when i look up a knitting term, the last thing I want is an ai overview. I want a 60+ year old woman with no understanding of lighting or helpful camera angles who still manages to give the most concise and clear explanation of how to execute purl 2tog through the backloop. ai summary fuck off, where is phyllis?
I love all handmade stuff, but before I started knitting, I always wondered why folks poured so much time and energy into making stuff that looks exacly like what youd buy at a store.
It very quickly hit me: store- bought stuff SUCKS. Handmade stuff RULES.
The kinds of stitches used, the thickness/ quality of yarn, even the dimensions of the item itself are just so shitty and cheap on mass- produced clothing. Once you know what youre looking at, you can see that its made to be worn and disposed of within a year. But that handmade brown sweater? That sucker weighs 3x what a store bought sweater weighs. Its softer, it has better stretch and even with messier seams, its STRONGER. It can survive a trathalon, a hop over a barbed- wire fence, and a minor nuclear explosion.
So hats off to all of the more stubtle fiberworks artists out there, your bulletproof crafts are magnificent.
People don't understand how much life is about eating fresh bread with a hard crust and warm stretchy insides walking home with the December air freezing the back of your hands dry and raw but your fingers warm digging in
These are the things that can leave you instantly for years and you have to taste it only in your dreams and sweat for it
My god the utter decadence of realizing that I can access my entire library's ebook catalog, at any hour of any day, directly from my phone. I can be lying in bed at 1 AM and suddenly I have a new book as easily as clicking on a fanfic. If I don't like it I can backspace out as easily as backspacing out of a fanfic. There's zero investment cost. It's just right there. Who else is doing it like her.
Sometimes I think about how in order to be a writer today you cannot have internet privacy. I was reading an article in which a journalist recalls collaborating with Mary Oliver, who was notoriously private. Oliver refused to communicate with them through fax or email and said (through her publisher) that she would hand them written notes at an event she was doing in New York City. It struck me that Mary Oliver in 2024 would have almost no chance of becoming a successful poet. Writers today have to have a social media presence to have a built in audience so publishers can be assured that they will get sales and to bear the brunt of social media marketing. They have to be available and put themselves on the internet in every way possible.
More and more I read interviews from artists across many mediums talk about how if you cannot market on Tik Tok your chances of success diminish. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be an online influencer and I am surely not saying that the author-influencer is a new phenomenon, but it should not be a pre-requisite for being a successful writer. I love that writers like Mary Oliver, Elena Ferrante, and Donna Tart exist, and it is not talked enough about how they could not begin a career in 2024 and achieve the same amount of success unless they were well connected or extremely lucky. It makes me sad that this is the state of publishing.
Fr yall are not showing the fruits of the spirit. It’s giving Grapes of WRATH. Where is the cognitive dissonance??? Please either protect the children or SHUT THE FUCK UP.
I wrote this for a class on Victorian Literature because my professor let me research knittinf and make a cape instead of writing a literary analysis paper. The cape that is discussed from The Art of Knitting is what I created for this project, with the illustration from the book on the top right and the cape I knit on the left. The book is from 1892 and is free on Internet Archive, and Engineering Knits on YouTube made a wonderful video about it. (More photos of the cape at the end!)
Knitting experienced a surge of popularity in Victorian England, and was even a topic of discussion in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. After gaining popularity due to industrialization, knitting became a common pastime for women. Knitting was important because it existed as a way for Victorian women of all classes to be seen as virtuous and gave them the look of domesticity, while additionally functioning as a means of income for working-class women by either knitting or writing about knitting.
Industrialization shifted the view of knitting from economic necessity to a fashionable pastime for gentry women. In 1589 the first mechanical knitting machine was invented in Nottingham, which industrialized the knitting industry (“The History of Hand-Knitting"). Dyed wool trade with Germany and the subsequent booming industry of knitting pattern books turned knitting into something more accessible and artistic than solely practical (Rutt 112). Knitting became popular and fashionable for gentry women around 1835 (Rutt 111). Women of all classes have knitted long before the Victorian period, but the industrial changes shifted knitting to a popular and fashionable pastime for gentry women, in addition to the economic necessity for working-class women.
Knitting served as a way to keep women wholesomely busy. In The Art of Knitting, a quote from the beginning by Richter reads “A letter or a book distracts a woman more than four pair of stockings knit by herself” (qtd in The Art of Knitting 2). Knitting kept women busy without opening them up to new ideas that came from letters and books. Furthermore, a writer in The Magazine of Domestic Economy writes how useless the items (upper-class) women made were, but praises knitting in its effort “to rid of those hours which, but for their aid, might not be so innocently disposed of” (qtd in Rutt 112). Concentrating on knitting produces something at the end of the hours of challenging work but does not expose women to any material that the Victorians would deem dangerous or immoral. Thus, even when women made something useless, they were keeping themselves busy in a virtuous way.
Knitting also gave women the feminine and domestic look that was expected of them in the Victorian era. This can be seen in Jane Eyre with Jane’s description of Mrs. Fairfax upon their meeting. Jane thinks, “[Mrs. Fairfax] was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat demurely at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete the beau-ideal of domestic comfort” (Bronte 145). This is the first time the reader sees Mrs. Fairfax, surrounded by a warm fire, a cat and engaged in a feminine pastime. She is the image of domesticity. Jane admires Mrs. Fairfax, in part, for the comfort her nature, including knitting, brings. Mrs. Fairfax shows the role knitting plays into the idea of women as domestic creatures.
Certain forms of knitting made women appear elegant. Frances Lambert, author of 1842 manual The Handbook of Needlework, advises women to knit using the common Dutch knitting method, in which the yarn is held over the fingers of the left hand and the needles pointed upwards, because it was seen as a more elegant style of knitting (Rutt 113). While Rutt notes that this method was a faster way of knitting, Lambert does not comment on this, but instead focuses on its aesthetic qualities. This style of knitting was popular because it allowed for the look of style that was mandatory in women’s lives.
While gentry women were often restricted to making less practical knit items, some knitting authors disparaged this for frivolity and immorality. Working-class women did not have this criticism as the things they made were out of practicality and meant for regular use. In picking yarn color and material, Mlle Riego de la Branchardiere, author of Ladies Handbook of Knitting, Netting and Crochet writes “...and let her be careful to make all she does a sacrifice acceptable to her God” (qtd in Rutt 116). Rutt asserts that although Victorian knitting is seen as producing useless knits, some authors disparaged this (117). They instead encouraged women to focus on what they saw as the spiritual aspects rather than on aesthetics, as everything women did, including knitting, should enhance their virtue.
While knitting was popular as a pastime, it was still used out of economic need and served as a way for working-class women to earn money. Knitting was taught in orphanages and poor houses, with the first knitting school opened in Lincoln, Leicester, and York in the late 1500s. One school in Yorkshire was established for boys and girls who were “not in affluence” (“The History of Hand-Knitting"). The first knitting book, titled The National Society's Instructions on Needlework and Knitting, published in 1838, was an instructional manual for teachers to teach poor students the art of knitting and needlework. Knitting was used as a personal hobby, but also as a way for working-class people to support themselves.
The importance of knitting to working-class women can be seen in Jane Eyre. St John tells Jane, “It is a village school: your scholars will be only poor girls—cottagers’ children—at the best, farmers’ daughters. Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering, will be all you will have to teach” (Bronte 541). Knitting will be a way for these young girls to get jobs and to be able to make clothes for themselves and their families. In this way, knitting was more than a fashionable and artistic hobby, but a necessity for many working-class women.
In addition to manufacturing knitwear, women were able to make substantial livings writing about knitting. There was a boom in knitting and needlework publications during the 19th century (“The History of Hand-Knitting"). Some, such as The Art of Knitting, were published directly by publishers with no one associated author. Others were authored by women and were immensely successful. Cornelia Mee, who published shorter pamphlet-type knitting books, sold over 300,000 copies during their run in print (Rutt 115). Francis Lambert, author of two editions of My Knitting Book, sold a combined 65,000 copies and was translated into several languages across Europe (Rutt 113). Knitting gave working-class women opportunities to earn money, whether it was making knitwear or writing about knitting.
Knitting manuals contained various topics, such as some focusing on the religious and virtuous aspects of knitting as discussed previously, but most, if not all, had patterns in them. Under the chapter “Hoods, Capes, Shawls, Jackets, Fascinators, Petticoats, Leggings, Slippers, etc., etc.” in The Art of Knitting there is a pattern to knit a cape. Victorian knitting patterns tended to be broad and vague. Today's patterns are quite concerned with needle size and gauge, unlike many Victorian patterns. For instance, the cape pattern instructs the reader to “use quite coarse needles and work rather loosely,” (60).
Knitting was an important skill for women in the Victorian era, and they knit for a multitude of reasons. Knitting gave women the look of virtue, elegance, and domesticity. Working-class women used their knitting skills to support themselves and their families through making knitwear or writing about knitting.
Sources:
The Art of Knitting. The Butterick Publishing Co. 1892. https://archive.org/details/artofknitting00butt/page/60/mode/2up?ref=ol&vi ew=theater
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Planet eBooks. 1847.
“The History of Hand-Knitting" Victoria and Albert Museum.
Rutt, Richard. A History of Hand Knitting. Interweave Press. 1987. https://archive.org/details/historyofhandkni0000rutt/page/n7/mode/2up?vie w=theater
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