Knitting News

Demise of Dales hill flocks threatens traditional Swaledale Wool | Yorkshire Dale Country News

Demise of Dales hill flocks threatens traditional Swaledale Wool
Yorkshire Dale Country News - November 28 2006

A Yorkshire Dales farmer's wife who diversified to sell hand-knitted clothing is worried about future supplies of wool from Swaledale sheep, which she says are fast disappearing from the region's uplands.

Kathleen Hird is finding it increasingly difficult to buy the Swaledale wool she needs to produce the sweaters, scarves and hats she sells at her Swaledale Woollens shop in Muker, near Richmond.

Kathleen bought Swaledale Woollens in 1975 and to this day the shop is continuing the centuries-old Dales tradition of hand-knitting. The shop sells a wide range of products, such as sweaters, cardigans, hats, gloves, rugs, hangings, shawls, scarves, slippers and socks.

Over the last decade Kathleen has witnessed a downturn in farming that mirrors a slump in the industry nationally since the mid 1990's.

"Ten years ago, we shared rented moorland with seven other farms, but there are now only two of us left," says Mrs Hird. [more]

Library offers 'Knitting on Homefront' | The Connecticut Post

Library offers 'Knitting on Homefront'
The Connecticut Post - November 24 2006

Some bought war bonds. For others, it was diligent rationing. Still others wore lapel pins.

The homefront support for the Allied campaign in World War II took many forms.

One of the less heralded groups lending support for the troops was knitters. And when they gathered, a radio often was positioned nearby.

"The Red Cross gave out needles and patterns and all kinds of things so that they could knit for the soldiers," Mary Witkowski, Bridgeport's city historian, said of the homefront knitting circles organized during the war.

That period is recaptured each month at Bridgeport Public Library with the program "Knitting on the Homefront."

Congregating in the Broad Street library's third-floor meeting room, area residents bring souvenirs and memorabilia from the WWII era. They chat, exchange stories and help one another with knitting projects.

During a recent meeting, a replica of a bulky, vintage radio help set the mood by emitting music performed by the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Witkowski, who also is director of the library's Historical Collections Department, and four other circle members knitted to the strains of songs such as "Moonlight Serenade," "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" and "Pennsylvania 6-5000." [more]

Knitting their bit for VA hospital | Iowa City Press-Citizen

Knitting their bit for VA hospital
Iowa City Press-Citizen - November 21 2006

Seated by a fire, a group of women young and old formed a circle knitting hats, blankets and scarves for patients at the VA Hospital in Iowa City.

If this sounds nostalgic, that's because it is. Called knitting brigades, these groups were formed during both World Wars by women to provide anything from clothes to bandages for soldiers stationed overseas.

The Johnson County Historical Society and Museum finished its first "Knit Your Bit" project last Saturday. Part of an American Red Cross effort to honor veterans, museum officials said they hope to make the knitting project a tradition.

"Johnson County was very rich in knitting brigades," said Brandon Cochron, a museum operations assistant. "Many women used their knitting to remember their own loved ones while overseas. They did more than just knit -- they supported one another through the tough times and the loss of their loved ones." [more]

Knit knack: UW-Madison exhibit pays tribute to woman who moved to Wisconsin and became the 'queen of knitting' | Wisconsin State Journal

Knit knack: UW-Madison exhibit pays tribute to woman who moved to Wisconsin and became the 'queen of knitting'
Wisconsin State Journal - November 10 2006

When Elizabeth Zimmermann came to the U.S. from England in 1937 with her German-born, brewmaster husband, she passed the time on the ship from Southhampton to New York by knitting en route.

It was just the beginning of a revolutionary journey.

Years later, Zimmermann would set up shop in Wisconsin, creating a mail-order business - and a benevolent cult following, really - that would influence the fields of textile crafts and fiber design, and the countless people who hold the patient art of knitting dear.

"She's like the queen," says Mary Jo Harris, president of the 400-member Madison Knitters' Guild. "When I think of someone who has influenced the knitting world, she is certainly No. 1 on my list."

Zimmermann and the multi-generational fruits of the knitting system she developed (not to mention her crisp and charming sense of humor) are the focus of "New School Knitting," an exhibit at the UW-Madison Gallery of Design through Dec. 17.

It's the largest show to date about a woman whom curator and UW grad student Molly Greenfield calls "truly beloved." The Oct. 29 opening drew the largest crowd in the gallery's history, close to 250 people, some of whom wore their own handmade sweaters inspired by Zimmermann's legacy. [more]

Charity knitters stitch up the world | Christian Science Monitor

Charity knitters stitch up the world
Christian Science Monitor - November 2 2006

Laura Payson has always enjoyed knitting for others. As a college student, she made argyle socks for boyfriends. Later she turned her talents to baby clothes for relatives. Now she has a different focus: knitting for those in need. Every Saturday morning at 10, Mrs. Payson joins more than a dozen residents of the North Hill retirement community in Needham, Mass., for an hour of charity knitting. The women, known as the North Hill Knitters, stitch caps, mittens, scarves, and blankets for families who are homeless or struggling.

"I love to knit, and to know that I'm doing it for something worthwhile is really nice," Payson says as she knits and purls her way through rows of a yellow baby blanket bordered in white.

Across the country, groups like this are finding pleasure in what is sometimes called community knitting. Other knitters, including men, stitch at home and during lunch hours. Collectively they form an invisible army, creating afghans, caps for newborns, security blankets for ill or troubled children, and clothing to provide warmth and comfort.

"There's a huge population of socially minded people," says Betty Christiansen, author of a new book, "Knitting for Peace: Make the World a Better Place One Stitch at a Time." "They have this gift and want to share it." [more]

Exhibition celebrating America’s knitting doyenne to open | UW-Madison News

Exhibition celebrating America’s knitting doyenne to open
UW-Madison News - October 17 2006

All knitters seem to agree: Knitting is so much more than the dropping of stitches.

Molly Greenfield learned to knit from her mother. Now a master's candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the history of costume and textiles, Greenfield says that a long broad swath of American history can be seen through this craft.

"Knitting was and is a pervasive form of creative expression for women, and also an area in which women could be designers. This exhibition is not only about the history of knitting, craft and design, but also about women's history, the rise of the women's movement in the United States, the history of immigration in America and the migration of highly educated Europeans to America during and after World War II," she says.

The exhibition to which Greenfield refers is the one she is curating on the doyenne of American knitting, Wisconsinite Elizabeth Zimmermann. [more]

New School Knitting: The Influence of Elizabeth Zimmermann and Schoolhouse Press
The Design Gallery - on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus
October 27 - December 17, 2006

Knitting can stitch up | The Daily Gamecock

Knitting can stitch up
The Daily Gamecock - October 9 2006

Knitting could quite possibly be the coolest thing ever created.

Like everything else that has ever been invented, it boggles the mind to think that someone sat down one day and started tying a bunch of knots in some yarn with a couple of sticks and eventually ended up with a scarf or whatever they made back then.

Back then, according to wikipedia.com, was somewhere around the 14th century. Knitting originated in Europe and Egypt, where knitting was considered a man's job.

Oh, how the times have changed.

Knitting today seems to be something that everyone can enjoy, sparking everything from Stitch 'N Bitch gatherings (shout out to the Maxcy girls!) to cool bonding moments between grandmas and grandchildren. [more]

One-needle knitting brings forth intricacies | Bangor Daily News

One-needle knitting brings forth intricacies
Bangor Daily News - September 26 2006

I never know what’s going to come in off the street and grab my needleworking attention. Earlier this summer it was a friend from Orono bearing a scrap of intricately worked off-white yarn she said was an example of nalbinding - this is the English spelling, there are other variations, such as naalbinding and nalbindning - or one-needle knitting. She said Bill Coperthwaite of Machiasport had made that little scrap of nalbinding. Coperthwaite, a builder, designer and writer, is known for living in a yurt, seeking a simpler way of life and fashioning things by hand from wood and other materials.

Well, nalbinding was news to me, so I did what anyone would do when confronted with such an oddity - a Web search. This is what I learned: Apparently, before people learned to knit on two needles, they used one - and it had an eye - just like a sewing needle. Or at least that’s what textile historians have ascertained after examining and studying the few ancient pieces of nalbinding still in existence. [more]

Etown History: Knitters get modern | Elizabethtown Chronicle

Etown History: Knitters get modern
Elizabethtown Chronicle - July 6 2006

Experienced workers at the shoe factories in Elizabethtown made a decent wage in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, but the knitters who operated the knitting machines at Classic Hosiery made three times as much money. In the 1930s a skilled leather cutter at A.S. Kreider Shoe Co. made about $25 a week, but a knitter made about $75 a week. [more]

The fancy work basket | ABC

The fancy work basket
ABC - June 16 2006

I was visiting a friend just recently and happened to chance a beautiful "runner" laid out on a sideboard. You know - one of those lacy pieces of embroidery that you use to hide the dust and put things on. This piece was about 3 feet long, or a metre in length, and stitched into the pattern was a crown, heart and the word peace. It had been made around 1915, and probably by a women thinking of her sailor friend away at war.

What I had not realized when I started delving into the history of this article was that what to me had always been either "embroidery" or "lace work" could be a range of different things. It could have been art needlework, crewel work, embroidery, macramé, crochet, knitting, antimacassar work, bead work, braid work, fancy stitching, Kells embroidery, smocking or indeed netting.

The student of the cloth could refer to many different authorities, but one of the mainstays was a Mrs. Leach. Like Mrs. Beeton and her famous book on household management, Mrs. Leach became an authority in this area when, in 1895, she published the book, "The Fancy work Basket - a Practical Lesson in Every Description of Fancy Work". [more]