The Knitting Mania, and Those Who Hate It

It seems that as long as there have been those who are avid knitters, there have been non-knitters who complain about it. One of my exes complained that it made him feel as though "he must not be very important" when I knitted while we watched TV rather than cuddling with him. Sorry, darling. Here's hoping your current partner has two left thumbs. Another pointed out that it was "not cost-efficient" for me to knit when I could earn the money to buy the item in much less time. He also kept quoting Anthony Robbins at me. I'm sure he's still out there somewhere making facile and condescending observations to some woman who, happily, isn't me.

The Hampshire Advertiser & Salisbury Guardian published the poem below on Saturday, December 11, 1847, only a few decades after knitting had become commonplace among English women of all classes. The poet, though he felt he "must speak out his mind", did so anonymously. He was, after all, criticizing an armed camp. I can't help wondering if he got the kind of wife he wanted, one who never did needlework for pleasure but instead was happy to only attend to the necessary sewing and mending and "every duty prize". Because if he did find such a woman, I bet she either developed an addiction to laudanum or decamped with the chimney sweep within a few years.



The Knitting Mania


I really must — it is no use — I must speak out my mind
And wonder how the ladies can delight in knitting find;
Such pointed, pricking, sharp-edged tools, such rolling balls of thread,
Such puzzling over bewildering rules with such bewilder’d head.


My mother and my sisters four are clever in this way,
They knit at morning, noon and night; they knit, in fact, all day;
Their little bags, their pointed pins, are in their fingers ever;
In short, I really do believe, they’ve got the knitting fever.


And, after all, what good results, come from such industry?
It is not comforters, or socks, they ever knit for me;
But pence-jugs, purses, smoking-caps, while over chair and screen
Are knitted clothes of every kind, and newest patterns seen.


We’ve mats for every standing thing, we’ve covers for each dish;
We’ve knitted cloths for bread and cheese, for fruit, and flesh, and fish;
Our rich dessert dish is fill’d up with bobbins starch’d and clean,
We wipe our mouths in d’Oyleys of every pattern seen.


How many a scratch and prick I get! I could not count them all!
How many a time about my feet I get the tangled ball.
And often have I borne away a handsome square of knitting
Which clung unto my buttons from the chair where I’ve been sitting.


Alas! Alas! each stitch of work I now must pay for doing
My sisters they will knit for me, but cannot think of sewing.
No buttons can I get put on; no gloves can I get mended,
All little comforts of my home are now left unattended.


I might get married, certainly — but I’ll not think of this —
I know how much a knitting wife can marr domestic bliss;
There are such things as knitted caps, and robes, and trimmings too,
And many other pretty things the ladies now can do.


No — I shall wait until I find a wife as wives should be —
Who for all taste of fancy work of every kind is free;
One who will gladly make, and mend, and every duty prize,
Which may increase her loveliness in a fond husband’s eyes.

Queen Victoria's Royal Example

Queen Victoria was a lifelong avid knitter and crocheter, and she also spun. Though she probably only did handiwork because she enjoyed it, her taste for it had far-reaching effects. Prior to the early nineteenth century, knitting was a folk art and a cottage industry, something the poor did from necessity and to earn a living. Queen Elizabeth I bought handknitted stockings, but wasn't herself a knitter. In the nineteenth century knitting became something all socioeconomic classes did, partly because of the rise of the popular press and the subsequent availability of printed knitting patterns, partly because of technical advances in the production of knitting needles and the introduction of standardized size needles, but also and in no small part because Queen Victoria elevated the status of knitting by setting a royal example. By the end of Queen Victoria's life every properly brought-up young girl in Western society was taught to knit as a matter of course, regardless of her family's economic status. Queen Victoria probably had a very salutary effect on crocheting as well, as crocheting did not even exist long before 1800, but became a common craft in less than a century. In the picture above, Queen Victoria is show knitting in the Queen's sitting room at Windsor Castle while her daughter Princess Beatrice reads the newspaper aloud.




This crocheted scarf is one of eight Queen Victoria made to be awarded to some members of the British military who had served with distinction in the Boer War in South Africa. The scarves had no significance as a military decoration, but must have had their own very special cachet. Not to mention that I find the whole idea of Queen Victoria crocheting these special scarves for her soldiers hilariously maternal and loving-hands-at-home. Can you picture any modern head of state doing such a thing for members of his or her national military? Would Stephen Harper knit bow ties for members of the Canadian military? Would Barack Obama cross-stitch medallions for his soldiers? But then it's my understanding that this sort of thing was typical of Queen Victoria's character. She did live in a bubble of extreme privilege and could be appallingly out of touch with what life was like for her subjects (she was middle-aged before she realized there was such a thing as train tickets, as she'd always simply walked on board herself), but her tastes and mindset could be very middle class. Queen Victoria enjoyed the circus and a nip of whiskey.





In this photo, Queen Victoria is photographed crocheting. I have read that Victoria, as much as she liked to knit, was not all that skilled in the art. There's a story told that on one occasion, Victoria was visiting a Scottish household near Balmoral Castle and presented her hostess with a pair of socks that she had knitted herself. There was an elderly woman also present who was hard of hearing and hadn't grasped the visitor's identity, and who loudly remarked, "If her man gets no better made socks than that, I pity him." Fortunately, Her Majesty was amused.

My Knitted Boyfriend

My Knitted Boyfriend is a short yarn about a poor, lonely knitter who decided to take her love life into her own skilful hands. Alas, she appears to have forgotten to make her knitted boyfriend anatomically correct, but in every other way he's perfect. He's cuddly, he's no pill, and he's even machine washable! My Knitted Boyfriend is the work of Noortje de Keijzer, who knitted herself a boyfriend for a masters' project at the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2012. You can see more of de Keijzer's work on her website.

Getting Shirty

If you're into upcycling or simply can't bear to let your favourite but worn t-shirts go, Relevé Design can tell you how to make t-shirt yarn. Figuring out what to do with the resulting balls of t-shirt yarn may be more of a challenge. I'm less than impressed by the suggested projects at the bottom of Relevé Design's page, and was underwhelmed by what I came up with via Google image searches and on Ravelry. T-shirt yarn is simply too bulky to use in knitwear. People make pom-poms out of them (for what purpose I don't know), weird rope necklaces, lumpy-looking headbands, and kitschy belts.




I think your best bet is to stick with décor items such as baskets, cushions, and rugs. You'll probably be braiding rather than knitting, and you'll need to know how to work with colour and have a good eye for design in order to get attractive results, because you're going to be working with small amounts of each colour. The classic braided rug seems to be the most generally successful t-shirt yarn project. The beautiful rug above was made by Meg McElwee of Sew Liberated. I bet it feels awesomely soft and cushiony to walk on.

If you've made a successful t-shirt yarn project, feel free to link to it in the comments!

What's the Real Problem With This Picture?

There will be those who look at this picture and say that it indicates that this woman has a knitting addiction, that she needs help.

I say it indicates that she needs a new partner.

Haul That Barge, Tote That Bale, Organize That Yarn

Lorna from Knits for Life explains her inventive concept for organizing her yarn stash here. As you can see from the picture above, she's installed pegboard in a niche in her apartment, wound all her yarn into skeins, and arranged the skeins on them by colour, to an effect that is not unlike some yarn fetishist's version of the game board from Risk, with the primary object being world yarn domination. She has her needles and other knitting supplies handily stowed away in baskets below. She can even sit on the couch beside it and knit without taking her skeins off the wall. As a storage idea, it's innovative, it's visually effective, and it's readily accessible. But it wouldn't work for me.

For one thing I am a tidy-it-up-and-put-it-all-away-out-of-sight kind of organizer. I can admire something like this in someone else's home, but in my own home it would agitate me no end to look at all those supplies waiting to be used up. And then too I can think of practical objections. One generally knits with yarn that is all the same weight and/or fibre content. It would drive me crazy to search all over a wall of yarn for the fingering weights yarns, or the pure wools. I would want to see all the yarns in a particular weight or fibre together to figure out what I could make from them, and if I had to pick through all that yarn to gather them together, I would be sure to miss some. You could organize your yarns on the wall by weight and fibre content, of course, but then visually it wouldn't be nearly as appealing. I also like to save the ball bands in order to be sure of fibre content and stitch gauge when it comes time to knit with the yarn. And then there's the matter of the dust and other flotsam and jetsam that always settles over any kind of open storage unit over time.





Would you like to see how I organize my yarn? You're looking at it. I came across this chest on a curb in my neighbourhood some years ago. I pounced on it at once, lugged it the two blocks home to my house, hauled it up the two flights of stairs to my workroom, reupholstered it, and painted the legs (not all in the same day, of course). It now sits in front of the dormer window in my attic workroom, doing double duty as a storage bin and a window seat. It contains four large plastic boxes of yarn. Three of the boxes hold mixed wools and acrylics sorted by weight: one of fingering/lace weight, one of sport/DK, and one of worsted/bulky. The fourth box contains my cotton yarn of all weights. Then on top of those boxes sit the yarns I intend to use up this year, all sorted by project into plastic bags. I have two projects currently in my workbasket elsewhere in the house, and when they get finished I'll just grab one of those plastic bags and get started on the next project. My goal for the end of the year is to not have so much yarn sitting around — to have no more than will fit in those four boxes and my workbasket. So, like Lorna's, my organizational method is accessible, out of the way and visually appealing, but in a totally different way from hers. My organizational method may not have that "this is a studio where great design happens minutely" visual vibe that Lorna's does, but it does have a certain serenity and elegance to it that I value much more.

Organizational technique is highly individual and there really isn't a best overall method. It's like designing a diet or exercise plan for yourself: the supposed world's best diet or exercise régime is useless if you personally can't stick to it. Whatever organization method you use has to suit your space, your budget, the amount and type of stuff you've got to organize, to accommodate others who share your space, and also must take into account the way you work and relate to the objects you use. Some people need to see their supplies so they'll know what they have, while others prefer to keep their working area cleared away.

You're welcome to share your own tailor-made method of organizing yarn in the comments if you wish. My guess is that your method of organizing yarn is nothing like either mine or Lorna's.






But I think we can all agree to mock Vanna White's supposed method of organizing yarn, as demonstrated in the video above. Her antique pedestal bowl is really just some sort of especially rarefied workbasket that even she probably doesn't use a lot of the time. Can you really imagine her lugging that thing all over her house when she wants to crochet in different spots, as one does? It's telling that she doesn't have a real project in it, only an assortment of her name brand yarns, and it's a sure bet she's got a closet or some kind of storage unit somewhere in her house that's stuffed with yarn and that doesn't look anything you'd feature in a magazine spread.

Viking Knitting Isn't Just for Vikings Anymore

The Vikings, pillagers and plunderers that they were, were the possessors of quite a bit of metal that needed to be used in some way. So they made jewelry. By the 8th century they had created a technique that is called trichinopoly or more commonly "Viking knitting", although it is really a type of weaving. It's possible that the jewelry was used as currency on those occasions when the Vikings actually paid for their acquisitions, like some sort of wearable bank account. Ostentatious types, those Vikings. It's not like anyone in our society would string twenties together and wear them around his or her neck. I suppose when you're known for your ferocity and lawlessness, you don't have to fear being mugged or looking nouveau riche.

If the Viking style of adornment appeals to you, you can learn this technique and make your own Viking-style jewelry. It's less complicated than it looks, and you don't even have to know how to knit in order to learn. You can learn to make the bracelet above through the accompanying tutorial here.






Here's a YouTube instructional video by JewelrySupply.com, and there are a number of other such videos on YouTube.





Once you master the basic technique, you'll be able to start improvising by adding beads and findings. The necklace and earrings above are from the artist behind Woven Wire Jewelry, who offers a tutorial in the Viking knitting technique for $10 here.





I found quite a lot of lovely pieces on the net, and just included a few of my favourites here. I don't know who made this necklace. If you made it, please let me know and I'll be more than happy to credit you and add a link back to your web site or online store.





I found this necklace quite stunning. If you do, but you have no interest in learning the Viking knitting technique, it can be ordered from A Myriad Vice on Deviant Art.