knitting help

[Clark Badgett]

Hello everyone. I am wondering if there are any references available anywhere that I can use to teach myself to knit. I would need instructions that show lots of good diagrams. I figure since I can sew almost all my other uniforms and gear I might as well give the stockings and caps a try, and then I could clothe myself head to toe.

[KarinTimour]

Dear Clark:

I think it's a wonderful idea to learn to knit -- and I could type on this topic all day long.......as an added benefit, it is a great way to meet a lot of very interesting women (don't know if that's of interest to you, but it might be to others). But I digress....

I've pulled out a few books on knitting that may be of use to you, but I want to suggest that you also consider either a class (if you have a yarn store or a Joanne's Etc. they usually have classes for beginning knitters), or buy a video. The neat thing about craft videos is that if you get stuck, you can make the video re-do that step 85 times until you understand it (and you can pause it to stop the action if you want as well). There is a yarn store in Lawrence, Kansas (on Massachusetts Street, which as a reenactor always makes me chuckle) named the Yarn Barn. They have a subsidiary called "Victorian Videos" which has a catalogue with about 100 different videos to learn all sorts of period crafts, including knitting, crocheting, basketry, woven chair seat repair, beading, tatting, etc. The website to order the printed catalogue is www.yarnbarn-ks.com

I've often ordered supplies from them, and they are very nice people with whom to do business.

Books

There are quite a few new books out there for people who want to learn to knit, as we are currently in a period when knitting is considered "trendy" again. I haven't scoped out the newer books on how to knit recently, but if you'd like, the next time I'm in a yarn store I can eyeball them and give my opinion.

In the meantime, here are a few older books that you can likely pickup used for very little money (or check out of the library) but which can get you started:

"Knitting in Plain English" by Maggie Righetti (ISBN 0-312-45853-3) covers all the basics, in a step by step manner. Her writing style I find very easy to follow and conversational -- sort of like having her in the room with you talking you through each step. The one weakness that I found in this book, when I looked it over this morning evaluating it for your purpose, is that the pictures of how to cast on are a little hard to follow. This is a bit of a problem, because casting on is the first step --it's putting the stitches on the needle. So keep this book in mind for after you've learned how to start, because she so throughly and thoughtfully walks you through all the other major areas of learning to knit.

"The Complete Book of Knitting" by Gertrude Taylor (ISBN 0-684-17833-8) is a much older book (1968), and I'm sure you can pick up a copy used for only a buck or two. But it has a really terrific section in the front entitled "Teaching Yourself to Knit" with a lot of pretty clear drawings. Again, I think the drawings on how to cast on are pretty hard to understand if you haven't ever done this before.

"The Readers' Digest Knitter's Handbook" by Montese Staley (ISBN: 0-89577-467-4) is my "everything" reference. This is not a book that will take you through learning to knit in a stepwise fashion like the other two will -- but it has very, very good drawings of multiple ways of doing everything you'd ever want to do in knitting, along with Montese Staley's wry opinions on the various bits. She's British, and very opinionated, which I love. Her book has literally 14 pages of different ways to cast on, each with a very clear, very easy set of directions. I taught myself two different cast-ons which I now use all the time from her clear, well thought-out drawings. I can't say enough good things about this book, and I recommend that everyone who knits get themselves a copy.

A final word of advice -- if I were you, I'd aim to learn to knit Continental or German style, which means that you hold your yarn in the left hand. American style knitting holds the yarn in the right hand, and for every stitch you have to pause while you throw or wrap the yarn around the needle. With Continental knitting the yarn is always very close to the needle and you can build up real speed, quickly. I learned to knit American style, then was persuaded by a knitting friend to re-learn how to knit Continental style and found it much easier to accomplish, much faster and it also didn't cause my hands to hurt as much (at the time I was working as a legal secretary during the day with massive typing, and knitting at night and was starting to get carpal tunnel issues). I found that Continental knitting eased my carpal tunnel pain -- don't know if it's the same for others, but if I had it to do over, I'd learn Continental style from the beignning.

Hope that's helpful -- feel free to email me privately if you have additional questions, or if we're ever at an event at the same time I'd be happy to give you a hand in getting started. It's becomming a pretty common thing for me to sit down and teach a few folks at nearly every event, time permitting.

Thrilled that you're interested in learning,
Karin Timour
Period Knitting - Socks, Hats, Balaclavas
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Email: Ktimour@aol.com

[ElizabethClark]

I, too, learned to knit Continental, so I find American positions odd and uncomfortable--however, my Mom found a fantastic beginning knitter's book for my 7yo daughter, with extraordinarily good diagrams; if you are near a good bookstore, and want a "dummies" starter version for the excellent books Karin recommends (I and my Mom like the Reader's Digest one very much for the more developed knitter), it's a good one to start with:

Kids' Easy Knitting Projects, Quick Starts for Kids, by Peg Blanchette; Williamson Publishing 2001, ISBN 1-885593-48-1, $7.95

Do keep in mind that in the 1860s, there are men all over the world who knit--you'll be joining a merry and masculine crew. LOL

[KKS]

How common was American style (my modern book calls it English) versus Continental knitting during our period? Would a person's style have been determined by nationality/regional factors, or were they both so widespread it was merely a matter of personal choice?

I would very much appreciate any information that could be provided!

Kira Sanscrainte

[KarinTimour]

Dear Kira:

Your question is a very good one, but there really isn't a way of absolutely determining which was more or less common, short of accounts observing people knitting that are detailed enough to describe they way the person knitted.

Knitting is, by and large, a skill that you learn from another person -- now we have books, videos, etc. but in their time period you learned from someone else. My sense is that relatively few people, once they've learned, decide to switch and relearn knitting using the yarn in the other hand.

I've also seen "American" refered to as "English" -- but I know both English and American people who hold the yarn in the left hand, thus knitting "Continental," and I've occassionally met French or German knitters who carry the yarn in their right hands. Sometimes in a picture of someone knitting the detail is strong enough that you can see what hand they are holding the yarn in. Again, how many of these pictures are from our period (vs. later in the 19th or early 20th century? And how representative are the people depicted in terms of the "common, ordinary, etc." methods of knitting.

One method of knitting that is seldom or never used now, but was widespread at least in the Yorkshire Dales was the use of a knitting sheath. This was a wood piece (usually carved), with a hole in the end for your knitting needles. You jamed the wood piece under your apron string, stuck the needle into it, and your left arm held it stationary. With the fingers of both hands you moved the stitches from the left to the right needle, holding the yarn in the right hand. The needles used for this are pretty long -- 18 inches. Word has it that speeds up to 200 stitches a minute were clocked using this method. Another method of accomplishing the same thing was called a knitting belt and was either made of a leather belt with a padded section stuffed with straw or a bunch of feathers. In this case you impailed the end of your needle into the knitting belt that you wore around your waist.

Another interesting issue is the point about how to hold the needles -- do you hold them like a pencil (with the needle running across the back of your hand, or do you hold them under your palms? Apparently as knitting became more of a fashionable type of needlework, some knitters thought it was much more refined to hold the needles like pencils.

Hope that's helpful,
Karin Timour
Period Knitting - Socks, Hats, Balaclavas
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Email: Ktimour@aol.com

[ElizabethClark]

One source for info might be the Florence Hartley book (reprinted by R. L. Shep--I think it's the teal one) that gives instructions in knitting; The Workwoman's Guide also has a short section on it, if I recall correctly. I've never sat down to decipher them, myself, as I don't really enjoy knitting enough to wrap my brain around it. But, for avid knitters with nothing else to do.... LOL

I had to think on it... I hold them under my hand entirely most of the time, so I'm not "refined." I use a modified "sheath" method, too, bracing the left-hand needle in my lap--skirts and petticoats help tremendously with that. It is true--keep even one needle stationary, and the speed increases pretty far.

[KarinTimour]

Dear Elizabeth and Kira:

Looking through most of my period sources, few of them mention how to hold the needles or whether to carry the yarn in the right or left hands. In "Knit, Net, Crochet of the Era of the Hoop" there is a picture series showing how to hold needles reprinted from an 1858 Petersons magazine - the yarn is in the right hand. In Beeton's Book of Needlework (1870) they talk about holding the yarn in the right hand. In the Work Woman's Guide, (1844) the aurthor first talks about holding the yarn in the right hand, then mentions an alternative method which she labels the "Dutch method" of knitting where you hold the yarn in the left hand.

According to Richard Rutt's "History of Hand Knitting," holding the yarn in the right hand is the oldest recorded method -- there are pictures of the Madonna knitting that were painted in the 1300s. He quotes a Norwegian author frim the Vestlandske Kunstindustrimuseum Arbok (with a little "o" balanced on top of the "A") from 1954-7 who states that Germans started the whole fashion of holding the yarn in the left hand during the 19th century. He also mentions English knitting books of the 1840s mention carrying the yarn in the left hand as "Dutch" which he thinks is a corruption of "Deutsch" (the German word for "German"). Which echoes what was found in the "Workwoman's Guide" above. He also mentions Anne Stephens in her "The Ladies Complete Guide to Crochet, Fancy Knitting and Needlework" (1854) notes that Russians also carried the yarn in their left hand, but Rutt thinks this is due to the cultural influence of the Germans on the Russians.

So we have evidence that both methods were in use in our time period. It would seem from the above sources that if you are portraying an immigrant from The Netherlands, Russia, Germany, Scandinavia (or someone who was taught to knit from someone who learned in these countries) you would knit with the yarn in the left hand. Immigrants from Ireland, England and native-born people (or those who were taught by someone who was from one of these areas) would hold the yarn in the right hand.

Again, most people in our period learned knitting from another person, and are going to learn the method that that person uses. In the present day, most knitting books printed in the US emphasize knitting with the yarn in the right hand. And yet both Elizabeth and I are native-born and learned from native-born knitters how to knit with the yarn in our left hands (I'm assuming here about your experience Elizabeth, correct me if I'm wrong).

So if you go by the printed sources, most folks probably knit with the yarn in their right hands. Now for the kicker -- how many of the ordinary women, especially women over 30 in our period were even literate, let alone learned knitting out of a book?

Fascinating questions, Kira, thanks for brining them up,
Karin Timour
Period Knitting -- Socks, Hats, Balaclavas
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Emaiil: Ktimour@aol.com

[ElizabethClark]

Yep, you assume correctly, Karin!

Interesting thought on literacy--worthy of it's own topic, I think!

Knitting literacy, however, has historically been a handed-down thing, rather than a book-learned thing... And yet there were books, so not everyone learned by handing down! Man, I want a time machine. LOL

Now here's a fun kicker, too: I learned knitting from Mom, who learned from her Great Grandmother, who's mother was a child during the Civil War. That side of the family is German, emigrating sometime prior to the revolutions in the 40s. So that may be why our "native" tradition is "Deutch" knitting, rather than right-hand knitting.

[Clark Badgett]

Thanks for the help ladies. And I don't think my wife would like me meeting interesting women

[KarinTimour]

Dear Elizabeth:

You wrote:

And yet there were books, so not everyone learned by handing down!

I want to clarify a point -- out of nearly 20 period knitting books that I checked for basic information about knitting, only one -- the Workwomen's Guide had a written out description of how to hold the needles and thread.

The reprinted section from Peterson's had the only period drawings I found out of these resources.

Over 90% of my period sources had no information about how to hold needles, how to cast on, etc., but launched straight from the title page into instructions on specific items. I think very few people learned to knit from written sources in our time period.

Karin Timour
Period Knitting -- Socks, Hats, Balaclavas
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Email: Ktimour@aol.com