Knitting Madonna
Knitting Madonna
The oldest hand knitted socks found so far, were in a tomb in Egypt. They date from about 300 AD.
After that, knitting neeles entered the dark ages as far as the history books are concerned, but that’s often the way with stuff done mostly by women. Not a lot of historic mention was made of say the whisk or the clothespeg. Doesn’t mean they weren’t popular, but you didn’t bring them into battle with you. Usually. By the 1300s knitting was HOT in Europe. Even the Virgin Mary is pictured knitting baby Jesus a sweater. Not socks, alas. Maybe they didn’t wear socks in the holy land? Anyway, these pictures of knitting Madonna (now that would’ve been a great name for a blog!) are from the early 14th century.
In the Elizabethan era was a big thing among men, apparently. They even had their own guilds.
In the 17th and 18th centuries Scotland had a booming hand knitting industry. Fishermen needed warm, thick sweaters and the slightly oily texture was a bit water resistant as well. Whole families knitted all manner of garments, leading to the development of the famous Fair Isle and Aran (cable stitch) patterns. The sad background to Fair Isle stitch is that mothers and wives knitted those special cables to be able to identify their husbands and sons if they had drowned at sea.
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Me, knitting
I’ve tried the Kitchener Stitch. It’s ok, but to be honest, I thought it was a bit messy. If you don’t have any equipment such as tapestry needles and/or no patience and/or no talent, this might work for you: My Mum’s Stitch!
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My first two Ipodsocks!
I love knitting so much, I’ve actually joined several knitting groups & blogs and I find myself discussing the virtues of different types of yarn. Wow.
There is one thing about knitting that really pisses me off though and that’s the lingo. I just don’t get the abbreviations. Yo? Bo? stst?
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Britney
I read Britney Spears is planing to give up nail biting in 2009. Once I started looking for it, I noticed that it’s almost impossible to find a pic of Britney’s nails! So I just picked one of her looking sweet. After all the terrible shots of her earlier this year, I guess she’s ready to start afresh, and will a full head of hair! (more…)
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Tea Cosy
Who’d ‘ve thunk I’d ever be writing about fun stuff to knit for Christmas? Certainly not anyone I went to school with. Anyway, I’ve been knitting my nice socks for a while now and I’ve been on the prowl for another, small, but fun, easy and useful project. A pillow case, a tea cosy or, and this is, I think, a good one for Christmas: a cellphone cosy!
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Eazy Cable Scarf
Christmas may be behind us but winter’s not over by a long shot out here in the mountains! Which means nice cosy afternoons by the fire and I was looking for a nice pattern for a scarf I wanted to knit for my mum. Something with cables, but also something I could knit without too many markers and difficult twists&turns. Or light for that matter, because we run on solar energy here way up in La Alpujarra and when there’s no sun, like today, there’s not a lot of energy either! (more…)
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Laptop sock with flap
I’ve been looking for a cute laptopbag for my dainty little laptop for ages and there don’t seem to be any, so you’ll get stuck with huge, black, padded monstrosities. Have no fear, help is near! In the form of a home knit, cute&dainty laptop sock. Keep your laptop safe from scratches.
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