds is also this time period where people
figured out how to skip stitches to leave empty spaces
and network as part of the sign, creating little islets
and then progressively two more intricate laces. And this is
(20:05):
where my knitting knowledge stopped. Because I had this beautiful
pattern that involved doing exactly this thing to make us
a lazy looking shawl, and because as I said earlier,
I am a very tight knitter, I realized about three
quarters of the way through that I was making a
(20:25):
doll shawl and not a human shawl, because I had
been knitting the whole thing way too tightly. Yeah, it's
interesting to me. I had not thought of islet fabrics
sort of beating. I hadn't thought of it in that way,
but that's they were creating islets. Um. It just kind
of fascinates me. Uh So, when the stocking frame knitting
(20:46):
machine was invented in fifty nine, so this is not
long after people really started to to play with design,
style and knitting. It was the first step in a
dramatic shift for knitting. Knitting. My hand did not vanish
at this point. That came up it later, and it
never vanished, But this didn't cause its immediate uh drop off,
and we'll talk about why in a moment. But the
(21:06):
inventor of the stocking frame was an English gentleman by
the name of William Lee. And there is a rather
fanciful story that claims that Lee invented his knitting frame
because the woman he was enamored with was always very
preoccupied with her knitting and thus had no time or
attention for him. So he decided he would free up
her time by inventing a contraption that would take all
(21:27):
the work out of her hands, and he spent the
next three years working on it. It doesn't seem like
he ever did win the love of his news, though,
but it did change his career path from ministry to industry,
as he turned his stocking production into his full time job.
Once again, we will go back to Queen Elizabeth the
First because it was known that she was fond of stockings.
(21:48):
There's a reason that that a reference to her came
up when Tracy looked up knit in the Oxtrad English Dictionary.
Lee went to her and presented his invention and petitioned
for a patent, but the monarch refused to issue him,
and she was very fearful that this invention was going
to put too many people out of work. We talked
about that in our episode about the Luodites, which also
relates to knitting. Now that I think about it, knitting
(22:11):
is everywhere, It is everywhere. So Francis King Henry the Fourth, however,
was completely happy to form a partnership with Lee and
his brother, and so the siblings moved to Paris to
produce frames and train knitters there to use them. It
seemed like a really good setup. But five years later,
in sixteen ten, King Henry the Fourth was fascinated and
Lee's agreement with the monarchy was no longer valid. When
(22:33):
the inventor tried to pursue the matter with France's legal system,
he met with obstacle after obstacle, and then he died
in sixteen fourteen. And that sounds very sad, but there's
actually something of a happy ending to this tale. Uh
William Lee's brother then went back to England, and when
he did, he smuggled some of their remaining knitting frames
with him, and allegedly some of the people that have
(22:56):
been trained to use them went as well. He set
up a production of partnership which would eventually become the
Worshipful Company of Framework Knitters, which started as a guild
with a royal charter in sixteen sixty three. It existed
before that, but that's when it became a royal charter,
and this actually still exists today as a livery company
with numerous charitable projects as well as education and outreach.
(23:21):
Once the Industrial Revolution arrived, knitting became even more mechanized
and hand knitting was no longer needed to keep up
with supply demands. There continued to be people who did
handknit items for sale, but it became a much smaller
cottage industry, and hand knitting was also freed up to
be a hobby instead of the way you made you're living.
You want to learn more about the whole economic ramifications
(23:42):
of all that. That's our previously mentioned episode about the floodites. Yeah,
Like I said, Kristen and Caroline really talk a lot
about kind of what happens after industrialization and and how
it changed things. So next we are going to talk
about some of the specific design styles of knitting in
various locations. But before we do, let's take a quick
break have a word from a fabulous sponsor. As knitting
(24:13):
spread throughout the world, different areas became known for specific
styles or designs of knitting. Austria and Germany became known
for heavily cable designs. In the traditional knitting style found
in Turkey, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan features chain stitch, embroidery and
really fine patterns, and those have been passed down through centuries.
In South America developed uniquely shaped accessories, those fantastic pointed
(24:36):
caps that we still see made today, uh and chunky
textiles that are made with thick wolf fibers. We're going
to focus a little on the notable styles that have
developed through the British Isles and Ireland because for such
a relatively small area, there's just a lot of variety
and a lot of specificity to each region's individual knitting styles.
(24:58):
Uh So fair asle it's that's probably a phrase that
you have heard before, whether you knit or not. If
you have just shopped, you have probably seen something advertised
this way. That name has been leveraged by clothing companies
for years in advertising to convey quality and fair Isle
is a relatively remote island to the north of Scotland,
and it's become known for a knitting style that really
echo Scandinavian designs. The modern version of a fair Isle sweater,
(25:21):
which really hit its developmental stride in the nineteen teens,
features horizontal stripes of repeating designs worked in multiple colors.
Fair Isle is near to the islands that make up Shetland,
and it's the region known for its wool. That wool,
which is multi colored, both because of the wide range
of sheep colors and because some are dyed with natural
color in such as lichen and matter, has been a
(25:44):
key component in fair Isle knitting since the eighteen hundreds
and the modern era. Some synthetic dies have been used
in fair Ale knitting, but it's really at a minimum,
with natural dies still holding a lot of favor. During
the nineteen twenties, in particular, fair Isles were incredibly popular
with the fashion set, particularly in more muted color ways.
(26:05):
If you look at fashion plates, particularly for gentlemen of
the ninet twenties, you will see exactly what we're talking
about with the fair Isle sweater, particularly like with a
golfing outfit that like really unique, beautiful banded design repeats.
The Channel Islands off the French West Coast have a
knitting tradition that dates back to the late Tutor era,
(26:25):
and this reason made very fine stockings favored by the
likes of Mary, Queen of Scotts, and the location close
to the European continent made it a natural place for
exporting knitting to other countries. Because the islands became somewhat
isolated as revolutions and wars kept neighboring countries busy. Uh,
the export business lagged, but the knitting continued and the
(26:47):
drop off an influence from trading countries actually cemented the
style of sweater that's considered the Channel Islands signature. It's
a very squared off, boxy shape with knotted edges. It's
sort of a decorative nodding along the edge is that's
they're kind of finishing. And there's also normally a slit
on either side of a sweater. And as I say
sweater over and over, I feel compelled to mention that
(27:10):
in some countries they call it a jumper. Yep, I'm
referring specifically to like a pull over sweater, even though
sweater also gets used to reference things like cardigans and whatnot,
at least in the US. But a pull over setter
sweater or what some people would call a jumper. So uh,
that slit that I was mentioning is normally on either
side of the bottom edge like at the hip of
(27:30):
these sweaters for range of movement, and these were particularly
in dark colors, very popular with fishermen for decades. North
of the Scottish Mainland, as we alluded to earlier, are
the Shetland Islands, and one of the hallmarks of the
Shetland knitting tradition is its variety. Goods, ranging from record
blankets and socks all the way to the most delicate
(27:52):
lace have all been refined to perfection there and as
early as the beginning of the seventeen hundreds there was
trade between the Shetland Islands and merchants from Germany and
the Netherlands, but it wasn't really until at eighteen forties
that lay started to be an export focus. Up to
that point, all of that trade was more in like
the heavier goods. And one of the really lovely characteristics
(28:15):
of the fine laces of Shetland is that they're knitted
on the bias, so they start with a single stitch
which forms the corner, rather than casting on a row
of stitches and knitting a square. Like Tracy said at
the top of the show, she can knit things that
are made from rectangles. Uh. Usually that involves casting on
you know, X number of stitches and then you knit
all your rows. But this casts on one stitch and
(28:36):
then expands slowly in this beautiful bias. Knit a lace
scarf or a shawl from Shetland during its lace heyday
was considered so fine and light that you could pass
an entire full size piece through a wedding ring easily.
This was part of like how they would show the
quality to merchants. And as the chunkier fair Isle network
(28:56):
became vogue in the nineteen twenties, as we mentioned, it
became kind of part of the fashionable set. Shetland kind
of followed that trend and moved a little bit away
from lace and into heavier wool garments. I think that
thing that I abandoned that was turning into a doll.
Shall started with one stitch. It's hard, I don't My
grandmother used ended on the bias and I would just
(29:18):
sit there a dog like I couldn't really grasp how
she kept the tension right. And again it's years and
years of experience, but who could not do it? And
the pattern will tell you to begin by knitting a
gauge swatch to make sure that what unit turned out
the correct size. And I lazily have never done that,
(29:39):
which hasn't really mattered when I've been making scarves right,
but it mattered a lot when trying to make that shall.
The story of knitting in the Arran Islands in Galway
Bay off Ireland's west coast is tied to a previous
podcast topic, the Irish potato famine. In the congested district's
board was formed to address the issue poverty, and the
(30:00):
plan was to train people to knit exportable goods. This
became a local industry and it grew to the point
of the government agency's training program like a more and
more intricate designs. The hallmark of these styles that were
developed there in this time was the use of thick
wool yarn that was left in its natural color. And
the last of the regions of Great Britain and Ireland
that we're going to talk about today is the Yorkshire
(30:22):
Dale's and this rural region is unique in that industrialization
really did not impact it to the degree that it
did other areas in terms of knitting. It remained a
farming area as it always had with knitting is sort
of a secondary industry and one of the most interesting
characteristics that I just fell in love when I read
this of the knitting style associated with Yorkshire Dale's isn't
(30:43):
a pattern or a type of wool, but the actual
physical way that knitting continued there for many decades. Knitting
was not, as it is for many people, to sit
down activity, but it was something literally done on the
go while walking about with the yarn secured in a
pouch or basket at the waist. Love this so much.
Knitting also developed as a social activity in the communities
(31:05):
of the region, with large group gatherings and parties for
all ages that focused on the same things. It would
happen at any gathering plus knitting so kind of like
a quilting bee or a candle making but when knitting. Yeah,
but you would be doing those the knitting while you
stood there and chatted or you know, perhaps even danced
a little bit. I'm just I'm really wowed and delighted
(31:27):
by the idea of knitting while you do other things,
while you perambulate about. Uh. We also have a little
bit of late breaking news because we mentioned briefly South
America UM, which presumably either got knitting through trade or
they were developing their own yard arts. But there was
a really interesting discovery very very recently in January, so
(31:49):
just a few months ago, and at a four thousand
year old dig site in Lima, Peru. UH. There researchers
they're turned up what we're described as knitting implements in
a woman's tomb. And whether or not these were actually
knitting implements or tools for some other fiber art isn't
clear to us just yet. I have only seen them
(32:10):
listed as knitting implements. But if they are knitting implements,
this really changes the narrative of knitting's history significantly. If
they can find evidence that this was actual knitting, that
completely changes the timeline. So these items were found with
with numerous other artifacts that will no doubt I'll be studied,
so hopefully we will eventually get some news about what
(32:31):
all of that is, but right now we don't know,
so that could make all of this podcast completely incorrect
in terms of its historical accuracy. It's timeline will still exist,
but there will be things that predate all of it,
which would be cool, and we can do an update
at that point. Do you have some listener mail? I do,
and I almost feel guilty because we've read several pieces
(32:52):
of listener mail about this, but this has a neat
reference for people if they wanted to learn more, so
I wanted to include it. It's about our our episodes
on various holiday characters and traditions, and it is from
Nikki and she is referencing specifically Befauna, and she says
there are many variations to this story, but the one
thing that holds true is that all of the children
get coal, and Beffauna always sweeps your house. Carbon dulce,
(33:16):
which is sweet coal, is a candy similar to rock
candy that's given to Italian children. Is a reminder that
none of us are perfect and that we may have
our bad moments, they're still sweet. Also, the Italian folklore
behind her is that she is like a proper Italian woman.
She keeps a clean home. Uh so she types L
O L and she says, so if you leave a
broom out at night, she will also sweep your floors.
(33:37):
She has definitely evolved over the years, making her far
more sincere and approachable. And my children their generation American
both celebrate Baffuna's arrival every year. It's a great holiday
and for those with young children that want to take
on one of our most beloved traditions. Told me to Paula,
who is a children's author, and that is spelled t
O M I E and then de Paula looks like
(33:57):
one last name d E capital p A O l
A in case you want to look it up. Is
a children's author that has a great book that explains
Bafana to kids. My son brings it into his class
every year, so I don't get any calls from his
school about the which that visits our house. Thank you, Nikki.
That was awesome. Um, it's good to have something to
refer people to, especially because some of those traditions are
(34:20):
really fun and I know people would love to kind
of explore and incorporate some of those possibly, uh, for
their tiny historians and their homes, and that's a I
always like having a good reference for people, so thank
you for that. If you would like to write to
us about your knitting, or your holiday traditions or anything else,
you can do so at History Podcast at how stuff
works dot com. We're also at Facebook dot com, slash
(34:42):
mist in History, on Twitter at miss in History, at
pinterest dot com, slash mist in History at miss in
history dot combler dot com. We're on Instagram and miss
new history. UH. If you would like to toy a
little bit with what we've talked about today, you can
go to our parents site, how stuff Works. Type the
word knitting into the search bar and you'll get a
quiz called the Ultimate Knitting Quiz. Your confession. I haven't
(35:02):
taken it, so I don't know how hard it is,
and I don't know if I would past it, because well,
I know how to knit the basics, I'm not an
ultimate knit or by any stretch of the imagination. Uh.
You can also visit us at our home on the web,
which is a mist in history dot com, for an
archive of every episode of the show ever of all time,
as well as show notes for any of the ones
since Tracy and I have been doing the show as
(35:25):
well as occasional blog posts, and we encourage you to
come and visit us at Miston history dot com and
how stubwords dot com for lare on this and thousands
of other topics. Because it has to works dot com
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Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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