I found a pattern some time ago in a “one skein wonder” knitting book. It was a top that to this day I have no clue how they thought it could ever be made out of one skein. However, the comment said that is was based on a tunic found in an ancient Grecian grave. I have made this top a dozen or so times. To say the least it takes about four skeins to make this for a woman of medium size. I guess if you made it for Barbie or Twiggy….
It got me to wondering about the history of knitting. I have begun an in-depth research of the subject. I can’t say I have learned too much, but then I am one of those history buffs. I remember about ten years or so on PBS there was one of those programs where the modern day contestants willing gave up the comforts of home and attempted to live as primitives. I remember one particularly grumpy woman who took a ball of wool yarn from the weaver the after working with a couple of sticks announced that she would be knitting socks for the “tribe”. The producers told her that it hadn’t been invented yet. She responded that she just had. She proceeded to begin knitting socks. She calmed down a great deal and with the first pair of socks became the tribal favorite and went from hateful shrew to beloved “mother”.
I tend to think in terms rather like that. No doubt some one realized that there was a need for a fabric that could be shaped to fit. Seams rub and fittings are a pain. Advent knitting.
We find tantalized fragments of knitted good from thousands of years ago. The first items found that bare a resemblance to something we recognize is more around the middle ages. It seems there were a lot of socks knitted. Some gloves and things but on the whole socks won out. I think it comes from the wonderful roundness of knitting.
The first gloves/mittens that seem to have been knitted were simple. The luscious patterns came later. My theory is that as with anything wear wears out things and the simple things used by four stair step toddlers went the way of the carved wooden spoon and bowls. They wore out and were tossed. We get fragments found in ditches sometimes.
Twineing is old, and from the look of things it was some darn sturdy stuff. The fancy patterns came along latter and were reserved for the folks who could afford it and by definition did need it so it didn’t get worn out. It got put away in trunks and later found by decedents a few hundred years later. Museum pieces though wonderful to look at aren’t a really good representative sampling of the real life of the average people. For us normal folks what was worn was functional. A woman with one at the breast and two or three crawling and toddling had no time to waste making finery that she would never wear. A shawl was for warmth and I can see where she might work in a bit of nicety for her daughter or herself or even her mother. But I think it would be more likely that the mother made that little bit of extravagance in the twilight of her life when she had years of experience with the simple and now was more free to be creative. It would be at this time that she would be allowed to sit and knit while watching the grand children.
A young girl learning would have been taught the simple and easy that would be desperately needed by a young couple. The warm socks and mittens and even sweaters and jackets. Socks are simple. They look daunting to some but they are very very simple.
I have noted that there are a great deal of recorded forms of knitting that were done while a woman was walking from point a to point b. Talk about never a moment for yourself. Imagine walking behind the herd of cattle moving them up to the summer pasture, a baby on your back, a toddler by your side, keeping track of the other kids who are supposed to be helping and your knitting socks as you go! Yet that was the way of things. It took hours to prepare each meal. There was not a store to run to for the items needed let alone the inability to buy such things!
Knitting was the art of time management. It is to this day portable. Easier than mending to take with you and requiring little thought if the pattern is simple enough.
I set out to find and copy and perhaps modernize a few patterns. I am still researching. So far I only have the one. I will find more that speak to me. That tell me about the women and girls who created them. Why were they developed and why were they remade over and over again. I think they were knitting the same patterns over and over again just as I do. There is logic in the thought. I will keep looking and keep you posted.
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