Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Since it's a winter time for most of
Speaker 1: our listeners and so many folks are spending most of
Speaker 1: their time at home, it seemed like a good time
Speaker 1: for kind of a cozy, homey episode. This is our
Speaker 1: history of knitting. If anybody took up knitting as a
Speaker 1: way to pass the time during the pandemic, send us
Speaker 1: some pictures of your creations, even if this wasn't a
Speaker 1: new hobby for you. I would love to see pictures
Speaker 1: of people's handiwork. I always love it. Uh. This episode
Speaker 1: originally came out on March Welcome to Stuff You Missed
Speaker 1: in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye, and we're
Speaker 1: finally going to hit on a topic that has been
Speaker 1: requested by a lot of people, A lot a lot
Speaker 1: of people, uh, including Alexis and Secret and many others
Speaker 1: too many two lists and count Tracy, do you knit well?
Speaker 1: I mean the short answer is yes, but I don't
Speaker 1: need anything fancy. I basically knit things that can be
Speaker 1: constructed from rectangles. I don't fair that counts well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I know, I know folks who are really really
Speaker 1: into knitting, and they know all kinds of fancy stitches,
Speaker 1: and they know how to knit cables, and they know
Speaker 1: how to do all this other stuff. I know how
Speaker 1: to knit in pearl and add one and make one
Speaker 1: and cast on and bind off, and I can make
Speaker 1: lots of scarfs and shawls and the occasional hat. Uh.
Speaker 1: But like I don't make anything fancy. We're on similar
Speaker 1: levels at that point. Like I, I um know how
Speaker 1: to knit the basics, it's not for me, Like in
Speaker 1: the creative realm, the yard arts are not my thing.
Speaker 1: I'm really more of a dressmaker at heart. Part of
Speaker 1: it is that, probably because I have not actus knitting,
Speaker 1: I always feel like in the time it takes me
Speaker 1: to make a scarf, I can make six or seven dresses.
Speaker 1: So it's hard for me to get really married to
Speaker 1: the idea of knitting. But lots of people knit, and
Speaker 1: some people do absolutely beautiful things knitting. Uh. And because
Speaker 1: of its functionality and providing needed clothing and covering in
Speaker 1: accessories for humans, knitting has been around for quite a
Speaker 1: long time. Exactly how long is not entirely clear, but
Speaker 1: we do know a decent amount about how it has
Speaker 1: kind of traveled with us humans through time once it
Speaker 1: came about, and our colleagues at Stuff Mom Never Told
Speaker 1: You did a knitting episode in January of this year,
Speaker 1: and as you might expect, their focus is some history
Speaker 1: and then a lot on how knitting has been commonly
Speaker 1: associated with one sex or the other throughout history. And
Speaker 1: they also talk a lot in that episode about how
Speaker 1: the invention of mechanized knitting machines really shifted things and
Speaker 1: how gender roles were affected by that invention. Uh So,
Speaker 1: for us, we're going to focus more on the earlier
Speaker 1: years of knitting and similar techniques to knitting and sort
Speaker 1: of their place in history. And then we're going to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the vast variety of network
Speaker 1: that developed in just one small part of the world,
Speaker 1: just to kind of give you a sense of of
Speaker 1: how things can kind of blossom in different locations. So
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about mechanized knitting and
Speaker 1: even some fun spy related knitting tales, you should check
Speaker 1: out Kristen and Caroline's knitting episode. But we're going to focus,
Speaker 1: like I said, more on the history of parttic early
Speaker 1: the early part of knitting, the first known use of
Speaker 1: the word knit as a noun, as in this fabric
Speaker 1: is a knit. It was in the late fifteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: but the words roots as a verb go back a
Speaker 1: lot farther. The first known use as a verb was
Speaker 1: prior to the twelfth century, and it's possibly derived from
Speaker 1: the Middle English knitting, which descends from the Old English
Speaker 1: word knitting, which is spelled with C. The root of
Speaker 1: that word is the Old English word for not, which
Speaker 1: is nada. And it also maybe like to the Dutch
Speaker 1: word newton. I now that I have access to the
Speaker 1: Oxford English Dictionary, I love to look things up and
Speaker 1: the Oxford English Dictionary and the first thing I did
Speaker 1: was plugged knit in there, and I found the most
Speaker 1: liful thing, which is actually from an English uh like
Speaker 1: a French book for English speakers, um and and and
Speaker 1: it's descriptions of how to say things about knitting, was
Speaker 1: the sentence I nknit bonnets or hosen from from and
Speaker 1: knit is spelled k and y t and I just
Speaker 1: like hosen. In general, one of the problems with tracing
Speaker 1: the history of knitting is that there were similar techniques
Speaker 1: in use throughout history that have caused some artifacts to
Speaker 1: be misidentified. So to someone who knits or knows about knitting,
Speaker 1: the difference would be fairly apparent, but to researchers that
Speaker 1: maybe aren't textile specialists, it's really easy to attribute a
Speaker 1: creation technique of an object to knitting when it might
Speaker 1: not be, and there are even cases where experts have
Speaker 1: been fooled. Additionally, a lot of the ancient knitting examples
Speaker 1: are of course made out of natural fibers, and a
Speaker 1: lot of them have decomposed over time, so we have
Speaker 1: very very few actual samples to study. Most of the
Speaker 1: work looking at knitting's origins has been pieced together from
Speaker 1: cultural cues rather than actual samples of knit items. And
Speaker 1: to complicate matters even further, in the early history of knitting,
Speaker 1: there was not standardized vocabulary for it, so even in
Speaker 1: texts where it seems like knitting is being referenced, it
Speaker 1: may not be what we think of as knitting today,
Speaker 1: and vice versa. There are instances where some form of
Speaker 1: needlework or fiber arts is mentioned and it could be knitting,
Speaker 1: but we really don't have a way to know for
Speaker 1: certain because knitting and it's spread or closely linked to
Speaker 1: trade routes. We also don't know with certainty that the
Speaker 1: few historic samples that we have of knitting that, if
Speaker 1: you know, that we've discovered are even from the place
Speaker 1: that they were found. They could have been made somewhere
Speaker 1: else then carried along a trade route. In terms of
Speaker 1: the earliest knitting artifacts so far, they also all exist
Speaker 1: on their own. There aren't additional contemporary samples to look
Speaker 1: at to contextualize them. So, for example, we've never found
Speaker 1: a cash of knitted items all together in one space,
Speaker 1: which I don't in my imagination. That means that there
Speaker 1: was like, no, no twelfth century cat lady knitted a
Speaker 1: million a million pairs of mittens and little cat booties.
Speaker 1: It appears no, it's always like one sock, one fragment, one.
Speaker 1: You know, there's not There's not a lot. So keep
Speaker 1: all of that in mind as we're talking about knittings
Speaker 1: history and origins. A lot of this um is based
Speaker 1: on some some kind of moving parts. As we try
Speaker 1: to figure out more and more about it, and before
Speaker 1: we dig into finding knitting's genesis, let's first talk a
Speaker 1: little bit more in detail about the various techniques for
Speaker 1: turning yarn or thread into textiles, how the ones that
Speaker 1: aren't knitting differ from knitting and kind of where they
Speaker 1: all fit into the bigger picture. Of course, we'll start
Speaker 1: with knitting. Knitting uh manipulates the yarn or thread to
Speaker 1: create a textile by using two needles. That's important to
Speaker 1: create loops within loops, and that results in a textile
Speaker 1: that has some elasticity. So for our listeners who might
Speaker 1: not be familiar with knitting needles, their long, smooth, relatively
Speaker 1: thin metal or wood or plastic sticks. Their sticks are
Speaker 1: pointed at one end and a lot of times they
Speaker 1: have a blunt stop around the other end. There are
Speaker 1: variations on this basic idea for specialty nitting, but that's
Speaker 1: the basic style. To knit in the round, needles that
Speaker 1: have two pointed ends are used and the work can
Speaker 1: be passed around them in circles to create tubal knits
Speaker 1: like stockings. Some hat patterns use knitting in the round.
Speaker 1: That will become pretty important to the expansion of knitting
Speaker 1: as a trade. Yes, stockings in particular are a big driver,
Speaker 1: and as a person knits, they're looping one continuous piece
Speaker 1: of fiber over and over. So you'll see I mean
Speaker 1: you've seen pictures likely with someone knitting and they have
Speaker 1: a large skein or a large ball of yarn that
Speaker 1: they're pulling from, so it's it's not like little piece
Speaker 1: after little piece. It's usually one big thing. And then
Speaker 1: if they get to the end, they nodded so that
Speaker 1: it continues to the next ball of yarn or skein.
Speaker 1: And the stretchiness of a knitted item varies based on
Speaker 1: the size of the needles used, the thickness and the
Speaker 1: weight of the fiber being knitted, and the tension of
Speaker 1: the nitter. That's how tightly or loosely he or she
Speaker 1: tends to pull the fiber. And one thing that I
Speaker 1: left out of the notes that I should mention when
Speaker 1: Tracy was talking about the different items that knitting needles
Speaker 1: can be made out of. They have been made out
Speaker 1: of many other things in history, like bone, just basic sticks.
Speaker 1: But like if you were to go buy knitting needles today,
Speaker 1: you're looking at metal, wood or plastic. I can't think
Speaker 1: of any alternates. Bamboo, which is technically would yeah bamboo
Speaker 1: grass really, but people would violet underwood. Um. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you can get like double pointed needles that are
Speaker 1: that you would use to make little tubular things, and
Speaker 1: like ones in the round that are connected with a
Speaker 1: piece of flexible tube stuff. Like, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different things you can fine, but yeah, there's the big ones.
Speaker 1: I personally tend to be a very tight knitter. When
Speaker 1: I knit things, they come out smaller than you would
Speaker 1: expect I used to be, and I've loosened up over
Speaker 1: the years. So no, all bending looks very, very similar
Speaker 1: to knitting, and it has in fact been falsely identified
Speaker 1: as knitting before. But unlike knitting, which as we said,
Speaker 1: uses two needles, no binding uses just one needle with
Speaker 1: an eye that the fiber is threaded through. Also, unlike knitting,
Speaker 1: the end of the fiber is drawn all the way
Speaker 1: through each loop, so it's worked and cut pieces rather
Speaker 1: than as one long, continuous piece, so it doesn't create
Speaker 1: this loop within a loop within a loop chain that
Speaker 1: knitting does. A fragment of fiber textile from the ruins
Speaker 1: of ancient town Dura Europos, which is in present day
Speaker 1: eastern Syria, was long identified as possibly the earliest example
Speaker 1: of knitting, and it was from around to fifty to
Speaker 1: four twenty somewhere in that window. But nope, that was
Speaker 1: no mending, which dates back to fourteen hundred BC. Based
Speaker 1: on artifacts found at Danish sites. Um. Sometimes if you
Speaker 1: look at YouTube videos about no bending, they call it
Speaker 1: like Viking knitting. Yes, uh, and it's very fascinating to watch.
Speaker 1: It's um you know there are still people doing it today.
Speaker 1: That's kind of one of the things that I love
Speaker 1: about all of these There are things that go on
Speaker 1: and on and on. They haven't died out, uh, predating
Speaker 1: even nol bending is a textile creation technique called sprang uh.
Speaker 1: Spring has been dated back as far as fifteen hundred
Speaker 1: to eleven hundred BC, and while it also can look
Speaker 1: very similar to knitting, it actually requires a loom. It's
Speaker 1: not something that can be done portable on a couple
Speaker 1: of needles. The thread used for spraying is stretched to
Speaker 1: a high tension and secured at both ends during weaving,
Speaker 1: so you kind of create a grid of that and
Speaker 1: then when the tension is released after all the we
Speaker 1: the weaving is done, it kind of pops into its
Speaker 1: smaller shape and then you have a stretchy net like
Speaker 1: textile as a result. Just for the sake of yarn
Speaker 1: Art's inclusivity, we're also going to mention crochet, so we
Speaker 1: know that crochet came along a lot later in the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century, and it was an evolution of an embroidery
Speaker 1: tech echnique that was called tambouring. So crochet, which has
Speaker 1: worked with a single hook instead of needles, arose from
Speaker 1: the stitches being worked separately away from the backing cloth.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't usually get confused with knitting when we're
Speaker 1: looking at historical pieces. Yeah, I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: stumbled across any that are like, this is knitting. I mean,
Speaker 1: certainly layman will do that in day to day modern life,
Speaker 1: or they'll go oh yeah, so and so nit me
Speaker 1: this scarf. I was like, no, that's crochet. But in
Speaker 1: terms of historical artifacts, we don't usually run into that problem.
Speaker 1: And knitting start though, like so many other things. Uh
Speaker 1: lie clee came from the cradle of civilization, with some
Speaker 1: estimates placing its development around the eighth or ninth century,
Speaker 1: and it's possible that knitting is a direct descendant of
Speaker 1: not work fishing nets used by sailors from Arabic countries
Speaker 1: during that time. But the first known examples of knitting
Speaker 1: are from Egypt, and they're from around one thousand to
Speaker 1: fourteen hundred. These are blue and white cotton socks with
Speaker 1: an intricate pattern that indicates that they're almost definitely not
Speaker 1: the first knitted thing. They're kind of too advanced. They're
Speaker 1: simply the oldest knitted thing that we have left. You've
Speaker 1: ever knit something for the first time, it would not
Speaker 1: look like those stocks from Egypt and Islamic countries around
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean. Knitting spread to Europe, and then it's spread
Speaker 1: out throughout that continent, and then from trade, it kind
Speaker 1: of went globally from there, and knitting's rapid spread when
Speaker 1: you think about it, makes a lot of sense compared
Speaker 1: to other textile creation options. It was fast and relatively cheap,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure any modern knitters listening may have laughed
Speaker 1: at that one, because good yarn can get really expensive
Speaker 1: in a hurry. Knitting a sweater is very rarely going
Speaker 1: to save you any money, and in many cases will
Speaker 1: cost you a great deal more than purchasing one at
Speaker 1: a store, but you will have a custom work of
Speaker 1: art at the end. Uh. There was also no need
Speaker 1: for a loom with knitting, and it was relatively easy
Speaker 1: to learn. It was also portable. You just needed too
Speaker 1: thin stiff items to act as needle and to act
Speaker 1: as needles and then a thread or the threat of
Speaker 1: the yarn that you were going to use, and the
Speaker 1: variety of items that could be created with knitting was
Speaker 1: incredibly diverse. So by varying the weight and thread or
Speaker 1: yarn used, or the size of the needles and the stitches,
Speaker 1: everything from heavy weight knits that were like protective items
Speaker 1: two delicate laces could be created using the basic same
Speaker 1: handheld technology. Another cool thing about knitting that I think
Speaker 1: is less true at least than my experience of a
Speaker 1: lot of other textiles that you might make for utility purposes,
Speaker 1: is that you can learn pretty easily to knit in
Speaker 1: the dark, like the Oh that's true. The women who
Speaker 1: taught me to knit grew up in Germany during World
Speaker 1: War Two, and they had a lot of times when
Speaker 1: they would have to be in blackout conditions, um, and
Speaker 1: so they all knew how to knit by feel, which
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier I think to knit by feel,
Speaker 1: especially if you're nitting something pretty simple than to sow
Speaker 1: a garment by feel or too embroider by feel. That's
Speaker 1: just my guess. I kind of want to do an
Speaker 1: art project where I make things in the dark and
Speaker 1: see what they look. So the first known examples of
Speaker 1: knitting in Europe or pillow covers made of silk fiber,
Speaker 1: and they were found in Spain and their dated circuit
Speaker 1: twelve seventy. In addition to the pillow covers which are
Speaker 1: found in a prince's too, most of the knitting examples
Speaker 1: from Spain were around the same time we're pretty or nate,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them were liturgical items that were
Speaker 1: for use in the Catholic Church. And coming up, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about an alternate, though unsubstantiated origin point for knitting.
Speaker 1: But first we're gonna pause for a word from one
Speaker 1: of our sponsors. So we mentioned before the break that
Speaker 1: there is an alternate story of where knitting came from.
Speaker 1: There actually several, but these are the kind of big ones. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is an apocryphal story about the origin of knitting
Speaker 1: that kind of slots it before any of these known
Speaker 1: examples that we've talked about. And this tale claims that
Speaker 1: Saint Fiacra, who is an Irish abbot, invented knitting and
Speaker 1: then passed it on to France and that it's spread
Speaker 1: from there. So this kind of is the exact opposite
Speaker 1: direction of spread that we actually have archaeological evidence of,
Speaker 1: and this would shift dates really significantly. Though, as San
Speaker 1: Fiacra died in the year six seventy, there's no real
Speaker 1: evidence to back the claim that he invented knitting, although
Speaker 1: he is claimed by some as the patron Saint of knitting,
Speaker 1: and there does not appear to be an official patron
Speaker 1: saint of knitters that I could find, but there are
Speaker 1: several that are claimed by various different ideologies and groups.
Speaker 1: So and Itto St. Fiakra, St. Lucy, St Ursula, St. Sebastian,
Speaker 1: and St. Rebecca have all been claimed by knitters at
Speaker 1: some point in time, but none of these stories really
Speaker 1: holds the key to the history of knitting in the
Speaker 1: technique outside of Spain. The majority of knitted items in
Speaker 1: Europe between the late thirteenth century right up to the
Speaker 1: early fifteenth century we're not perhaps what you might think
Speaker 1: of when you imagine knitting today. They weren't sweating sweaters
Speaker 1: or scarves or other weighty garments, but they were the
Speaker 1: sort of fine work that had been found in that
Speaker 1: prince's tomb from earlier. They were accessory items. They were
Speaker 1: delicate and fine, and items that had to do more
Speaker 1: with adornment and decoration than utility. By the late fourteenth century,
Speaker 1: knitting had definitely made its way to Germany and Italy.
Speaker 1: And we know that because the Virgin Mary is actually
Speaker 1: depicted in art from this time period. Knitting. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: And you know that wonderful feeling when you change clothes
Speaker 1: from a fitted garment made from a woven fabric i e.
Speaker 1: One that has no stretch to ac comfy knt that's
Speaker 1: got some give. Well, so did Europe during the fifteenth
Speaker 1: and sixteen centuries, because this is when knitted stockings became
Speaker 1: very very popular as trade exploded and more and more
Speaker 1: people had access to knitwears and learned to knit. According
Speaker 1: to an article in an eighteen thirty two printing of
Speaker 1: The Ladies Penny Gazette, Uh, there's a story that says
Speaker 1: that once Queen Elizabeth was given a pair of black
Speaker 1: knitted stockings from her silk woman, allegedly in the third
Speaker 1: year of her reign, she then refused to go back
Speaker 1: to woven cloth stockings. One of the Oxford English Dictionaries
Speaker 1: examples of the words knit was about Queen Elizabeth's clothes. Yes,
Speaker 1: she became a big fan once she was like wait,
Speaker 1: fabric and stretch. Excuse me, she was all in. Their
Speaker 1: popularity became so great that knitting basically became huge business
Speaker 1: at this time. This is when knitting guilds in Europe
Speaker 1: really surged in popularity. And while there is mention of
Speaker 1: what may have been some sort of knitting guild in
Speaker 1: France as early as twelve sixty eight, uh really had
Speaker 1: to do with milliners of gloves and hats. We don't
Speaker 1: really have additional confirmation of this until thirteen sixties six.
Speaker 1: That's when actual documents are there. It's entirely possible that
Speaker 1: they were more like standard attilier for accessories and then
Speaker 1: adopted knitting as the arts popularity rose and demand for
Speaker 1: knitted items skyrocketing, And by the fourteen hundreds we know
Speaker 1: that there were knitting guilds in the Netherlands and Italy,
Speaker 1: and by the early fifteen hundreds the knitting guild was
Speaker 1: one of the most important guilds in Paris, and there
Speaker 1: were guilds spread throughout Europe. By the mid sixteenth century,
Speaker 1: knitting was a prominent trade throughout the continent. Knitting in
Speaker 1: Russia became so commonplace by the sixteen forties knitted stockings
Speaker 1: were considered a standard part of military gear. The point
Speaker 1: of a guild was to maintain an improve quality in
Speaker 1: the craft, to teach new tradesmen, and to help market
Speaker 1: the goods of its members. To join the guild as
Speaker 1: a master knitter, a tradesman, and this was an all
Speaker 1: male profession at the time, would have to devote six
Speaker 1: years of his life to study, three as an apprentice,
Speaker 1: and three traveling to learn new techniques. After the six
Speaker 1: year training period, a guild candidate would have approximately three
Speaker 1: months to produce a prescribed assortment of knitted items, ranging
Speaker 1: from delicate gloves to a full knitted carpet, and then
Speaker 1: these would be reviewed for quality. If the work was worthy,
Speaker 1: the applicant would then be granted guild membership. And up
Speaker 1: to this point, for the most part, it appears that
Speaker 1: there was really just one primary knitting stitch in use,
Speaker 1: so the basic one that you would start with if
Speaker 1: you learned today like Tracy and I talked about, we
Speaker 1: can knit and we can pearl. That means that if
Speaker 1: you're doing that with the right side showing, it's smooth
Speaker 1: stitches that are created by the loops, and the backside,
Speaker 1: which is considered the pearl side shows those stitches as bumps,
Speaker 1: there's a little more texture, And up to this point,
Speaker 1: any variation in the design of a knitted item was
Speaker 1: created by changing the yarn color. But in the mid
Speaker 1: sixteenth century, somewhere right in the or we see textured
Speaker 1: knitting beginning where some of the stitches are knitted in
Speaker 1: effect backward, so that the bumps, those pearl stitches appear
Speaker 1: on the otherwise smooth right side to create patterns and designs.
Speaker 1: That's would also mean that you could change the stitch
Speaker 1: at the end so your stuff wouldn't curl up at
Speaker 1: the bottom. Yeah, because what irritates me about that stitch
Speaker 1: today I think we call stockinet. Maybe that's why. Of course,
Speaker 1: once this started, it never stopped. People are still manipulating
Speaker 1: stitches to create new texture designs all the time. The
Speaker 1: latter half of the fifteen hundreds is also the time
Speaker 1: period where people figured out how to skip stitches to
Speaker 1: leave empty spaces and nit work as part of the design,
Speaker 1: creating little islets and then progressively two more intricate laces.
Speaker 1: And this is where my knitting knowledge stopped, because I
Speaker 1: had this beautiful pattern that involved doing exactly this thing
Speaker 1: to make us a lazy looking shawl. And because as
Speaker 1: I said earlier, I am a very tight knitter, I
Speaker 1: realized about three quarters of the way through that I
Speaker 1: was making a doll shawl and not a human shawl,
Speaker 1: because I had been knitting the whole thing way too tightly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to me. I had not thought of islet
Speaker 1: fabric's sort of being. I hadn't thought of it in
Speaker 1: that way. But that's they were creating islets. Um. It
Speaker 1: just kind of fascinates me. Uh So, when the stocking
Speaker 1: frame knitting machine was invented in fifty nine, so this
Speaker 1: is not long after people really started to to play
Speaker 1: with design style and knitting, it was the first step
Speaker 1: in a dramatic shift for knitting. Knitting. My hand did
Speaker 1: not vanish at this point. That came a bit later,
Speaker 1: and it never vanished, But this didn't cause its immediate
Speaker 1: uh drop off. And we'll talk about why in a moment.
Speaker 1: But the inventor of the stocking frame was an English
Speaker 1: gentleman by the name of William Lee. And there is
Speaker 1: a rather fanciful story that claims that Lee invented his
Speaker 1: knitting frame because the woman he was enamored with was
Speaker 1: always very preoccupied with her knitting, and thus had no
Speaker 1: time or attention for him. So he decided he would
Speaker 1: free up her time by inventing a contraption that would
Speaker 1: take all the work out of her hands, and he
Speaker 1: spent the next three years working on it. It doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like he ever did win the love of his news, though,
Speaker 1: but it did change his career path from ministry to industry,
Speaker 1: as he turned his stocking production into his full time job.
Speaker 1: Once again, we will go back to Queen Elizabeth the
Speaker 1: First because it was known that she was fond of stockings.
Speaker 1: There's a reason that that a reference to her came
Speaker 1: up when Tracy looked up knit in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Speaker 1: Lee went to her and presented his invention and petitioned
Speaker 1: for a patent, but the monarch refused to issue him one.
Speaker 1: She was very fearful that this invention was going to
Speaker 1: put too many people out of work. We talked about
Speaker 1: that in our episode about the Luodites, which also relates
Speaker 1: to knitting. Now that I think about it, knitting is everywhere.
Speaker 1: It is everywhere, so Francis. King Henry the Fourth, however,
Speaker 1: was completely happy to form a partnership with Lee and
Speaker 1: his brother, and so the siblings moved to Paris to
Speaker 1: produce frames and train knitters there to use them. It
Speaker 1: seemed like a really good setup, but five years later,
Speaker 1: in sixteen ten, King Henry the Fourth was assassinated and
Speaker 1: Lee's agreement with the monarchy was no longer valid. When
Speaker 1: the inventor tried to pursue the matter with France's legal system,
Speaker 1: he met with obstacle after obstacle, and then he died
Speaker 1: in sixteen fourteen. And that sounds very sad, but there's
Speaker 1: actually something of a happy ending to this tale. Uh.
Speaker 1: William Lee's brother then went back to England, and when
Speaker 1: he did, he smuggled some of their remaining knitting frames
Speaker 1: with him, and allegedly some of the people that have
Speaker 1: been trained to use them went as well. He set
Speaker 1: up a production partnership which would eventually become the Worshipful
Speaker 1: Company of Framework Knitters, which started as a guild with
Speaker 1: a royal charter in sixteen sixty three. It existed before that,
Speaker 1: but that's when it became a royal charter, and this
Speaker 1: actually still exists today as a livery company with numerous
Speaker 1: charitable projects as well as education and outreach. Once the
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution arrived, knitting became even more mechanized and hand
Speaker 1: knitting was no longer needed to keep up with supply demands.
Speaker 1: There continued to be people who did hand knit items
Speaker 1: for sale, but it became a much smaller cottage industry,
Speaker 1: and handknitting was also freed up to be a hobby
Speaker 1: instead of the way you made you're living. You want
Speaker 1: to learn more about the whole economic ramifications of all that.
Speaker 1: That's our previously mentioned episode about the Bloodites. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: I said, Kristen and Caroline really talk a lot about
Speaker 1: kind of what happens after industrialization and and how it
Speaker 1: changed things. So next we are going to talk about
Speaker 1: some of the specific design styles of knitting in various locations.
Speaker 1: But before we do, let's take a quick break have
Speaker 1: a word from a fabulous sponsor. As knitting spread throughout
Speaker 1: the world, different areas became known for specific styles or
Speaker 1: does signs of knitting. Austria and Germany became known for
Speaker 1: heavily cable designs in The traditional knitting style found in Turkey,
Speaker 1: Kazakhstan and Afghanistan features chain stitch, embroidery and really fine
Speaker 1: patterns and those have been passed down through centuries. In
Speaker 1: South America developed uniquely shaped accessories, those fantastic pointed caps
Speaker 1: that we still see made today, uh and chunky textiles
Speaker 1: that are made with thick wool fibers. We're going to
Speaker 1: focus a little on the notable styles that have developed
Speaker 1: through the British Isles and Ireland, because for such a
Speaker 1: relatively small area, there's just a lot of variety and
Speaker 1: a lot of specificity to each region's individual knitting styles.
Speaker 1: Uh So fair asle knits. That's probably a phrase that
Speaker 1: you have heard before, whether knit or not. If you
Speaker 1: have just shopped, you have probably seen something advertised this way.
Speaker 1: That name has been leveraged by clothing companies for years
Speaker 1: in advertising to convey quality and fair Isle is a
Speaker 1: relatively remote island to the north of Scotland, and it's
Speaker 1: become known for a knitting style that rely echo Scandinavian designs.
Speaker 1: The modern version of a fair Ale sweater, which really
Speaker 1: hit its developmental stride in the nineteen teens, features horizontal
Speaker 1: stripes of repeating designs worked in multiple colors. Fare Isle
Speaker 1: is near to the islands that make up Shetland and
Speaker 1: it's a region known for its wool. That wool which
Speaker 1: is multi colored, both because of the wide range of
Speaker 1: sheep colors and because some are dyed with natural color
Speaker 1: in such as lichen and matter, has been a key
Speaker 1: component in fair Isle knitting since the eighteen hundreds and
Speaker 1: the modern era. Some synthetic dies have been used in
Speaker 1: fair ale knitting, but it's really at a minimum, with
Speaker 1: natural dies still holding a lot of favor. During the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, in particular, fair asle nets were incredibly popular
Speaker 1: with the fashion set, particularly in more muted color ways.
Speaker 1: If you look at fashion plates, particularly for gentlemen of
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, you will see exactly what we're talking
Speaker 1: about with the fair asle sweater, particularly like with a
Speaker 1: golfing outfit that like really unique, beautiful banded design repeats.
Speaker 1: The Channel Islands off the French west coast have a
Speaker 1: knitting tradition that dates back to the late Tutor era,
Speaker 1: and this region made very fine stockings favored by the
Speaker 1: likes of Mary, Queen of Scotts, and the location close
Speaker 1: to the European continent made it a natural place for
Speaker 1: exporting knitting to other countries. Because the Islands became somewhat
Speaker 1: isolated as revolutions and wars kept neighboring countries busy. Uh.
Speaker 1: The export business lagged, but the knitting continued, and the
Speaker 1: drop off an influence from trading countries actually cemented the
Speaker 1: style of sweater that's considered the Channel Islands signature. It's
Speaker 1: a very squared off, boxy shape with knotted edges. It's
Speaker 1: sort of a decorative nodding along the edges that's they're
Speaker 1: kind of finishing. And there's also normally a slit on
Speaker 1: either side of a sweater. And as I say sweater
Speaker 1: over and over, I feel compelled to mention that in
Speaker 1: some countries they call it a jumper. Yep, I'm referring
Speaker 1: specifically to like a pull over sweater, even though sweater
Speaker 1: also gets used to reference things like cardigans and whatnot,
Speaker 1: at least in the US. But a pull overset sweater
Speaker 1: or what some people would call a jumper. So uh.
Speaker 1: That slit that I was mentioning is normally on either
Speaker 1: side of the bottom edge, like at the hip of
Speaker 1: these sweaters for range of movement. And these were, particularly
Speaker 1: in dark colors, very popular with fishermen for decades north
Speaker 1: of the Scottish mainland, as we alluded to earlier, are
Speaker 1: the Shetland Islands, and one of the hallmarks of the
Speaker 1: Shetland knitting tradition is its variety. Goods, ranging from regged
Speaker 1: blankets and socks all the way to the most delicate lace,
Speaker 1: have all been refined to perfection there and as early
Speaker 1: as the beginning of the seventeen hundreds there was trade
Speaker 1: between the Shetland Islands and merchants from Germany and the Netherlands,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't really until eighteen forties that lay started
Speaker 1: to be an export focus. Up to that point, all
Speaker 1: of that trade was more in like the heavier goods,
Speaker 1: and one of the really lovely characteristics of the fine
Speaker 1: laces of Shetland is that they're knitted on the bias,
Speaker 1: so they start with a single stitch which forms the corner,
Speaker 1: rather than casting on a row of stitches and knitting
Speaker 1: a square. Like Tracy said at the top of the show,
Speaker 1: she can knit things that are made from rectangles. Uh.
Speaker 1: Usually that involves casting on you know, X number of
Speaker 1: stitches and then you knit all your rows. But this
Speaker 1: casts on one stitch and then expands slowly in this
Speaker 1: beautiful bias. Knit a lace scarf or a shawl from
Speaker 1: Shetland during its lace heyday was considered so fine and
Speaker 1: light that you could pass an entire full size piece
Speaker 1: through a wedding ring easily. This was part of like
Speaker 1: how they would show the quality to merchants. And as
Speaker 1: the chunkier fare Asle network became vogue in the ninet twenties,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned, it became kind of part of the
Speaker 1: fashionable set. Shetland kind of followed that trend and moved
Speaker 1: a little bit away from lace and into heavier wool garments.
Speaker 1: I think that thing that I abandoned that was turning
Speaker 1: into a doll shawl started with one stitch. It's hard,
Speaker 1: I don't My grandmother used to it on the bias
Speaker 1: and I would just sit there agog like, I couldn't
Speaker 1: really grasp how she kept the tension right. And again
Speaker 1: it's years and years of experience, but Hoof could not
Speaker 1: do it. And the pattern will tell you to begin
Speaker 1: by knitting a gauge swatch to make sure that what
Speaker 1: unit turns out the correct size, and I lazily have
Speaker 1: never done that, which hasn't really mattered when I've been
Speaker 1: making scarves, right, but it mattered a lot when trying
Speaker 1: to make that shall. The story of knitting in the
Speaker 1: Errand Islands in Galway Bay off Ireland's West coast is
Speaker 1: tied to a previous podcast topic, the Irish potato famine.
Speaker 1: In the congested district's board was formed to address the
Speaker 1: issue of poverty, and the plan was to train people
Speaker 1: to knit exportable goods. This became a local industry and
Speaker 1: it grew to the point that the government agency's training
Speaker 1: program led to more and more intricate designs. The hallmark
Speaker 1: of these styles that were developed during this time was
Speaker 1: the use of thick wool yarn that was left in
Speaker 1: its natural color. And the last of the regions of
Speaker 1: Great Britain and Ireland that we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: today is the Yorkshire Dales, and this rural region is
Speaker 1: unique in that industrialization really did not impact it to
Speaker 1: the degree that it did other areas in terms of knitting.
Speaker 1: It remained a farming area as it always had, with
Speaker 1: knitting as sort of a secondary industry. And one of
Speaker 1: the most interesting characteristics that I just fell in love
Speaker 1: when I read this of the knitting style associated with
Speaker 1: Yorkshire Dale's isn't a pattern or a type of wool,
Speaker 1: but the actual physical way that knitting continued there for
Speaker 1: many decades. Knitting was not, as it is for many people,
Speaker 1: a sit down activity, but it was something literally done
Speaker 1: on the go, while walking about, with the yarn secured
Speaker 1: in a pouch or basket at the waist. I love
Speaker 1: this so much. Knitting also developed as a social activity
Speaker 1: in the communities of the region, with large group gatherings
Speaker 1: and parties for all ages that focused on the same things.
Speaker 1: It would happen at any gathering plus knitting, so kind
Speaker 1: of like a quilting bee or a candle making but
Speaker 1: when knitting. Yeah, but you would be doing those the
Speaker 1: knitting while you stood there and chatted or you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps even danced a little bit. I'm just I'm really
Speaker 1: wowed and delighted by the idea of knitting while you
Speaker 1: do other things, while you perambulate about. Uh. We also
Speaker 1: have a little bit of late breaking news because we
Speaker 1: mentioned briefly South America um, which presumably either got knitting
Speaker 1: through trade or they were developing their own yard arts.
Speaker 1: But there was a really interesting discovery very very recently
Speaker 1: in January, so just a few months ago, and at
Speaker 1: a four thousand year old dig site in Lima, Peru. Uh.
Speaker 1: There researchers they're turned up what we're described as knitting
Speaker 1: implements in a woman's tomb, and whether or not these
Speaker 1: were actually knitting implements or tools for some other fiber
Speaker 1: art isn't clear to us just yet. I have only
Speaker 1: seen them listed as knitting implements. But if they are
Speaker 1: knitting implements, this really changes the narrative of knitting's history significantly. Uh.
Speaker 1: If they can find evidence that this was actual knitting,
Speaker 1: that completely changes the timeline. So these items were found
Speaker 1: with with numerous other artifacts that will no doubt all
Speaker 1: be studied. So hopefully we will eventually get some news
Speaker 1: about what all of that is, but right now we
Speaker 1: don't know, so that could make all of this podcast
Speaker 1: completely incorrect in terms of its historical accuracy. It's timeline
Speaker 1: will still exist, but there will be things that predate
Speaker 1: all of it, which would be cool, and we can
Speaker 1: do an update at that point. Heay so much for
Speaker 1: joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out
Speaker 1: of the archive, if you heard an email address or
Speaker 1: a Facebook U r L or something similar over the
Speaker 1: course of the show that could be obsolete now. Our
Speaker 1: current email address is history podcast at i heart radio
Speaker 1: dot com. Our old health stuff works email address no
Speaker 1: longer works, and you can find us all over social
Speaker 1: media at missed in History. And you can subscribe to
Speaker 1: our show on Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, the I heart
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