It has come to my attention that one of my favorite historical knitting sites is no more. Trombley's Historical Knitting Patterns, which had patterns from the 1830s, to the 1920s is now off-line. I have looked everywhere hoping she'd moved it, but it isn't back up yet.If you had missed getting patterns from her site, you might want to check out the internet archive site, at http://www.archive.org/This site archives the web. You type an address into the search box and it takes you back to archived versions of the site. posted by Mrs. Stone 5:27 AM . . .
Yes, a Sock; therein lies a tale Knitting, in some ways, is like telling a story. First you start with a thread. Is it the child of sunbaked fields of cotton, lazing in the summer afternoon, latest descent of that fiber that shaped so much of our history here in this country, or is it the warm and soft coat of a sheep; they too have their own history which is a story worth telling in its own right.Next then, the pattern. It too could tell a tale, something as simple as a sock. Socks have a special history. In them we see generations of people in the Shetlands, in Scotland, in England, especially in the Dales sitting by their fire in the evening, knitting the many stitches to gain a few shillings. We see mothers and wives trying to protect the ones they loved. We see the arcane arts of needle and yarn passed down mother to daughter.The top. How is it ribbed? Some ribbing tells a tale of a sock that mimics a hand sewn woven sock. Some ribs were favored by sailors, others by soldiers. How long is it? Once gentlemen wanted socks to go over their knees, then like the working man, they too wore long pants and shorter stockings.The heel tells much. Once it had a seam down the middle, but during the Civil war, women in their haste devised other, more comfortable ways...and they created new ways of using machines.Is it machine knit? The Saboteurs threw their sabots to gum up new style knitting machines that were interfering in their more highly skilled ways of machine knitting stockings.Many are the stories behind the simple sock. posted by Mrs. Stone 8:41 AM . . .
It's been awhile since I posted last, but here I am again, knitting yet another sock.Socks. Stocking knitting was no doubt the mainstay of knitting since it first began to be used. Poor people knit huge numbers of socks and stockings for many years to make a little extra money before they really got good sock knitting machines developed. In some areas, there just wasn't much else to do to make a little money. I am always amazed by those pictures of poor women in the Shetlands walking from the peat fields with baskets of turfs strapped to their backs, knitting socks as they walked along.Stocking knitting was so prevalent that when they first started writing patterns down, people didn't write down too many of the stocking patterns they were using, since this was like plain sewing - it's something every girl child was expected to learn at home, while they were young. Many artists have given us painting of girl children busily knitting away, sometimes the children of peasants while they are tending the sheep, sometimes the children of privilege, dressed up like grandma.Personally, I just like to see them take shape as I work. The cuff drives me crazy, sometimes, although I am getting better at being patient doing rib stitching. Once past that, doing the leg to the heel flap is not bad at all. I love it though, when I turn the heel, pick up the gusset stitches and start the foot, because by that time, you can tell it's going to be SOMETHING. But oh, the foot seems to take forever!Right now, I love doing round toes. Usually, you start by k2tog every 7th stitch, then do 6 rows plain, k2tog every 6th stitch, then do 5 rounds plain, and so on. I like the shape, and I like the way the rows inbetween decrease in number of stitches. Maybe I need to be easily amused!I really want to do a shaped calf stocking in Old Shale, but haven't figured out how I want to do the decreases yet. I have a pair of girls' socks from about 1900, knit in a fine cotton yarn done like this, and they make beautiful stockings, but I am also so addicted to the lovely jacquard yarns that require a simple pattern, that I don't know what to do next. posted by Mrs. Stone 8:15 AM . . .
